Marína Miloslava Hodžová, a writer of letters (to Viliam Pauliny-Tóth)

Abstract

Marína Miloslava Hodžová (1842 – 1920), the eldest daughter of the priest, national revivalist intellectual, and poet Michal Miloslav Hodža, was known in Slovak nationalist circles in the second half of the 19th century as an actress, organiser of educational and cultural events, teacher, and her father’s helper. However, she is also the author of a rather extensive correspondence, a significant part of which consists of letters addressed to the editor, novelist, and politician Viliam Pauliny-Tóth (1826 – 1877). The corpus the article studies consists of the published collection of Hodždová’s letters. However, the letters are perceived here not only as sources of historical facts, but also as representations of a specific literary genre. Methodologically, the author of the article draws on a combination of two approaches: research into letter-writing which views letters as communicative media with a fictional and aesthetic potential and gender studies that refers to the gendered contexts of literary production and the social structures of the national community. The article focuses on literary representations of the self in Hodžová’s correspondence and the motifs and attitudes she adopts from the national movement discourse. The author aims to contribute to the discussions of the position, possibilities and limitations of women in the Slovak national movement in the 1860s.

Keywords

• correspondence
• women in the national movement
• marína hodžová
• viliam pauliny-tóth