Between Feminism and Communism. The writer Marie Majerová (1882–1967)

Abstract

This article deals with the Czech writer Marie Majerová from a gender historical point of view. Majerová was well known as a communist author after World War Two, but is almost unknown as a feminist writer and activist of the interwar period. The study considers the ambiguity of her position. It primarily concentrates on Majerová as a journalist and activist in the field of women’s education and emancipation before 1938. On the one hand, she sought to advocate the cause of humankind and the work of everybody, no matter what gender they were. On the other hand, she was positively fighting for womens’ rights and their opportunity to express themselves and to take part in public life. Majerová’s career serves as an example of a woman’s position in the changing modern world in the first half of the twentieth century. At the same time, it demonstrates an individual approach to politics and life based on the will to change and to influence the world around her. In the final analysis, Majerová always remained more a writer than a politician. All her agitation was elaborately formulated, however spontaneous the actions behind it, and she never became a professional politician.