Czech Women Writers from the National Revival to the Fin de Siècle

Abstract

The most important feature of this period for Czech women writers was their subordination to the demands of the new national aspirations: their aim was to write cultivated texts addressed to the whole nation. Czech nationalists encouraged women to write in order to demonstrate the maturity of modern Czech literature. At the same time, their most immediate task was to cultivate the Czech language. Despite these limited aims, however, this period of Czech literature saw the emergence of three major figures, whose work was incomparably more accomplished than that of most of their male contemporaries.