A triple biography is not common. Biographical essays usually deal with one main character, and she is the central axis around which move supporting characters and a multitude of characters of varying importance. Exceptions to this rule are “family” biographies, in which one family is described as a united unit with many heads. But the book by Claudine Montaille – a historian, writer and diplomat in her past – is not a family biography, even though the three heroines of the book are related by a family bond. In this triple biography, each character is experienced and described as an entity almost separate from the others.
This unusual combination creates a book with a strange structure. The first half of it is dedicated to Marie Curie – the woman, the scientist, the wife and the mother. This half is a classic biography, in which Marie stars in the main role and her two daughters are secondary characters, whose weight in the plot changes according to time and context, and it can be said that it is no different from the weight of Marie’s father, Vladislav, her sister Brunia or her husband Pierre Curie. In contrast, the second half of the book – which deals with her daughters Irene and Ivo (Eva) – reads like a catalog list of deeds. Some are interesting or important, but few are exciting and most are simply boring.
On the first page we meet Marie, or rather Maria Sklodowska, the girl whose last name identifies her as Polish. Seven-year-old Maria, “in a meticulous outfit, the outstanding student of the class, rose to her feet, blushing with shame”, when the inspector on behalf of the Russian authorities, who in 1874 still control most of Poland, stares at her and asks her questions designed to test her loyalty to the Russians and her knowledge In the details of the Tsar’s family. Only after the First World War, and other military and diplomatic struggles, would Poland regain its independence. But until then, Maria Sklodowska will move to France and become Marie there. She will meet the French physicist Pierre Curie there, marry him and become a permanent resident, and later also a French citizen. Her name from now on will be Marie Curie, and with this name she will win scientific successes, fame and even two Nobel Prizes.
In the life and personality of Marie Curie, several lines of action and characteristics of character and emotional and ideological devotion are combined, each of which has something to fill an entire life: fierce Polish patriotism, which motivated her to contribute a lot to the scientific advancement of her homeland, even though she left it; A strong urge to learn and educate, and a determination to explore and discover new things in the fields of physics and chemistry, against all the financial and social difficulties that stood in her way and the serious damage to her health; Great devotion to her parents and her sister Brunia, deep love for her husband, and motherly feelings that permeated the entire course of her daughters’ lives; And also a constant struggle – out of necessity and for ideological reasons alike – for the advancement of women and comparing their rights and status to those of men.
Exclusion of women
The years of Maria Sklodowska’s childhood and youth were characterized by a long series of difficulties, heartbreaks, hardship and sacrifice: she was born in 1867 in Warsaw, the youngest of five children of a couple of teachers. At the age of ten she was orphaned by her mother, and this loss oppressed her all her life. The family struggled with serious financial difficulties after the father, Vladislav, was fired from the school where he taught mathematics and physics, due to his inclination towards Polish nationalism and suspicion of disloyalty to Russia. At the same time, the family also lost all their savings, which went down the drain following a failed financial investment by the father. The economic situation did not allow the father to send his children to quality schools or to hire private tutors for them, as is customary in the educated society in Warsaw. However, he did not give up on imparting knowledge to his children, and taught them Polish science and history at home.
At the age of 16, Maria wanted to start academic studies, but the institutions controlled by Tsarist Russia did not accept women to study. Maria and her older sister Brunia joined the studies at the “Flood University” – an underground Polish institution that accepted girls as well, and wandered from place to place to escape the eyes of the Russian authorities. The sisters knew that the level of education there was lower than in regular European institutions, but the family did not have the means to send them to better institutions. That’s why they made an agreement: the young Maria would work and financially help the eldest barony to study medicine in Paris; And when Brunia’s financial situation improves, she will help Maria enroll in academic studies.
At the age of 24, many years after she finished high school, Maria came to Paris to study mathematics and physics at the Sorbonne. She lived in a tiny attic close to the university and lived in extreme poverty, freezing in the winter and often hungry, while dealing with the knowledge and language gaps and the challenging studies. She graduated as the top of her class, and even won a scholarship for independent research towards a doctorate.
To realize the scholarship, she needed a research laboratory in Paris, and thus ended up in the laboratory of Pierre Curie, who specialized in magnetism. Love was born from the joint work, and the two were married in 1895. Two years later, their eldest daughter, Irene, was born, who will also become a successful scientist. Shortly after giving birth, Marie Curie began her doctoral thesis at the School of Physics and Chemistry, where her husband served as a senior professor. At Marie’s disposal was only a dilapidated laboratory shack and not an orderly laboratory of the school, because they did not recognize a woman’s doctoral studies there and did not consider her a full-fledged doctoral student.
The exclusion of women from higher studies and jobs in academic institutions and other prestigious settings, will place barriers in Marie Curie’s path for the rest of her life, even after she won two Nobel Prizes.
Awards and scandals
In her wretched laboratory, Currie began to investigate the phenomenon called “uranium rays”. The French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered a year earlier that uranium salts emit an unknown type of radiation. Marie Curie decided to investigate this radiation, partly with the help of a device developed by her husband Pierre. She discovered that this radiation is an intrinsic property of substances that she called “radioactive substances”, that is, substances that radiate actively. Curie’s discoveries led her husband Pierre to quit his regular job and join her in the study of radioactivity.
In June 1903, Marie Curie received a doctorate in physics. Almost at the same time, the Nobel Prize committee decided to award the prize in physics to Henri Becquerel and Pierre Curie for the discovery of radioactivity. A member of the committee leaked the decision to Pierre Curie, and Pierre announced that he would not agree to accept the award if it was not also awarded to his wife. The threat achieved its goal, and in December of that year, half of the prize was awarded to Becquerel, for the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity, and the other half to the Curies for “their joint contribution to the study of the phenomenon discovered by Becquerel.” Kyrie was the first woman to win the prestigious award, which had been established two years earlier. Following the award, Pierre received a professorship at the Sorbonne, and Marie was appointed director of the laboratory at the Institute of Physics and Chemistry. The prize money finally allowed them financial well-being, and in 1904 they had another daughter, Eve.
Both couples suffered from health problems: weakness and dizziness, skin burns and damage to the eyes – probably due to the exposure to radiation. Because of these problems they could not make it to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm. The damages they suffered from their scientific work worsened over the years, and actually shortened both of their lives. But they never gave up on research.
But the new well-being in the lives of the Curies did not last long: Pierre was run over by a carriage during a rainstorm, when he was 46. After his death, Marie Curie continued to work in the laboratory with more determination, and also replaced her husband in teaching at the Sorbonne. After the barrier to employing a woman in the academy was removed, her lectures attracted a large audience. Kiri also raised funds to found the “Radium Institute” in Paris named after her husband. Radium gradually also became a sought-after substance for commercial purposes, from glow-in-the-dark dyes to dubious sexual enhancement drugs. It was only after years that it became clear that it was cancerous and very dangerous.
In 1910 Curie competed for a seat in the French Academy of Sciences. Her competitors spread a wave of vicious rumors against her, claiming among other things that she was Jewish and disloyal to France. She lost the election by a vote. A short time later she had to deal with a new scandal, when the press published that she was having a love affair with a fellow physicist, who was married. Her name was widely blackened, but not a word was heard against the betraying man. In the midst of the scandal, Curie was informed of her winning a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for the discovery of the elements polonium (named after her homeland) and radium, and without partners. Marie Curie, the woman and scientist, was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and the only one to date to win the prize in two fields of science: physics and chemistry.
Naturally, her standing against the glass ceilings in studies, in academic teaching, in the award committees and even in front of the media, is present in the book as an important part of her character and what she represents. But it seems that from a clear feminist agenda, the author of the book, Claudine Monteuy, does not miss opportunities to repeatedly refer to the exclusion of women, the suffragist struggle, and women’s rights and equality. The emphasis and repetitions in these matters seem to me to be excessive and unnecessary. It was possible to let the facts of Carey’s life speak for themselves and give up the didactic tendency, for the benefit of the book and its readers.
As is her daughter
Despite her scientific pursuits, Kiri did not shut herself up in the ivory tower. In the First World War she went to the front together with her eldest daughter Irene, and established military hospitals where the healing properties of radioactive materials were used to save the lives of thousands of wounded soldiers. Weak and damaged by the damage of radioactivity, Marie Curie’s life ended in 1934. In April 1995, the coffins of Marie and her husband Pierre were moved, by order of French President François Mitterrand, to the Pantheon in Paris – the hall of fame of the great personalities in the life and culture of the country.
Compared to the interesting and lively life of Marie Curie, the description of the lives of her daughters, Irene and Eve, does not generate similar interest. Montei somehow manages to feminize the life of Irene – who was an important scientist, a Nobel Prize winner herself, and also an active communist, who, despite her attachment to Poland, ignored the signs of Soviet control over her. She was also suspicious in the eyes of the Americans, who during the Cold War almost prevented her from entering their country. Like her mother Marie, Irene’s health was also damaged by the radioactivity in her scientific activity, and she died at the age of 55.
The younger sister, Eve, married an American and moved to live in his country. She was a famous itinerant journalist, published a biography of her scientist mother, toured all the important arenas in the world and developed relationships with famous personalities. Eve was friends with President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor and worked for American involvement in World War II, and after the war she received an honorable position in the organization of the NATO alliance. But apart from her longevity (103 years), her events for the most part did not yield particularly interesting details for me and deserve to be remembered. Her story, the The book, in my eyes, was quite boring.
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