PHOTO: Eva Stachniak, the acclaimed author, immersed in her creative process, capturing the essence of history with every word.
Award-Winning Author Discusses Her Creative Process And The Intricacies Of Writing Historical Fiction
Eva Stachniak delves into the complexities of writing historical fiction, sharing insights on her research, character development, and the profound impact of her immigrant experience on her storytelling.
Eva Stachniak’s writing immerses us in the forgotten corners of history, where the echoes of powerful women reverberate through the centuries. Her novels, such as The Winter Palace and Empress of the Night, offer a vivid tapestry of lives shaped by ambition, love, and loss. Stachniak’s characters are not mere bystanders in history, but rather active participants, weaving their fates into the very fabric of the past.
With a sharp eye for detail and a deep empathy for her characters, Stachniak paints her historical portraits not with broad strokes, but with a profound understanding of the small, personal moments that define a life. In The Chosen Maiden, she brings to life Bronislava Nijinska, a woman whose brilliance was overshadowed by her famous brother, yet whose own story is equally compelling. Her ability to balance historical accuracy with emotional resonance is a testament to her craft.
Stachniak’s novels often reflect the immigrant experience, drawing from her own journey from Poland to Canada. It is through this lens that she crafts the complex lives of women like Catherine the Great and Sophie Glavani, exploring themes of displacement and reinvention. Each narrative is infused with the delicate balance of loss and transformation, where the personal intertwines with the historical.
In this conversation, Stachniak reflects on the intricacies of her research, the inspiration behind her characters, and the ways in which history and fiction blend to illuminate the untold stories of remarkable women.
In “The School of Mirrors,” how did you approach depicting the complexities of women’s lives in 18th-century France?
I weaved my narrative from the historical voices that have captured my imagination. The women from The School of Mirrors hail from vastly different social classes. Veronique, a Deer Park girl groomed for Louis XV’s pleasure, is poor and powerless. Madame de Pompadour and the Queen, Maria Leszczynska, belong to the Versailles court. Veronique’s daughter, Marie-Louise, and her guardian, Margot Leblanc, are midwives, professional women with agency. In my novel they are all intimately connected, and their voices illuminate major historical events of the 18th century France.
What inspired you to explore Bronislava Nijinska’s story in “The Chosen Maiden,” and how did you balance historical accuracy with creative narrative?
Bronislava Nijinska caught my attention when I realized that Vaslav Nijinsky, the brilliant and troubled God of the Dance, had a sister who was a talented dancer and choreographer in her own right. It was that story of an artist as a young woman that I found irresistible.
To assure historical authenticity I read Bronislava’s Early Memoirs, worked at The Bronislava Nijinska Collection at the Library of Congress with its boxes of diaries, letters, and photographs documenting Bronislava’s art and her personal life. The creative narrative arose from the inherent friction between Vaslav’s and Bronislava’s lives and careers. He lived a life of a genius; she had to balance her art with marriage, motherhood, steer it through political upheavals, and personal tragedies. I’m still not sure who got a better deal in the end.
“The Winter Palace” offers an intimate portrayal of Catherine the Great’s rise. What drew you to her story, and what challenges did you face in presenting her perspective?
Catherine the Great was an immigrant forced to reinvent herself. She arrived at the Russian court at 14 as a pawn in the dynastic game and died as one of the best rulers Russia has ever had.
My biggest challenge was to forget that she was the very Tsarina I had been taught to hate in my Polish childhood for her role in the political annihilation of my country. And to look at her from a universal perspective.
I found it easier than I anticipated. In the end I often caught myself wishing that Poland had a ruler like her. For then, perhaps, Poland would’ve partitioned Russia.
How does your Polish heritage influence your storytelling, particularly in novels like “Garden of Venus”?
In multi-cultural Canada, I wanted to tell stories of where I came from, especially ones that resonated with my new, immigrant life. Sophie Glavani, the Beautiful Greek, was a perfect fit. A poor Greek girl, arriving in the 18th century Poland, marries into one of the most powerful aristocratic Polish families. Her besotted husband builds a magnificent garden for her near Uman, in today’s Ukraine. How did she pull it off? What did she discover that others didn’t?
I found her story irresistible….
Your debut novel, “Necessary Lies,” delves into themes of identity and displacement. How did your personal experiences shape this narrative?
Like my protagonist, Anna, I came to Montreal in August of 1981 as a graduate student at McGill University. Three months later, with the Solidarity movement crushed, Poland under martial law, I decided to stay in Canada. I gave Anna my own thoughts of what it meant to leave your country, experience the transformation of living in another culture. What you lose and what you gain. What must be salvaged and what can be let go. For Anna this transformation meant a confrontation with her old Polish life. For me, it meant becoming a writer.
Having lived in Canada since 1981, how has your immigrant experience influenced the themes and characters in your novels?
The heroines of my novels, Anna, Sophie, Catherine, Bronislava embody many aspects my immigration experience. They are bi-cultural, always aware of alternative ways of being. They also believe that displacement, however painful it might be, offers transformations impossible to imagine if they had never left.
Can you share your research process when writing historical fiction, especially for works like “Empress of the Night”?
I think of my novels as archival fantasies, anchored in recorded history. With Empress of the Night, it meant reading memoirs of courtiers and visitors to 18th century Russia. It meant travelling to St Petersburg, walking through the Winter Palace, talking to historians, and reading Catherine’s correspondence, memoirs and other writings.
The Catherine that emerged from this research was not only an empress but also a woman. A passionate lover, an exasperating mother, a wonderful grandmother.
This is when I was ready to start writing…
What advice would you offer aspiring authors aiming to write compelling historical fiction?
Try to understand and visualize the world your characters live in. Not just the big history, but the small, everyday one. Picture the rooms they walk into, drawers they open, dresses they put on. Record all smells, sounds, and colours. Comb through historical sources for details that make your skin tingle. The Russian maid with a bowl of ice for her mistress to rub her cheeks with every morning, the way untreated diabetes ravages a human body, especially if the imperial doctor treats it with a glass of sweet red wine every morning…
