THE POLITICAL-INTELLECTUAL REASONS FOR MIGRATION IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY: TYPICAL CASES OF CZECH WOMEN IN THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE
Marie L. Neudorflova1
COBISS 1.01
ABSTRACT
The political-intellectual reasons for migration in the second half of the 19th century: typical cases of Czech women in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
This article is related the lives of eight prominent Czech women, who mostly for political reasons migrated outside or inside the Habsburg Monarchy, trying either to achieve higher education and proper employment, or despite difficulties and personal sufferings to contribute to the cultural level of the Czech nation.
KEYWORDS: Czech women, national identity, political conditions, migration, consequences
IZVLEČEK
Politično-intelektualni razlogi za migracije v drugi polovici 19. stoletja: primer Čehinj v Avstro-Ogrski
Članek nas seznanja z življenji osmih znanih čeških žensk, ki so se v glavnem zaradi političnih razlogov izselile v tujino ali znotraj Habsburške monarhije. Njihov cilj je bil, da dosežejo višjo izobrazbo in ustrezno zaposlitev. Kljub težavam in osebnemu trpljenju so prispevale h kulturnemu razvoju češkega naroda.
KLJUČNE BESEDE: češke ženske, narodna identiteta, politične razmere, migracije, posledice
No special records related to women's migration and emigration in the Habsburg Monarchy are available. Information related to Czech women can be found in memoirs and correspondence and to a certain extent in historical literature. Most migration traditionally took place for economic reasons, especially when the related imperial laws were relaxed in the mid-1880s. Related records can also be found in Czech and Slovak communities established over decades especially in the USA where immigrant communities preserved their original identities for an extended period of time. Women usually followed their partners, taking care of their families and even helping to support them when possible. Non-economic reasons for the migration and emigration of women have been far less frequent. But their cases are interesting and indicative of significant aspects of society and political system of the times in which they lived.
1 Masaryk Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague.
Dve domovini • Two Homelands 23 • 2006, 201-211
Moreover their approaches to their own destiny say a lot about their ambitions, views on women’s issues and personal problems. Related findings seem to have more general validity, mostly hidden in the work and worries of the daily life of women.
Due to political absolutism in the Habsburg Empire till the 1860s, the harsh political oppression on political, intellectual and national levels resulted in tragic destinies of many significant Czech personalities, including a number of women. Emigration to foreign countries or forced frequent migration inside the Empire became a significant feature of their lives in most cases. Later, under the constitutional system, the reasons for emigration were related more to the inability to receive higher education due to the existing system, which excluded women, and due to the lack of opportunities to obtain employment corresponding with the level of their education obtained abroad. The destiny of most of these women trying to challenge the system was difficult, often close to tragic.2
The discussion in this paper will observe the division into the pre-constitutional and constitutional periods. The political oppression of the first period in the Czech Lands had various forms, one of them being that there was no Czech university and secondary Czech education was very scarce, and for women almost non-existent. This was the reason why some Czech scholars had been looking for employment in distant regions, taking their reasonably educated Czech wives with them, thus causing a considerable loss to the Czech women’s movement. This was the case of Bohuslava Rajska (Antonie Reissova 1817-1852), the second wife of Czech poet Jaromir Čelakovsky, a professor at Wroclaw University in Prussia. He was also a famous and admired poet, and she married him due to pressures from her family since she was twenty-eight and expected to marry. The most respected existence of a woman was still to be a wife and mother. She was the best educated Czech woman of her time, and stood at the foundation of serious attempts by Karel Amerling to establish in Prague a Czech secondary school for boys and girls. She was an excellent organizer and teacher, and at the same time exceptionally beautiful. Amerling’s plans never came to full fruition due to consequence of the failed revolutions in 1848, but the girls’ school, which Rajska had established, survived till the 1860s. In Wroclaw, she took care of four of Celakovsky’s children from a previous marriage, and herself having child after child, died from exhaustion and tuberculosis after seven years of unhappy marriage. She was an extreme loss to the Czech community.3
2 Since this short paper covers a considerably broad topic, reference to available literature will be limited. However, there are works, which list literature and sources in considerable detai, for example, Marie L. Neudorflova, Češke ieny v 19. stoleti. Usili a sny, uspechy I zklamani na ceste k emancipaci. Praha: Janua 1999, 446 p. Other relevant literature will be mentioned below.
3 Information on work of Bohuslava Rajska is in various publications and memoirs. A brief description of her life is by A. Horakova-Gašpankova, Bohuslava Rajska, in: Karel Stloukal, ed., Kralovny, knežnv a velke ženy češke. Praha: Jos. R. Vilimek, 1941, p. 384-391. (This book, containing almost sixty short biographies of Czech women, was published for the encouragement of the Czech nation under Nazi occupation, just before the most violent persection of the Czech nation by German Nazis began in 1941). Most informative on Rajska is Antonie Raissova, Pameti a korespondence,
Twenty years later the question was still being raised in the Czech community how it came about that Bohuslava Rajska was not persuaded to stay at home, and how it happened that Celakovsky, who knew that she was irreplaceable with her education, skills and patriotic orientation in the Czech community, had the courage to ask her to marry him. It was predictable that she would not be able to continue her involvement for the intellectual advancement of Czech women when she was married. But it also seems that the attitude of the Czech educated public changed so much in twenty years that marriage for a woman was no longer considered an inescapable destiny to secure her economic existence. On the contrary, from the 1860s, the education of women and their economic independence, became to be viewed as a legitimate and desirable goal.
The first wave of political emigrants came after the defeat of the 1848 revolutions and its gains related to political freedom, constitutionalism, parliamentarianism, and national and social justice. We do not have any systematic research on this emigration, but memoirs and biographies of prominent individuals provide considerable information. I have chosen three cases, in which two women followed abroad their partners, who were escaping this way long term harsh prison for their participation in revolutions. The third woman, whom I have chosen, played a much greater role of her own. Her “migration” was only partly real and partly symbolic.
The first case is on the surface romantic, but in reality contains tragic features. It is related to a young journalist Josef Vaclav Frič (1829-1890), who after seven years of imprisonment for his participation in the 1848 revolution, was released due to amnesty. A young lady Anna Kavalirova, had a brother in the same prison in Komamo, Slovakia (where six other young Czechs served their prison terms), and visited him several times a year, when allowed, bringing much needed provisions to better their wretched lives. She fell in love with Frič, who was however engaged. It is almost moving to read in his memoirs and correspondence how he wished that his fiancee Anuška and Anna would become friends, and would devote their time to reading and self-education, and how he could not understand that this was rather difficult for his fiancee. Anna managed to smuggle books for Frič, writing materials, etc. He had great respect for Anna, since she was an exception in the help, provided to all Czech prisoners in Komamo. When Frič was released after the amnesty in 1853, he married Anuška Ullmannova, but when she died after difficult childbirth, Anna Kavalirova married him and accompanied him in 1858 to exile to Dej in today’s Romania, where Frič was sent for the trivial reason of attending a funeral where young people sang Czech songs, but in reality it was more
2 vol.. Praha. Useful information on Rajska is in memoirs of her brother in law: Pameti J. V. Friče,
sv. 1-2. Praha 1891. Also the correspondence between Nemcova and Raska is a valuable source of information. Marie Gebauerova, ed., Sebrane spisy Bozeny Nemcove. Sv. XI. Korespondence. Praha: 1920. J. V. Frič published in the 1880s four volumes of his memoirs, grasping his activity till he was thirty: Pameti Josefa V. Friče. 2nd ed. Vol. I-IV. Praha 1891. The later periods, including some of his articles published abroad, had been collected by Karel Cejn from Fric's papers, and published as Frič, Pameti. Pameti, korespondence, dokumenty. Vol IV, Praha 1963. Frič's diaries, written together with diaries of his wife Anna Kavalirova, provide much of evidence on various aspects of their exile life..
for his literary activities. He applied for emigration and after two years they both left for France. While living in Paris, they were often without money and starving. Fric's writing, while very productive and contributing to Czech and Polish journals, was not sufficient to support his growing family. Not all of their several children survived those difficult times. Their friends hardly knew that without the financial support from the parents and siblings of both, they could hardly survive. Their correspondence is a testimony of their constant intellectual and emotional attachment to their homeland, and that the main spiritual content of their life was Czech history and literature. They regularly received the Czech newspaper Narodni listy.
Their story is interesting in view of the impact their exile had in Prague. Intellectual and literary creativity was never an easy business for gifted Czechs, since it never provided a secure existence. The emigration to a more free country became a possible solution, a dream, an escape from unbearable political conditions, something not to be afraid of, something, which provided certain opportunities.4 In reality, the situation was always much less ideal. While Josef Vaclav and Anna Frič never became fully rooted abroad, their comeback in 1879 also became very difficult since Frič was not able to adjust himself to changed conditions, despite his unusual literary productivity, he was not able to support his family, and felt betrayed. His extremely hectic life and the fact that Anna and their children were supported by her family, alienated him from her as well as from the family. Their talents and feelings of continuity had been lost in their struggles for survival in France as well as in the Czech Lands. Frič gradually became bitter since the help of his friends to establish him as a writer and journalist was far from sufficient and from what he considered possible. Moreover, he could not rid himself of debts. This aspect of wasted talents due to struggles to survive was a salient feature of most emigrant or exile existence, but it was a part of life at home as well.
The second case having political context also contains a tragic feature, while having extremely positive consequences for the advancement of the Czech women’s movement. A Czech student of law at the Viennese University, Vojta Naprstek, took part in revolutions 1848 in Prague as well as in Vienna, and was extremely active in many events related to the Czech struggle for more freedom, Czech schools, and equality of Czechs with Germans in the Czech Kingdom, where Czechs formed two thirds of the population and the privileged Germans only one third. To escape prison, Vojta Naprstek went to Milwaukee in the USA, which had a large community of Germans and gradually also of Czechs. He was accompanied by his fiancee. Katynka Krakorova, an intelligent young lady, too emancipated for the taste of Naprstek’s mother Anna
4 The correspondence between Jan Neruda and Karolina Svetla in 1862 was published already before World War I, by Svetla's niece. Svetla, married for some years in the 1860s, was too intelligent to place her love for Neruda out of context of her family and social concerns. But Neruda was all his life aware that sublimated but extremely sincere and open love of Svetla provided him with deeper understanding of life, and most probably he would not become such a great poet if they left together for France. Their letters are published for example in Karolina Svetla, Z literarniho soukromiII. Korespondence. Praha 1959. Kap. Karolina Svetla a Jan Neruda - 1862, p. 111-173.
Naprstkova (Fingerhutova), on whom Vojta was dependent for all his expenses, since several enterprises he tried to establish failed completely. Katynka realized after some time that Vojta’s mother refused to support her son if he did not part with her.5 When he left to meet his mother in Europe, she unhappily and for just a short period, married an American, thus giving Vojta his needed freedom. She tried to support herself mainly as a babysitter and a servant, but her situation was increasingly difficult. In better times, she even visited Prague, and her freedom in the USA and ability to support herself, was admired at home. It seemed to be particularly attractive to the Czech writer, Božena Nemcova, who since the early 1850s till her death in 1862 suffered political persecution and consequently extreme economic hardship. Katynka shared Vojta’s enthusiasm about American freedom, enterprise opportunities for men as well as women, and advanced technology. In different ways they both had been bringing that enthusiasm and the focus on individual initiative to Prague. As she was becoming older, Katynka’s fate was not very happy in the USA. Vojta sent her money several times, but later stopped since demands on his financial resources had been increasing.
The most famous Czech writer Božena Nemcova (1820-1862), was dreaming about emigration to a politically freer country, namely to the USA. Her dreams had been raised especially after the failed revolutions in 1848, due to increasing political and national oppression. Later, Katynka Krakorova intensified Nemcova’s dream, since on her visits she idealized considerably the situation in the USA. While Nemcova and her husband became closely observed by the police, and her husband was moved by the government from place to place in the Monarchy, Nemcova used her exiles to collect the Czech and Slovak heritage of national legends, stories, customs and traditions. She also produced original literary works, reflecting on the contemporary life of common people and their problems. The government in Vienna began to view national identity, cultural and literary production, especially of the dominated nations in the Empire as a danger to be suppressed. The best way to do that was to bring economic hardship to the people. The govememnt reduced her husband’s salary, moved him all over the Empire, and thus imposed extreme hardship on the whole family including four children (Hynek died at fourteen of tuberculosis from insufficient nourishment and frequent starvation). While her husband lived in remote places, sick and hungry Božena Nemcova became literally a begger, and died at forty-two.6
While resonably healthy, her frequent migration in the Empire, dependent on her husband’s workplace, was fruitful, collecting fairy tales, reflecting on country life in
s Zdenek Solle, who wrote a book on Vojta Naprstek a jeho doba. Praha 1991, published an article based on so far unknown sources, and related also to Katynka Krakorova,: Americky pobyt Vojty Naprstka (Odprlchodu do USA v prosinci 1848 až po navrat do Cech v iinoru 1858. In: Sbornik Narodniho muzea v Praze. Rada C, sv. XXVII, 1983, Č. 3, s. 97-158.
6 The best biography of Božena Nemcova is still that of Vaclav Tille, Božena Nemcova. Praha 1941 (8th edition). Correspondence of Božena Nemcova provides valuable insight into her life, problems and social conditions as well as into her ability to detouch herself from very hard life and write rational and loving letters full of thoughts, hopes and interesting observations from places where she moved with her husband,. Božena Nemcova, Listy I-IV. Praha: 1961.
different regions, and writing the most famous Czech novel Babička (Grandmother). Her optimism and plans continued even when she was dying of tuberculosis and cancer. Her work, including her letters, belong to the Czech cultural treasure, having a deep compassion with the people, and reflecting as well as advancing Czech identity. Her life was driven by her love for her neglected nation as well as by the awamess that its real identity was a result of a rich cultural production through centuries of history. She intuitively felt that there was a danger of neglecting and forgetting the extremely valuable heritage, due to rapid changes in social, political, and economic conditions. She was also concerned with moral conditions, which allowed an inhuman exploitation of people. She was particularly concerned with servant girls and their easy and unwanted fall into prostitution. The forced migration of Nemcova helped her, due to her diligence and idealism to get an unusually deep insight into the cultures of different parts of the Czech Kingdom and of Slovakia, and to grasp their roots, beauty as well as their specific features, including linguistics.
The women mentioned so far have been reasonably well educated, but more due to luck, the encouragement from a teacher or a family member and their own efforts than the result of formal schooling. While formal secondary schools began to develop only since the 1860s due to self-help organizations (ženske vyrobni spolky), the exams needed to enter the university began to be available only in the 1890s. Already in the 1870s, gifted girls were dreaming of studying at a university level, which however, was not possible in the Empire before the end of the century. A few of the most courageous girls decided to migrate to countries which accepted females to universities without special exams and a ,certificate of maturity4. Switzerland and France had been the most accessible to them. The destiny of two girls, Anna Bayerova (1854-1924) and Bohuslava Keckova (1851-1911), determined to get medical education in Switzerland as early as the mid-1870s, is partly a successful and partly a tragic story.
Overlooking the great financial difficulties of the both to obtain education, most difficulties came when they were trying to get employment at home. We have more informtaion on the destiny of Bayerova, who was emotionally very attached to her homeland and to her friends. Some of them were helping her, when studying in Prague at a newly established girl’s school. Later, her letters to her Czech friends and often partly sponsors, provide valuable information on social conditions in Switzerland. When, after a range of financial problems, she obtained her degree in Switzerland, the Austrian government would not recognize her medical diploma, and would not permit her to practice at home. Her specialization in children4 s diseases was extremely needed everywhere in the Empire, including the Czech Lands (children’s death rate was in the Empire one of the highest in Europe).7
To get employment in her professsion, she migrated several times to foreign
7 Anna Bayerova was lucky that she found a biographer, namely, the first Czech female doctor graduating at the Charles University in 1902, Anna Honzakova, who much appreciated the pioneer work of Anna Bayerova. Honzakova focused on Bayerova's struggles and sufferings,caused by rigid and unjust conditons for unprivileged nations and groups in the Habsburg Monarchy. MUDR.
countries (Switzerand, Germany). Finally, Anna Bayerova was sent by the Austrian government to Bosnia to take care of and educate the Moslem women about modem concepts of hygiene and to practice modem medical traetments in the hospital in Tuzla. But the overall conditions in the hospital (especially the hostile attitudes of her male colleagues) and the extremes of the climate were very hard on her and she decided after several years to migrate again to Switzerland. In Tuzla, she was replaced by Bohuslava Keckova, who continued quite successfully the work, taking care of763 patients, but in 1911 died due to an unspecified infection. The cause of her death caused some speculations in the Czech community. With her letters from Bosnian Mostar, where she also worked, she contributed to the expansion of knowledge about the Balkan countries, since she was regularly sending home letters describing her conditons as well as the conditions of the society in which she worked.8
The letters of Anna Bayerova to her friends in Prague provide not only very interesting information on the conditions of her work and the social conditions of the countries in which she lived, (especially poor regions), but also her deep devotion to her homeland and her permanent desire to return home. The Czech community was not indifferent to her destiny and tried hard to obtain permission for her from the government to practice medicine at home. In 1900, it seemed that she would be accepted into a private sanatorium in Prague, but this hope was frustrated even though the government approved the position. Bayerova migrated again to Switzerland and Germany.9 It took till 1914 to obtain government’s recognition of her university degree from Switzerland (obtained in 1881). Then she was teaching hygiene and health at Czech girls schools in Prague for almost a decade.10
The last category of migrating women includes two women, who had migrated from the USA to the Czech Kingdom, specifically to Prague, Josefa Humpal-Zemanova and Charlotte Garrigue (Masarykova), the wife of the first Czechoslovak President Tomas G. Masaryk.
Josefa Humpal Zemanova (1870-1905) was bom in the southern Bohemia town of Pisek, but as a child had emigrated with her parents to the USA. While her parents sent her to Pisek for a few years for basic education in Czech, she was lucky to obtain some university education later in the USA. Her stay in Pisek left her with a strong emotional tie to the Czech community, history and culture, and already at the end of the 1880s she was contributing to the Czech women’s journal Ženske listy. She became a
Anna Honzakova, Dr. Med. Anna Bayerova 1853-1924. Prvni češka lekarka ve Svycarech. Praha: Zemska narodni' rada, 1937.
8 The status of Bohuslava Keckova was „State medical doctor". Her letters from the decade lasting practice in Mostar had been published in Czech feminist journal Ženske listy, XXXII, 1904, n. 7, p. 105-6, n. 8, p.8-9, n. 9, p. 157-60, n. 10, p. 186-7, n. 11, p. 205-9.
9 Since the end of the 1890s women had been gradually allowed to study at male gymnasia (not having regular status) and at some faculties of the Charles University, particularly Medicine and at the Faculty of Philosophy.
10 More easily available information on all three women is in Marie L. Neudorflova, Ceskezeny v 19. stoleti. Praha: JANUA 1999, p. 142-163.
journalist, had to support her siblings since parents died early, married unhappily and then separated. She found her way from unhappiness and poverty by joining a Puritan religious community (a quite common solution for personal problems in the USA), which helped her to build her self-esteem and to obtain a decent job in the school system in Chicago, where she developed more contacts with the Czech community. She also continued her journalistic work, and in cooperation with the Czech feminist Karla Machova, who happened to be in Chicago, she established a Czech feminist journal Zenske listy (Feminist Papers). Despite hard and unfair competition she was able to preserve it till 1900.
Her contacts with the Czech feminist community in Prague became more frequent, she visited Prague several times, had a lecture tour in Bohemia on topics related to life in the USA, and wanted to return for good. The major problem was how to make a living. Despite some serious efforts by Czech feminists, they were not able to provide her with the economic security she thought she needed. When back in the USA, she could not adjust emotionally any more and found the competition of American life too hard, and decided to return to Prague. But she did not realize that to be a visitor was different from being a permanent part of the community, which had different rules, habits and attitudes from what she was used to. She became editor of the supplement of a women’s journal Ženski’ obzor, Št'astny domov (Happy Home). Moreover, her degree of self-confidence irritated some activists in women’s organizations, causing tensions and arguments. Such a situation was extremely hard on her and after one meeting of the association Czech Women’s Club at the end of April 1905 she collapsed on the street and died. Her death caused considerable commotion in the Czech community despite a doctor’s report stating that her heart was very ill (apparently due to her very hectic and hard life) and that it was only a matter of time to get into serious trouble. Her strong emotional attachment to her Czech original homeland, its culture, history and people, was the source of her idealism and her determination to get involved in struggles, which she viewed as worthwhile, aiming at improving the lot of women. But her belief that she could apply her experience from more liberal America to Czech conditions became a source of emotional confusion and tragic misunderstandings. She was an educated and intelligent woman and if she did not die she would have eventually understood that the respect for cultural differences of different countries is extremely important for the success of any work related to social, intellectual and educational improvements, and that attempts to impose something on others from outside, even if well-meant, is an extremely sensitive issue, full of dangers.
There was one American woman, who understood this perfectly, and before she became involved in matters related to feminist and social movement, she became a Czech by her heart as well as by her understanding of the cultural, historical and social conditions of the Czech nation. This woman was Charlotta Garrigue Masarykova, the wife of the future President of Czechoslovakia founded in 1918, who migrated to Prague in 1882, when Tomaš Masaryk obtained a teaching position at the newly established Czech university in Prague. She was a gifted musician, an intelligent, educated woman,
interested in literature, history and public affairs. She had learned the Czech language almost perfectly. She was deeply religious, believing in a higher meaning of human life and deeds, in the possibility to make changes for improvements of the underprivileged, and in the moral obligation of the more privileged to contribute continually to those improvements.
By their love, mutual respect, openness and unusual degree of cooperation in domestic duties as well as in the intellectual area (Charlotta read all Masaryk’s manuscripts till the end of the 1890s, she wrote deep and knowledgeable analyses of music by Bedrich Smetana, she translated John Stuart Mills' work The Subjection of Women, etc.). The Masaryks set a good example for the Czech intellectual and the middle class strata, in which men had a rather privileged position in the family, leaving all work on the shoulders of women.
Charlotta participated in some specific areas, such as the Czech women’s movement and especially in the efforts of the Social Democratic women to establish and maintain their press related to their special educational, moral and economic needs. She substantially influenced her husband’s involvement in the Czech women’s movement, especially his unusual ability to view man-woman relations, including intimate, from the view of women’s emotional, moral and health needs. Czech women remained extremely grateful to him, but somehow forgot that it was she, who was the source of extreme courage to be open about aspects, which had been so far basically tabooed.11 When Masaryk got involved in ugly controversies in the 1880s, being unjustly and brutally attacked in the press, it was Charlotta, who prevented him from moving the whole family to the USA, with the argument that the Czech nation needed him very much and that he must continue his work to uplift its overall level and maturity. Her deep faith in the positive potentials of Czech nation had roots in her knowledge of the Czech history, especially its Protestant period, and partly in her love for Czech music.12
She had an unbreakable trust in her husband’s struggles for the advancement of the intellectual, moral and political level of the Czech nation. Her moral strength was put on trial during World War I, when he was in exile, involved in work for the establishment of a democratic Czechoslovakia. While acting strongly, and fully supporting her
11 Already in 1910, when a volume of contributions was published on the occassion of Masaryk' s 60th anniversary birthday, women appreciated his work and made reference to Charlotta: Edvard Beneš, Ed., Sbornik T. G. Masarykovrk 60. narozeninam. Praha 1910. On Masaryks 80th birthday women published a special volume of contributions related to Masaryk's views on feminism, including most of his related lectures and articles as well as some reflections on Charlotta: Masaryk a zeny. Praha: Ženska narodni rada 1930, 337 p.
12 On the occassion of the 150th birth anniversary of Charlotta Garrigue Masarykova Masaryk Instirute AV CR organized a scholarly conference and published most of presented papers: Marie L. Neu-dorflova, Ed., Charlotta G. Masarykova. Praha: Masarykuv ustav AV ČR 2001,246 p. Charlotta G. Masarykova fell in love with the music of Bedrich Smetana, accusing the Czechs that they did not appreciate enough his music and his deep understanding of national inspiration. She analysed his music and anonymously published several very knowledgable articles in Naše doba, September 1893.
husband’s course, the hard and tragic events, such as frequent interrogations (despite her heart been seriously ill), her daughter Alice’s imprisonment (instead of hers), her son Herbert’s death (from typhus), had a lasting impact on her health. And still, her most usual answer to her police investigators was that she firmly believed that her husband struggled for noble and good aims for the Czech nation. In fact, she had no idea what he was doing, she even did not want to know anything specific, because she was unable to lie.
Since she was continually observed by the police during the war, she kept distance from people, afraid that she might bring trouble on them. While her solitude must have been unbearable, she never complained. On the contrary, she wrote extremely beautiful and encouraging letters to her lonely daughter in prison in Vienna. Only once, when her illness was getting worse rapidly and she was becoming extremely exhausted mentally, she wrote to her daughter about her painful longing to speak again in her mother tongue, which was English.13 Sufferings during the war left her shaken till the end of her life. Masaryk organized his presidential duties in such a way that he could stay with her every day before she died in 1923 at the age of 73.
To make some generalizations about the lives of these few rather untypical, but important Czech women, who voluntarily or involuntarily emigrated from their homeland, it can be said that most of them left significant traces of their activities and struggles far beyond their private lives. To a considerable degree, their migration was related to their involvement in public matters, and to their idealism about their mission in life. All of them had a deep devotion to the Czech nation, the desire to advance some of its positive potentials, mostly related to the unprivileged situation of Czech women. Their migration provided them with a broader outlook, the possibility to compare, to appreciate the past positive achievements of the Czech nation and build on them. Their lives had been seemingly tragic, but they would not leave their high ideals and their chosen course for the sake of personal happiness.
POVZETEK
POLITIČNO-INTELEKTUALNI RAZLOGI ZA MIGRACIJE V DRUGI POLOVICI
19. STOLETJA: PRIMER ČEHINJ VAVSTRO-OGRSKI
Marie L. Neudorflova
Pričujoči članek raziskuje usodo osmih Čehinj, ki so zaradi svojih intelektualnih sposobnosti ali zvez z moškimi postale znane in cenjene. Avtorica je raziskala obdobje, ki ženskam ni bilo naklonjeno. Možnosti za izpolnjevanje ženskih ambicij po znanju in
13 212 letters have been preserved, most of them published first time in 1933. The last, most complete edition is: Draha mama/Dear Alice. Korespondence Alice a Charlotty Masarykovych 1915—1916. Ed. Dagmara Hajkova, Jaroslav Soukup. Praha: MSU AV CR 2001, 244 p.
udejstvovanju v kulturi in politiki so bile majhne; tako je bila tudi emigracija posledica vsesplošnih težkih političnih razmer.
Kljub nekaterim tragičnim posebnostim v zvezi z življenjem in prizadevanji obravnavanih žensk je vsaka od njih naslednjim generacijam zapustila enkratno in dragoceno zapuščino svojih del in zgled poguma.
Prispevek se ukvarja z dvema obdobjema: s predustavnim (do leta 1867) ter z ustavnim. Vprvem obdobju so bile migracije neprostovoljne in so zavirale literarne ter intelektualne ambicije žensk. Le neverjetna mera idealizma je gnala večino nadarjenih žensk (B. Nemcova) k nadaljnjemu pisanju. Migracije so povzročile zavedanje o zapostavljenih področjih v narodovem življenju ter o njihovi vrednosti. V drugem obdobju so bile razlog za migracije želje po izpolnitvi sanj in ambicij.
V obeh primerih so ženske morale premagati veliko težav in ovir in običajno niso uspele v celoti realizirati svojih sanj. Ko so postale bolj ambiciozne, so bile tudi močnejše in so pogosto delale do izčrpanosti. Pogumne mlade ženske, ki so si prizadevale za univerzitetno izobrazbo, predvsem s področja medicine (A. Bayerova, B. Keckova), ki je v moharhiji niso mogle pridobiti, so bile Čehinjam za dober zgled. Tako so relativno kmalu zahtevale možnost nadaljnjega izobraževanja ter pridobivanje univerzitetne izobrazbe doma. Migracije Čehinj iz drugih držav v Češko kraljevino so bile v mnogih pogledih koristne, čeprav so se ženske tega slabo zavedale. Taki vplivi so v češko skupnost prinesli več iniciative in zaupanja, da je delo v dobrobit naroda smiselno, še posebej z ozirom na prihodnost (J. Zemanova-Humpal, Ch. G. Masarykova).
Obravnavane ženske so bile izjemno močne osebnosti. Moč so črpale iz izkušenj, ljubezni do ljudi, vere v pozitivne človeške potenciale.