Smutný príbeh zo smutných čias: dve vojny v rodinnom živote spisovateľky Terézie Vansovej
A Sad Story from Sad Times: Two Wars in the Family Life of the Writer Tereza Vansová

Summary/Abstract: The family history of the writer Tereza Vansová (1857-1942) was affected by two world wars. She lived through the Great War and World War II as an adult person – as the wife, later widow of an Evangelical pastor, socially engaged member of the Slovak intelligentsia aware of their national identity. There is no doubt that her distinguished position in society and her religion as well as her social status determined the character of her personal and family experience; furthermore, they influenced her conditions during and after the wars in terms of the applied "strategies of survival". In both war conflicts, Vansová´s opinions opposed the official establishment (first the Hungarian, and later on, the populists). In the revolutionary situation after World War I, she was one of the sincere supporters of the new Czechoslovak state and its democratic regime. The traumatising experience, which she recorded in documents of personal character, is in many ways typical of the environment of Evangelical families. Its negative impact upon Vansová´s family life was intensified by the fact that she was a public figure, emancipated intellectual, fully responsible for the financial support of an incomplete, to a certain extent, rather atypical family. The paper draws mainly on ego-documents: memories, correspondence, diaries, private records and marginal notes, put by the writer into contrast with documents of official provenience and other memoir literature.

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