Ewelina Hańska, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Ewelina Hańska

Polish lady

Date of Birth: 06-Jan-1805

Place of Birth: Pohrebyshche, Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine

Date of Death: 11-Apr-1882

Profession: novelist

Nationality: Poland

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Eveline Hanska (née Ewelina Rzewuska; 6 January c.?1805 – 11 April 1882) was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac.
Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia (now Ukraine), Hanska married landowner Waclaw Hanski (Wenceslas Hanski) when she was a teenager.
Hanski, who was about 20 years her senior, suffered from depression.
They had five children, but only a daughter, Anna, survived. In the late 1820s, Hanska began reading Balzac's novels, and in 1832, she sent him an anonymous letter.
This began a decades-long correspondence in which Hanska and Balzac expressed a deep mutual affection.
In 1833, they met for the first time, in Switzerland.
Soon afterward he began writing the novel Séraphîta, which includes a character based on Hanska. After her husband died in 1841, a series of complications obstructed Hanska's marriage to Balzac.
Chief of these was the estate and her daughter Anna's inheritance, both of which might be threatened if she married him.
Anna married a Polish count, easing some of the pressure.
About the same time, Hanska gave Balzac the idea for his 1844 novel Modeste Mignon.
In 1850 they finally married, and moved to Paris, but he died five months later.
Though she never remarried, she took several lovers, and died in 1882.