Božena Viková-Kunětická

Božena Viková-Kunětická (1890)

Božena Viková-Kunětická (born July 30, 1862 in Pardubitz , Austria-Hungary ; died March 18, 1934 in Libočany ) was a Czechoslovak writer and politician of the Československá národní demokracie (ČsND, Czechoslovak National Democratic Party ).

In 1912 she was the first woman to be elected to the Czech state parliament.

Life

Božena Novotná was born in Pardubice (today Pardubice) on July 30, 1862. Her father was a grain dealer. After finishing school, she took acting lessons from Otilia Sklenářová-Malé . After the fire at the National Theater , Novotná received his first roles at the Czech Interim Theater in 1881.

However, Novotná soon left the theater and married Joseph Vik, who was employed by a sugar factory. They lived in Uhříněves and Český Brod near Prague . The couple had three children and their two sons died of diphtheria as toddlers . In the 1880s, Viková began to publish short stories, novels , plays and poems. Using various pseudonyms , she wrote about life in provincial cities and in the country.

Viková-Kunětick finished her literary work in the early 1910s when she became increasingly concerned with politics and society. - Quote: At the moment, perhaps the most striking in my life, I had the feeling that I would win my first female mandate. But I've lost my way to literature and will never find it again, although I miss it in quiet moments in my life.

After leaving politics, she spent the last twelve years in the village of Libočany. Božena Viková-Kunětická died there on March 18, 1934 with her daughter Vlasta. In the same year Jaroslav Voborník published her biography.

Literary work

Viková-Kunětická work includes short stories , novels , novels , poetry and plays . From 1881 she began to publish publicly under the pseudonym Kunětická . At first she wrote romantic stories, which were published in the magazines Lumír or Květy , for example . Later she focused on larger-scale work, in which she focused more on the personality of women and the gender balance. The novels dealt with current issues of the time, but were often quite untypical. In the novel Medřická , Viková-Kunětická told the story of a young teacher from a mountain village who opted for free motherhood.

Her works were artistically not outstanding, but new and original. Viková-Kunětická had unconventional views that became more radical over time. She also found recognition abroad.

The country's literary archive (Literární archiv Památníku národního písemnictví - LA PNP) preserves your legacy of correspondence, manuscripts, speeches and memories.

politics

In Cisleithanien , Bohemia and Moravia received a census vote in 1907 , which women were still denied. In the 19th century, however, a small number of women were able to vote. For example, women from the large landowners' curia could vote for the imperial council through a proxy. Marie Tůmová and Františka Plamínková founded the Czech Women's Association (Ženský klub český) in Prague in 1903 and campaigned for women to be represented in local and regional elections. In 1908 and 1909 Tůmová failed in two candidacies, but was able to gain respectable success in the votes.

Another opportunity arose in 1912 in the by-elections to the Bohemian Parliament in the Mladá Boleslav - Nymburk district . In December Viková-Kunětická was elected in the second ballot for the Young Czech Party (Národní strana svobodomyslná). She would have been the first woman and representative of the people in Central Europe and in the Czech Parliament. Franz Fürst von Thun refused permission to join and canceled the election result. The assembly did not meet due to German-Czech disputes and was dissolved in July 1913. Czechs and the foreign press continued to perceive them as elected MPs. After her election, Viková-Kunětická gave a number of speeches at home and abroad. She was considered an excellent speaker and the Czech women's movement gained national and international recognition.

After the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918, women were given the right to vote and stand for election. Viková-Kunětická ran on the list of the National Democratic Party (ČsND) and was elected. From 1919 to 1920 she was one of the first women in the Revolutionary National Assembly . According to Turnovska, she assessed her mandate from a national point of view and understood it as a protest against the government of Austria-Hungary, which prevented Czech women from participating in politics. In December 1918, she submitted a proposal for the establishment of a women's welfare office to register all institutions for the protection of women and to support the establishment of counseling for women on family and employment issues.

In 1920 and 1925 Viková-Kunětická ran unsuccessfully for the Upper House of the National Assembly. After Jan Herben left , she was a senator in the first senate of the National Assembly for one month in 1925 (term of office 1920–1925). Viková-Kunětická then retired and in 1926 gave up the chairmanship of the women's organization of her party.

Viková-Kunětickás political positions are controversial. She was a loyal supporter of the national conservative politician Karel Kramář . Her views were radical and she was considered nationalistic, anti-German and anti-Semitic . Viková-Kunětická did not hide her hatred of Jews and President Masaryk and sympathized with fascism .

Viková-Kunětická positioned itself rather against the women's movement of the time and created its own value system. She saw motherhood as a divine mission and at the same time a woman's duty to the nation. In her literary work she defended free love. Their views were often very theoretical and at times quite vague.

Honors

In 1927 Božena Viková-Kunětická with Eliška Krásnohorská was appointed a member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts . You were among the first women to receive this award.

In Žatec (Saaz) a street was named after her .

Works (selection)

Short stories

• Povídky (1887)
• Drobné povídky (1888)
• Čtyři povídky (1890)
• Po svatbě (1892)
• Nové povídky (1892)
• Vdova po chirurgovi (1893)
• Idylky (1894)
• Silhouetty mužů (1899)
• Staří mládenci a jiné povídky (1901)
• Macecha a jiné črty (1902)

Novels and short stories

• Justyna Holdanová (1892)
• Minulost (1895)
• Medřická (1897)
• Vzpoura (1901)
• Pan (1905)

Poetry

• Má lásko (1908; pseudonym: Ignota )

Stage plays

Comedies

• Sběratelka starožitností (1890)
• Neznámá pevnina (1899)
• Dospělé děti (1909)
• Reprezentantka domu (1911)

Others

• V bludišti (1890)
• V jařmu (1897)
• Co bylo (1902)
• Holčička (1905)
• Lidé (1909)

Lectures, essays and studies

• Švýcarské scenerie (travel pictures, 1902)
• Věřím (Spiritist Reflections, 1908)
• Dobytí severu (1912)
• Dál! (Lectures 1912)
• Vyznání (Studies, 1919)
• Pred lety (1920)
• Sebrané spisy (Collected Writings in Five Volumes, 1919–1922)

literature

• Boz̆ena Viková-Kunĕtická. Your work in Prague; A necessary historical correction about the work of the Czech writer and first member of the former Austro-Hungarian Imperial Council in Vienna . Leipzig 1993.
• Luboš Velek: "The" first female member of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Bohemian Parliament in 1912 . In: Austrian Journal of History, Volume 26 (2015), No. 2. pp. 41–69.
• Jan Voborník: Božena Viková-Kunětická. Česká akademie věd a umění, Prague 1934.

Web links

Commons : Božena Viková-Kunětická  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Petra Holá: Zajímavosti: první česká poslankyně Božena Viková Kunětická .
• Literature by and about Božena Viková-Kunětická in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Luboš Velek: "The" first female member of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Bohemian Landtag in 1912 . In: Austrian Journal of History , 2015. pp. 41–69.