Wdowy po górnikach mówią mocnym głosem. Literackie obrazy losu kobiet w Zagłębiu Ostrawsko-Karwińskim
The Mine Workers’ Widows Speak with a Strong Voice. The Literary Pictures of Women’s Fate in Zagłębie Ostrawsko-Karwińskie

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to look at the situation of mine workers’ wives, widows and daughters in Zagłębie Ostrawsko-Karwińskie, currently belonging to the Czech Republic. The topos of the male mine worker was founded on the stereotype of the traditional proletarian masculinity not only in the Polish People’s Republic but also in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic; the mine workers were presented as the icons of the success propaganda. After 1989 a polemic with this view was undertaken by the theatre in the Czech Republic and in the last decade the literature, written mostly by women (Kamila Hladká, Karin Lednická), has done so as well. Until now, the writers and researchers have concentrated on the hard work of the fathers in the mine worker families, which has resulted in an impression that the women were only the passive spectators of all the dramatic changes happening in the hard coal mining industry. Thanks to adapting the feminist perspective, it is possible to get to know a traditional Silesian mine worker family depicted differently than before.

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