Oldal 445 [445]
OCR
442 Karla Huebner or Rusyns, to the east were rapidly seen to be different from both the Czechs and the Slovaks.’ Czechs formed the dominant cultural group in the new state, but rather than overtly comparing themselves to the Slovaks, with whom common ground was sought, historically, the Czechs saw Czech culture in contrast to German culture and this perceived difference—and the perceived need to outnumber ethnic Germans with Slavs—was in fact a major reason for adding Slovakia onto the Czech lands in 1918. Women’s Situation During the First Republic I will now briefly review the Czechoslovak woman’s situation in the early twentieth century. While the western territories formerly ruled by Austria initially retained Austrian laws and the eastern territories formerly ruled by Hungary had other laws, the overall situation can be summarized as follows. The interwar Czechoslovak (primarily Czech) New Woman was more than a product of mere international fashion; she came into being partly as a result of the earlier, explicitly designated Novd zena (New Woman) of fin-de-siécle feminism. Scholars agree that Czech resistance to feminism was comparatively weak, and by 1920, Czech feminists had achieved many of their early goals. Pre-independence Czech political parties had in fact mostly endorsed women’s suffrage.’ Particular support had come from intellectual and future president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk. Masaryk continued to support feminism throughout his presidency, which lasted nearly the whole of the period of the First Republic (Neudorfl 1990). Laws discouraging divorce were relaxed in 1919, and Czech women began to vote in the same year.‘ Access to higher education for women, which had been increasing for decades, improved considerably in the 1920s.’ During the 1920s, some Western feminists even considered Czechoslovakia a “paradise of the modern woman,” an assessment that was proudly pointed out to westward-looking readers (Revue Française de Prague, December 1929). However, literacy, industrialization, and educated women were far more typical of the Czech- and German-speaking western areas—Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia—than of Slovakia or Ruthenia. Modern, urban Slovak (or Ruthenian) women were fewer in number and less visible in the media. 2 Regarding the general history of Czechoslovakia and its ethnic groups, see, for example, Agnew 1993; Agnew 2004; Cornej and Pokorny 2000; Godé, Le Rider, and Meyer 1996; Judson 2007; Judson and Rosenblit 2004; Kirschbaum 1995; Koïalka 1991; Toma and Kovaé 2001; Wingfield 2007. 3 Scholarship on pre-independence Czech feminism includes Bahenska 2005; Neudorflova 1999; Horskä 1999; Lenderovä 1999; Pynsent 1996; Peek and Ledvinka 1996; David 1991; Volet-Jeannert 1988; Freeze 1985. 4 Czechoslovakia, Sbirka zdkont a nattzent statu ceskoslovenského (Collection of laws and regulations of the Czechoslovak) 1919: 77. My thanks to Todd Huebner for bringing this to my attention. > Scholarship on women of the First Republic includes Buresovä 2001; Feinberg 2006; and Garver 1985.
