The Liberation of Woman and Nation: Czech Nationalism and Women Writers of the Fin de Siècle

Abstract

In the Bohemian Lands at the Fin de siécle, Czech culture had ceased trying to catch up with Western Europe; mass political parties were growing, and the three great ideologies of the last two centuries were together informing the Czech political scene. Nationalism or critical patriotism was firmly established; Social Democracy was increasing in popularity and the third ideology, feminism, had begun to take up almost as much space in intellectual journals as discussions of the ‘social question’. In this chapter I discuss the relationship between sexual and national politics in a few women writers who made their mark at the time, though some are forgotten or ignored today. Among them are Masarykian Realists like Pavla Buzková (1885–1949), neo-Revivalists like Anna Řeháková (1850–1937), socialists like Marie Majerová (1882–1967), or the first full-time Czech woman journalist, the person who was to become the most popular middle-class women’s columnist, under the name Yvonna, Olga Fastrová (1876–1965), or the founder of Czech girl-guiding, Popelka Bilianová (1862–1941, now conventionally Biliánová).