Oldal 449 [449]
OCR
446 Karla Huebner never shown in kroj, except in theatrical productions of nineteenth-century nationalist plays and operas. This was a change from the first years of the Republic. Slovak Periodicals During the 1920s and 30s, Slovak publications tended to be much more focused on Slovak identity than Czech publications were on Czech identity. This was particularly true for the heavily illustrated magazine Vesna (not to be confused with the Czech feminist magazine of the same name). During its first year, Vesna’s illustrations emphasized Slovak pride and uniqueness, with both men and women frequently depicted in traditional clothing (Vesna, 1927). The magazine did occasionally print images of exotic foreigners, such as central Africans, Turks, and Native Americans (Vesna, 1927). An article discussing beggars was accompanied by a photo of female Roma flower sellers—in safely distant Bucharest, not Slovakia (Vesna, 1927). Closer to home were photos from the city of Mukachevo in subCarpathian Ruthenia (today Ukraine); photos such as that of a young woman from Neresnice in Ruthenia (also now in Ukraine) (Vesna, 1927) did not emphasize poverty and were generally respectful, perhaps because Rusyns may have been among the purchasers of the magazine. The fact that Rusyn women as well as Slovaks could appear on the cover (Vesna, November 1927) (ill. 200) supports the possibility of Rusyn readership or, at least, the likelihood that the magazine’s editors regarded Rusyns as being much like Slovaks. Vesna’s rare images of Czech women included photos of major actresses (Vesna, February 1927), but Czechs were clearly of less interest here than were Slovaks or Rusyns. Overall, Vesna’s pictorial coverage included representations of Others but created a mix in which Slovaks occupied a safe middle ground from attractively traditional to cautiously modern—neither too up-to-date nor too primitive. Cultural Others were shown as unthreatening, and those from eastern Europe were often photographed in traditional garb not too unlike Slovak kroj. Vesna’s romanticization of Slovakness even extended to making a cover image from a painting of an idealized Slovak family by the nineteenthcentury Czech artist Josef Manes (Vesna, September 1927) (ill. 199). And finally, in a rare cartoon about modern versus traditional women, Vesna diplomatically poked fun at both when the modern girl did exercises hidden behind the rain barrel (Vesna, July 1928) (ill. 198). The leftist Slovak paper Dav took a less idyllic view of everyone. Like Vesna, it covered both Slovakia and Ruthenia, noting hunger in Slovakia. However, in essence, Dav’s idea of a cultural Other was class based more than ethnic. Priests and the perceived ruling classes were mercilessly caricatured. Conclusion Visual imagery of women changed somewhat in the 1930s as a result of the economic downturn and increasing social conservatism, but in both the 1920s and the 1930s consumer magazines tried to balance the goals of pleasure and responsibility
