New era – eternal woman. The role of women as outlined in Margita Figuli’s journalism and short prose of the 1930s Cover Image

Nová doba, večná žena. Predstavy o úlohe ženy v publicistike a krátkej próze Margity Figuli v tridsiatych rokoch 20. storočia
New era – eternal woman. The role of women as outlined in Margita Figuli’s journalism and short prose of the 1930s

Author(s): Zuzana Kubusová
Subject(s): Slovak Literature
Published by: Ústav slovenskej literatúry SAV
Keywords: Margita Figuli; Živena magazine; short stories collection Pokušenie (Temptation, 1937); women rights movement; modernity; female character;

Summary/Abstract: Margita Figuli (1909 – 1995), one of the leading Slovak women writers of the interwar period, is best known for her acclaimed novel Tri gaštanové kone (Three chestnut horses, 1940). At the time of its publication, her prosaic debut, the less widely popular collection of novellas Pokušenie (Temptation, 1937), also received favourable reviews. The period critics appreciated her ability to express emotionality and thematise the conflicting emotional and physical aspects of love as well as the stylistic qualities of her prose. Not so much attention was paid to the progressive ideological frame in which she focused on the role women played in a period when the society was looking for the meaning of life of the modern human being. Her debut collection presented her vision of the development of women who attempted at embracing their own potential. The texts advocate the value of women in the context of modernising efforts and emancipation movement of the 1930s. The article analyses Figuli’s novellas in the context of her journalism published in the women’s magazine Živena that thematises the “eternal woman” in the new era.

  • Issue Year: 68/2021
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 174-185
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Slovak