Helena Janina Pajzderska

Helena Janina Boguska was born on 16 May 1862 in Sandomierz,[1][2] to Jan Boguski and Emilia née Marczewska.[2] She grew up in Warsaw,[3] where she received thorough private education[2] and mastered various foreign languages at Laura Guérin's school.[4] She became friends with a fellow writer Jadwiga Łuszczewska.[3]

Helena debuted in 1875 with a novel Narcyzy Ewuni; she was thirteen at the time of publishing.[2] Her body of work includes novels, travel literature and poetry.[1] Helena wrote under the pen name "Hajota",[1][2] sometimes also using a second pseudonym "Lascaro".[2] She wrote for the Polish press, such as the Kurier Warszawski, Czas or Kronika Rodzinna.[2] She also translated a number of literary works by such authors as Lord Byron, H. G. Wells, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo,[2] Joseph Conrad and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.[1]

Thanks to her acquaintance with Bolesław Prus, Helena met Stefan Szolc-Rogoziński, whom she married in 1888[2][5] and took on his surname.[1] The couple travelled together to Africa. While they settled on the island of Bioko, where they ran a cocoa plantation, the Rogozińskis also made trips to the main land[2][5] (e.g. Nigeria, Cameroon) to collect material for their writing and research on native population.[2] Helena was the first Polish woman known to climb Pico Basilé, the tallest peak of Bioko.[5] She may have also been the first European woman documented to do so.[5] In 1891, the couple returned to Europe, where they first gave a couple of scientific lectures in Spain, then made their way back to the Polish territories.[2] The readings secured Helena a membership in the Geographic Society of Madrid and the African Society of Naples.[2]

In 1900, Helena started engaging in women's rights activism. Seven years later, she coordinated the work of two committees (law and politics, literature and arts) at the first Polish Women's Conference.[4]

Helena was married twice. First, to the traveller Stefan Szolc-Rogoziński, whom she married in 1888 and divorced in 1895. In 1904, she married the architect Tomasz Pajzderski, but the marriage was short-lived.[2]

Helena died on 4 December 1927, in Warsaw.[1][2] She is buried at the Powązki Cemetery.[2]

A street in the Warsaw district of Żoliborz bears the name of Hajota – the pen name of Helena Janina Pajzderska.[3]