A History of Central European Women's Writing (Studies in Russia and East Europe)

## Preface and Acknowledgements viii Notes on the Contributors XV Map of East Central Europe, c. 1992 xvii Part I Women's Writing in Central Europe before 1800 'Central Europe' is an elusive concept: in a recent work, Mark Mazower uses the term to convey a frequent stereotype distinguishing 'civilized' Western Europe from its Eastern, barbaric other half. 1 From the perspective of its inhabitants themselves, however, 'Central' as opposed to 'Eastern' Europe implies a similar distinction, intended to separate the superior civilization of the old established cultures of the geographical centre of Europe from their 'upstart' neighbours, particularly those of the South-Eastern, Balkan region. In this volume, the term is used in a neutral geographical sense. Acknowledging that it cannot be comprehensive, our framework has been determined by a desire that the volume should be as coherent as possible. We have chosen to focus on the region roughly equivalent to the subject territories of the Habsburg Monarchy, the language areas which are today included in the states of Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The map on p. xvii highlights also Lithuania, because of its connection with Poland, but space has precluded coverage of the Baltic States, whose historical experience is in any case different in various ways. Similarly, from many points of view it would have made sense to include Belarus and Ukraine, but this would have involved unmanageable expansion of the material. In the kaleidoscope of fluctuating borders and cultural influences that have characterized these lands, there are several unifying factors. The territories are largely Catholic, or, after the Reformation, adherents of Western Rite Christianity, as opposed to Orthodoxy. With the rise of the Great Powers, in the early modern period, all of these territories became politically marginalized, a situation viewed with increasing resentment with the growth of nineteenth-century ideas of nationhood. The dominant cultural frame of reference is German -although French influence is also strong, particularly in Poland, and the dominance of German culture is often notable in a sense of resistance to it. With the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918, most of the countries discussed here emerged as sovereign nation states. In the 1930s the region was directly exposed to the rise of fascism and the new imperial structure of the Third Reich. In the second half of the twentieth century, all its peoples were included in one overriding, communist ideology. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the last major imperial structure in Europe disappeared. And in the 1990s, with the demise of the two small composite states -Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, established by The Treaty of Versailles in 1918 -Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia became independent. viii I Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Front Matter....Pages 1-6 Women Readers and Writers in Medieval and Early Modern Bohemia....Pages 7-13 Polish Women Authors: From the Middle Ages until 1800....Pages 14-26 Women’s Writing in Hungary before 1800....Pages 27-32 Women in Croatian Literary Culture, 16th to 18th Centuries....Pages 33-40 Front Matter....Pages 41-46 Czech Women Writers from the National Revival to the Fin de Siècle....Pages 47-62 Polish Women Writers in the Nineteenth Century....Pages 63-86 Hungarian Women Writers, 1790–1900....Pages 87-109 Women’s Writing and Writing for Women in Croatian Literature of the Nineteenth Century....Pages 110-120 Front Matter....Pages 121-125 Czech Women Writers, 1890s–1948....Pages 126-149 The Feminization of Culture: Polish Women’s Literature, 1900–45....Pages 150-164 Hungarian Women Writers, 1900–45....Pages 165-181 Croatian Women Writers from the ‘Moderna’ to the Second World War....Pages 182-196 Front Matter....Pages 197-200 Czech Women Writers after 1945....Pages 201-219 Women Writers in Polish Literature, 1945–95: From ‘Equal Rights for Women’ to Feminist Self-Awareness....Pages 220-239 Hungarian Women’s Writing, 1945–95....Pages 240-255 Croatian Women Writers 1945–95....Pages 256-278 Slovak Women’s Writing, 1843–1990....Pages 279-298 Women Writers in Slovene Literature, 1840s–1990....Pages 299-311 Back Matter....Pages 312-323 A History of Central European Women's Writing offers a unique survey of literature from the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia. It introduces a little known area of European literature from a unique point of view, illustrating the development of women's writing in the region from the middle ages to the present day. If offers a broad historical survey, placing individual writers in their social and political context and showing how processes shaping their lives are reflected in their works.