They harassed, followed, called, came. The stalkers were ready to do anything to achieve their goal. And although their motives were different, from the desire to appear in salons to revenge for rejection, they were characterized by the same brutality and stubbornness.
The life of the Polish aristocrat Katarzyna Rzewuska was full of adventures. Born in St. Petersburg, she married Prince Adam Radziwiłł, a Polish immigrant living in Berlin. The wedding introduced her to Berlin salons.
The Hunt for Rhodes
She did not like this place, and on every occasion she showed her dislike of the imperial court. She wrote the book "La Nouvelle Revue" under a pseudonym, in which she presented the Berlin court as a hotbed of intrigue, gossip and sexual debauchery. She enjoyed the scandal very much , however, she wanted more. Politics fascinated her. As a woman, she didn't have access to it, so she decided to become a journalist.
Princess Katarzyna Radziwiłłowa emerges from the chaos. Could the author of the picture, Giovanni Boldini, aptly captured the indomitable nature of the Polish woman? (source:public domain).
Catherine's sharp tongue led to the fact that in 1885 she was "asked" to leave Berlin. She left for St. Petersburg, but never came to terms with the fact of being expelled from the Berlin court.
Her marriage had fallen apart, the children wanted nothing to do with her. Thirty-year-old Katarzyna knew that this was the last call to success. For this, however, someone was needed to allow her to go out into the wide waters. She quickly found such a person.
In February 1896, at a party in London, met an influential South African politician - British-born Cecil Rhodes. She immediately understood that only he could ensure the development of her political career, fame and high social position.
Sir Cecil Rhodes had the misfortune to become the object of Princess Radziwiłł's mania. Violet Manners sketch (source:public domain).
She began sending Rhodes letters asking for advice. Then it was time for small gifts and compliments. Over time, she became more and more intrusive. She had booked the same tickets to Africa as Rhodes. This forced the politician to constantly postpone the trip.
In July 1899, Cecil secretly appeared on a ship bound for Cape Town. When it seemed to him that he had freed himself from his persecutor, suddenly in the dining room he was seated at his table ... Katarzyna!
Duchess of confusion
Upon reaching Africa, Rhodes made the biggest mistake of his life - invited the woman to the house. He did not want to listen to his associates who called Radziwiłł the "Princess of confusion." And the woman spread rumors about their relationship and even their engagement.
The inspiration for writing the article was the CBS Reality series entitled "Murderous stalking."
Cecil quickly understood what she was entangled in and asked her to leave Africa. But it was too late. He started to hide from Katarzyna, but she surrounded him more and more. They soon became the greatest enemies.
The Duchess threatened to reveal Rhodes' compromising telegrams. Where did she get them? It is not known. In addition, she began to forge his signatures on her own promissory notes in an attempt to extort £ 24,000. In time, the scam was revealed and Katarzyna was arrested.
Before the trial of Radziwiłł, she decided to make Cecil's life difficult again, this time for the last time. When she found out that the politician was dying from heart disease, began to come to his house . She wandered around his property for days. She achieved her goal - the frightened Rhodes could not stand the tension and died of a heart attack a few days later.
Cecil Rhodes on a sketch made a year before his death. Could this not very old face show the fear of the Polish persecutor? Sketch by Mortimer Menpes (source:public domain).
The court sentenced Katarzyna Radziwiłł for fraud and forgery to two years in prison. After her release, she continued to lie, cheat and expose the scandals of ruling families. She died alone in New York in 1941.
Admirers of the scandal
On the one hand, a scandalist, intellectual and scandalous, on the other, a devoted lover and loving mother. This was Irena Krzywicka - a feminist, writer and journalist, promoter of free unions and sex education. Born in 1899 to a Jewish family, she was brought up by her mother in a tolerant and rationalist spirit. It shaped her way of being.
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Krzywicka was considered a very beautiful woman. She did not shy away from flirting and did not make a great secret of this fact. Opinion of the greatest scandalist in pre-war Poland she gained mainly thanks to the fact that she lived with her husband, lawyer Jerzy Krzywicki, and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, who was also married. She has repeatedly emphasized that she had "two husbands" whom she loved very much.
There were always a lot of men around her. Krzywicka enjoyed her success, but sometimes rejected admirers became her persecutors .
Irena Krzywicka was beautiful and broke conventions. No wonder she aroused extreme emotions in men ... often at the expense of it. Portrait of a scandalist made by Witkacy in 1928 (source:public domain).
Usually they were harmless lovers, such as "Chubby" (as she called him), a student in love with her. Too shy to introduce himself. He followed the woman like a shadow. For hours, it stuck out in the backyard of her house, staring at her room windows .
He followed Krzywicka everywhere - while shopping, on the way to university and during meetings with friends. Once he even followed Irene to a funeral. The caretaker of her house chased "Czupryniasty" away many times. All for nothing. The devotee came back every day… for two years!
Finally, in 1920, he decided to approach Irena. He handed her a philosophy history textbook with a pathetic move, harshly saying that he was going to war. After that day, he never showed up again.
Irena already had a husband and a lover, i.e. Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, portrayed here. Even so, many of her "lovers" were hoping to look at them with a more kind eye ... or even marry! Witkacy's portrait from around 1928 (source:public domain).
Soon another shadow appeared beside her. Leonek Sołecki had more courage than his predecessor, which irritated the woman a lot. He confessed his great love to her every day . He was not discouraged by the fact that he was always met with a refusal and a pitying laugh.
Once he even followed Krzywicka to Zakopane . He was not rich, so the money was barely enough for him to travel. He had no more food for food. In between his love confessions, he ate nothing but raw eggs. For the next several years he was not discouraged by Irena's indifference, then he disappeared for good.
There was even one anti-Semite he met in Zakopane. Krzywicka knew about his views and as soon as he proposed, the woman with a smile on her lips replied: But I am a Jew!
The inspiration for writing the article was the CBS Reality series entitled "Murderous stalking."
The devotee turned pale, grabbed his head and ran away. But he came back after three days saying: I still want to marry you . In reply he heard: After all, I don't want to marry you . The dumbfounded suitor is gone forever.
Threats by Mr. W.
If these cases can be approached with a grain of salt, then the next stalker was no longer funny. It started with threatening calls. A man claiming to be "Mr. Jarecki" claimed that his wife had left him because of Krzywicka. He threatened to kill her at the first opportunity . The police downplayed the matter and refused to wiretap the phone.
"Mr. Jarecki" spoiled a lot of the blood of Irena Krzywicka. A photo from 1930, from her autobiography "Confessions of a Scandalous" (source:public domain).
One of Irena's acquaintances recognized the tormentor of her husband, whom she had abandoned. She promised to come back to him and talk to him. He was a respected activist of the Polish Teachers' Union, a certain "Mr. W." (probably Wojeński or Wycech). The matter soon died down and the phone fell silent for a long time. However, not forever.
Two years later, the persecutor returned. At first, was limited to jokes such as ordering a coffin to his victim's address or sending a ZOO employee to pick up a monkey. One day, however, the familiar voice of the persecutor threatened to kidnap her four-year-old son, Peter.
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During a party at Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński's, she met the Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck and his wife. She told them about everything, and they promised to help. The next day, an officer appeared at Irena's house. He seemed to know who was behind the threats. He left flowers from the minister and walked away. From that moment the calls from the stalker were over.
Fury Born of Love
Not only famous and popular people are exposed to attacks by stalkers. This is evidenced by a case from 2008. Eighteen-year-old Agata Macuda from Sieradz met Paweł Kuśnierz a year earlier, who taught her horse riding. The young became a couple. The idyll ended quickly, which the rejected boy could not come to terms with.
Krzywick's painless release from the intruder was due to the intervention of the Beck's ministry (source:public domain).
The twenty-three-year-old started sending threatening SMS . He scared Agata that if she couldn't love him, it would make her hate him. He also threatened to kill her loved ones. On one of the social networks, he created a fake girl profile and posted her intimate photos. The family notified the police. Two days later there was a tragedy .
On the morning of August 29, Paweł went to the girl's block . When my father left for work at 8 o'clock, the stalker used a metal rod to break the glass in the balcony door on the ground floor. He stormed inside unnoticed. As we learn from the series "Murderous Stalking", was going to kill Agata , her sister Daria and mother Wiesława.
An ordinary teenager and a quiet city. And yet such was the scenery of a tragically ended acquaintance. The market in Sieradz in 2007 (photo:Z-jacek, license CC BY-SA 3.0).
First he attacked Daria, but Agata covered her with her own body and the first blows fell on her. The mother started screaming and running away. The bandit gave chase, stabbing the woman in the back. However, she managed to hide with her neighbors, as did Daria. The man calmly returned to the apartment where the injured Agata was left alone. The bandit's fury is at its peak .
He inflicted a dozen knife blows on his ex-girlfriend in the face, neck, abdomen and lumbar region. Finally, he stuck his bayonet in Agata's temple and ran away. He was arrested a few minutes later in one of Sieradz streets. He was covered in blood. Before the cops overpowered him, had already cut his veins .
Agata Macuda died two days later. The victim's mother and sister survived. The bandit in love from the hospital went straight to the trial, where he heard a sentence of life imprisonment.
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The word "stalking" was originally used mainly by hunters and meant persistent tracking of game during hunting. It was not until the 1980s that the American media began to use the term to describe the persecution of celebrities by their admirers. However, stalking existed in earlier eras and was as dangerous as it is today. Anyone could become victims… and hunters.