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Otherness in First Republic Czechoslovak Representations of Women advertisements, and cartoons of Czech, Slovak, and Czechoslovak women appeared in periodicals from independence to the end of the 1920s, when the effects of the Great Depression began to hit Czechoslovakia. Both photographic and sketched images proved to be a potent means of imagining the Czechoslovak New Woman's liveliness, fashionability, and physical fitness (Huebner 2011). This analysis focuses on the differences between Czech and Slovak imagery and looks at some representations of cultural Others. This paper, then, is intended as a preliminary survey that, in part, looks at which women were regarded as Other by specific periodicals and/or populations between 1924 and about 1930 and, in part, analyzes how those Others were portrayed. The periodicals chosen were, relatively speaking, mainstream publications, although each occupied a specific social niche, being targeted to (for example) men, women, or leftists. As we will see, some illustrated periodicals avoided the idea of the Other almost entirely, and some highlighted the distant and exotic Other while avoiding looking at Others closer to home. The Czech-language periodicals considered include the women’s magazines Moderni divka (Modern Girl, Prague, founded October 1924), Eva (Eve, Prague, founded December 1928), Zensky svét (Women’s World, Prague, founded 1896), Zena: Tyden komunistickych zen (Woman: Communist Women’s Weekly, Prague, founded circa 1914); the men’s magazine Gentleman (Prague, founded circa 1923); the general interest magazine Svétozor (World Horizon, Prague, publication resumed 1904); the leftist photomagazine Reflektor (Reflector, or Spotlight, Prague, founded 1925); and the humor paper 7rn (Thorn, Prague, founded 1922). Though published in Czech, these were accessible to Slovaks and may have been intended to be more Czechoslovak than narrowly Czech. Slovak-language periodicals considered include Vesna (Springtime, Ko8ice, founded 1927) and Dav (The Masses, founded circa 1927), which were specifically targeted to Slovaks although they could also have been read by interested Czechs. First Republic Czechoslovakia as Multiethnic State As we examine this imagery, it is important to keep in mind that Czechoslovakia in the 1920s was a newly created, vibrant country. It had not suffered heavy losses during the First World War, and its cultural identity was still forming. Its First Republic, later idealized as a golden age, lasted from 1918 to 1938 and was a parliamentary democracy with strong political ties to France, Great Britain, and the United States. However, while Czechs and Slovaks were politically united as Czechoslovak, in practice the two groups, though close geographically and linguistically, usually considered themselves to be distinct. Indeed, the arrival of Czech administrators in Slovakia after independence produced some tensions between Czechs and Slovaks as both groups began to realize the extent of their cultural, educational, and economic differences. And, just as Czechs and Slovaks had mutually intelligible languages yet differed historically and culturally, the Ruthenians, 441
