Constructions of modern Czech masculinity and feminity in memoirs written at the turn of the 19th century (1870–1918)

Memoirs as a literary genre

Memoirs, as a literary genre, are personal testimonies describing events, both public and private, which took place in the author’s life (Bertaud and Cuche, 1995). As a genre closely related to autobiography, memoirs differ in their narrower focus describing a particular story or particular stories rather than the whole life of an author. Emphasizing the subjective experience, memoirs may complement (but also contradict) official historical discourses. They can be also distorted, consciously and unconsciously; they can contain errors and omissions. However, their most important and debated factor is the relationship between the subjective ‘self’ and the larger historical and cultural background. Often described as the ‘coherent self’ (Abrams, 2010: 52), self is always understood as reliant on a larger cultural background for the discourse, model, language and, what is most important in this article, the cultural expression of masculinities and feminities. This particular tension between the ‘power of individual agency’ and the ‘power of culture’ (Abrams, 2010: 48) will be particularly discussed in the article given the examples of memoirs written by emerging Czech elite at the turn of the 19th century.

The Czech national movement and the town of Hradec Králové (Königgrätz)

In the second half of the 19th century, Hradec Králové was a medium-sized town in Bohemia’s part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (Wolf, 1993), having a population of around 8000 inhabitants. The most important feature of this provincial town, however, was rather its endeavor for the Czech national cause. Already in the first third of the 19th century, Hradec Králové had become the center of patriotic activities, and the city’s impact on the Czech National Movement increased during the second half of the 19th century. Having had the smallest population of ethnic Germans in comparison with other regional towns in Bohemia (one-third of Bohemia’s population comprised Germans), it could be considered a typical Czech provincial town. Despite a rather small population, it is noteworthy that in the second half of the 19th century, there were as many as four Czech secondary-level educational institutions which had been established to educate only the male population. At the turn of the 19th century, Hradec Králové witnessed an accelerated process of national emancipation and self-identification, and this particular situation was considerably relevant in the memoirs of the period.

Memoirs and methods

Many memoirs related to Hradec Králové are due to the town’s rich and – in comparison to other regional Czech cities – entirely atypical network of educational institutions where many well-known art and public life personalities studied. All memoirs (altogether 80) evoking Hradec Králové have been taken in account, starting with the year 1870 and ending with the conclusion of World War I. The memoirs’ publication, however, might have occurred much later: the first memoirs were published in 1906, the last in 1988 and the majority were published in the interwar era. However, for the purpose of this article, only 18 memoirs recounting the period 1870–1918 were selected and analyzed. These memoirs most significantly depict the phenomena which are related to the birth of modern Czech masculinity and feminity. The publication of these memoirs occurred in the period from 1906 to 1962, with the majority of them published in 1927 (11) and at the turn of the 1950s (5). It is noteworthy that all the selected memoirs were written during a period of relative freedom of expression (during the first democratic Czechoslovak Republic and both before and after the period of Stalinism).

We divided our sample memoirs into several basic types of text. The first and the most frequent type (11 memoirs) comprised collections, usually school almanacs published on the occasion of an anniversary of the given institution (e.g. Památník gymnasia královéhradeckého (Almanach of Hradec Králové’s High School), 1927). They provided valuable testimony not just about the institution in question but also about the lifestyle and the atmosphere in the town as conveyed through student and teacher recollections, regardless of the fact that these texts were ‘commissioned’ or written for a particular occasion. The second type (four memoirs) contained the memories of individuals who wished to leave behind their own personal testimony on events in which they themselves took part. The third and final type (three texts) comprised literary memoirs, a specific form of creative writing.

As already noted, the memoirs depict the beginnings of Czech modern history, that is, the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy and the creation of Czechoslovakia. The atmosphere of the twilight of the monarchy is, in memoirs, perceived as a time of national tension, with a stifling bureaucracy, while the new republic is welcomed with great hope. Public issues belonging to the so-called great history are quite often intertwined with the individual life stories of the authors, even in memoirs from almanacs which were composed on official requests and which can be treated as ideological works supporting the educational system of the new country. The degree of the author’s personal involvement in their texts was extremely high at that time which is something exceptional, with no repetition in later Czech history.

The authors of the memoirs were all ethnic Czechs, most of them coming from the upper middle class. Given the gender dynamics in much of late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe, it is unsurprising that the vast majority (77 of 80) of all the analyzed memoirs were written by men. Many of them were teachers and public officials as well as Czech politicians and top figures in the arts – meaning they were artists, humorists and writers. Nevertheless, literary critics and scholars were also among the memoirs’ authors. Three female-authored memoirs were also investigated (in this article, two memoirs composed by women are analyzed). One woman writer was employed (Vlasta Honzáková who worked as a lawyer in interwar Czechoslovakia), while the other two were housewives who occasionally wrote.

Our method consisted of the careful reading and coding of the parts of the memoirs which related to identity formation and to the evaluation of the contemporary gender roles. Then, the data obtained were analyzed and integrated into a theoretical framework. We include select quotations to illustrate key processes of the identity formation of the emerging Czech elite.

Austrian schools and male education

The memoirs reveal a distinct, though perhaps not yet conscious, process of the emancipation of the Czech male national elite, confronting in their masculinity the hegemonic Austrian pattern. Taking into consideration that rituals of initiation were identified as one of the universal patterns in the formation of masculinity and that Europe’s 19th-century version of the initiation ritual was a harsh educational process of young men (Gilmore, 1990: 14–17), we argue that school education had a particular impact on the Czech elite’s construction of masculinity. Which codes of masculinity were inculcated by severe Austrian education? The main objective of Austrian school education was to establish a value system based on the virtues of the discipline, such as orderliness, skillfulness, thrift, duty and good hygiene. The education process had to emphasize young men’s political loyalty and had to foster their military culture, having had a unifying function in an internally diversified state (Řezníčková, 2007: 55; Svatoš, 2004: 40–46). The Austrian bureaucratic ideology also shaped young men’s masculinity by communicating a message of suppressed emotions and instincts. Anything disconnected from rational thinking had to be eliminated.

Before we analyze the process of the identity construction of the Czech elite, we have to take into account that memoirs are often highly idealized: ‘the memories we have of our school days are usually ones of pleasure, fun and games’ (Vávra, 1927: 59). The authors describe the pleasant and joyful days of youth and tend to consider them the most beautiful time of their lives. On the other hand, memoirs may serve strong political objectives. Some of them, in particular the texts compiled on the occasion of the opening of the new high school building in 1927, were written on request, and as such, they contain discursive elements aimed to support the values of the young Czechoslovak education system. These memoirs reflect anger and even hatred pointed at everything related to Austria, and while such feelings may have been sincere, their political motivation should be also considered.

It may appear surprising in the context of two competing masculine patterns that most of the memoirs give no indication of Austria’s extremely strict disciplinary system. Some provided evidence that the system in Hradec Králové schools raised young men to be obedient, disciplined and self-restrained, therefore possessing much of the desired Austrian white-collar rationalism and emotional self-control: ‘how subjugated our secondary schools were under Austrian administration was apparent in Hradec’ (Vančura, 1927: 23); ‘as self-discipline, concentration, efficiency, depth and self-sufficiency are learned, as the spirit and heart grow firm, one’s character emerges’ (Pražák, 1927: 127).

On the other hand, due to the tendency to idealize one’s youth and childhood, the image of school days transmitted through the memoirs was generally described in positive terms. This concerned both atmosphere in the schools and the relationships between the Czech teachers and students. Here is one example:

the schoolmaster here is not a schoolmaster in the usual, commonplace sense of the word of a man who looks down on us, his subordinates, who are either in a constant, secret war with him or do our best to get on his good side. (Brtnický, 1927: 15)

Superlative assessments of Czech teachers were also found in the other memoirs.

It is also worth noting that all positive assessments of the teachers highlighted features representing a soft model of masculinity, not based on a strict upbringing intended to give young men solid foundations for their future life. Rather, a model of tolerance was instilled in young men as suggested by next examples: ‘he would only ever reprimand a wayward boy in private, in his office, where he alone was present, so as not to shame the boy in front of the class’ (Vrabec, 1927: 40–41); ‘he won us over right away, he was kind to us; we like him, we remember him with great fondness even today’ (Domabyl, 1927: 17, 19). The memoirs also contained some criticism of the teachers, usually focusing on their personal quirks. If such criticism conforms to the self-censorship techniques most employed in the writing of memoirs, it was reinforced, in these cases, by a self-control required by a national discourse.

Masculine schizophrenia

That the memoirists describe their former teachers in superlatives is not in itself unusual. We argue that there are, however, deeper processes at the root of this tendency to idealize and that they could inform us about a particular pattern of masculinity that took shape during the education process. We claim that this concept originated from a particular form of schizophrenia having emerged out of the conflict between simulating loyalty, on one hand, and an inner-hostility toward the hegemonic Austrian order, on the other hand. In this respect, teachers had a very specific position. They were supposed to discipline, punish and form young men in compliance with the rules applied generally in Austrian schools, but instead, according to many of the memoirs, they did everything they could to avoid such disciplinary measures.

These people embodied a very specific model of masculinity. In their role of teachers and superiors, they were obliged to ingrain discipline in their students, not to encourage subversive behavior. Since they could not officially teach young Czech men to subvert the system, they adopted a passive position reflecting a kind of ‘unspoken agreement’ with their students. Most Czech teachers were caught up in an internal moral contradiction that they belonged to two irreconcilable systems: the national Austrian system and the national Czech system, some aspects of the latter having been constrained by the predominance of the former.

The teachers could not be extremely intransigent, strict or harsh toward students, nor execute severe punishment for offenses against the Austrian disciplinary code, especially if the offenses had nationalistic undertones. The position of Czech teachers proved to be extremely difficult in regard to their aim to behave as a masculine pattern for their students. This mental dualism and ambivalence was characterized by Vilém Steinmann, the headmaster of the high school and an undeniable authority for the school’s students: ‘As long as you are here, think what you want and look forward to freedom in the future, but do as you are told’ (Pražák, 1946: 126).

The analyzed memoirs demonstrate that male educators and their young students were, despite the need to operate within the Austrian school system, completely immune to any enforced ideology. Any ideological requirements made them totally indifferent, as if they were only acting to ensure their further career. It is apparent that such a situation did not lead to the creation of a solid masculine identity. Instead, an attitude of conformism was developed among students in Hradec Králové and their teachers. Headmaster Steinmann’s statement reveals a narrow balancing on the edge of the imposed political order and inner convictions. It also depicts a negative attitude toward issues of Austrian discipline and order.

Subversive masculinity

We argue to identify a subversive masculine pattern in the way the memoirists experienced and perceived the oppressive form of disciplinary schooling. One former student wrote,

There was strict discipline. No one was allowed out in the evening. We couldn’t date girls, go to dances or to pubs, and we weren’t allowed to smoke either. Despite this, the gymnasium students smoked, drank beer in the pubs, wooed and dated girls, danced and went to concerts outside Hradec, which is understandable for young people. (Fabinger, 1927: 82)

This extract clearly documents that there was an awareness of disciplinary rules, but despite this the rules were regularly violated, and no one was very surprised by this, violation was almost taken for granted.

The cases of insubordination recorded in the memoirs point to an ‘unspoken agreement’ between teachers and students. This approach can also be found in the following quotation:

there was an unspoken solidarity between teachers and students on various occasions. At such moments we felt that the head of the department was thinking about and wholly alert to how to deflect an attack on our disguised distaste towards every thought and feeling the Monarchy represented. (Bartoš, 1948: 11)

As a result of this ‘unspoken agreement’, a kind of acceptance of violations of discipline and rules emerged (within certain limits) and of actions aimed at subverting the Austrian system as a whole. This gave rise to a different code of masculine behavior which influenced the Czech value system passed onto the male elite. This code seems to have been much softer and not based entirely on discipline. At the same time, however, it contained a dangerous seed of schizophrenic and conformist thinking. In this respect, the significance of the memoirs and a particular transmission and reproduction of this code are important: such messages are not usually found in official historiographical narratives (Borovička et al., 2012; Efmertová 1998; Srb, 1926; Tobolka, 1933; Urban, 1982).

The ‘unspoken agreement’ between teachers and students, anchored in memoirs, rejected unconditional discipline and obedience as the values shaping Czech masculine identity in the 19th century. The memoirs indicate that the formation of the public dimension of Czech masculinity was founded on a wavering discipline and on the subversion of anything official or superior in rank.

The specificity of Czech masculine identity in the 19th century irresistibly raises the question of the later political impact of such a formation of the male national elite. If masculinity is supposed to have shaped some of the central events of history and if the history of masculinity is fundamentally concerned with relations with power (Sinha 1999: 446,449), it is a question as to what extent such a subversive pattern of masculinity, based on complicity and resistance, affected Czechoslovak history in the 20th century. To what extent can the attitudes of Czechoslovak political elites during the tough times on the edges of two totalitarianisms be treated as the result of such a masculinity? Although there is a lack of studies which would examine this issue in the Czech case, a balancing between complicity to a hegemonic pattern and resistance toward it, whether it had a Nazi, Communist or neoliberal character, could have been deeply rooted in the collective pattern of Czech masculinity.

Czech elite’s soft masculinity and the crisis of masculinity

The period under examination was also one in which the concept of gender was subject to re-evaluation from various perspectives. Elaine Showalter (1991) characterized the late 19th century in Western culture as a period of a kind of ‘sexual anarchy’ during which the concept of gender relations was wholly redefined (pp. 3, 9). Scholarly studies on the historical aspects of masculinity argued that a ‘sexual anarchy’ entailed a strong ‘crisis of masculinity’ and considered Vienna to be the geographical center of this crisis. Among various aspects of this crisis, men’s fears about the loss of traditional gender differences have been recognized as most important. This fear generated worries about the loss of male identity and dominance (Le Rider, 1993: 79–80).

The behavior of young men in Hradec Králové, as transmitted through their memoirs, is particularly revealing in this aspect. No negative effects of the proclaimed change in gender relations and in shifting gender roles are mentioned; on the contrary, women’s emancipation appears to be welcomed by the memoir writers. A telling illustration is provided in the following extracts focusing on a self-educational organization called Mansard. Although this organization was founded by students (and it went without saying that it was intended for men), the author notes a considerable number of women, more precisely young women, participating in this process of self-education: ‘all the boys were in love; each of them had his own girl, they went on dates, they lent the girls books – even modern ones that no woman had ever seen before’ (Červený, 1962: 10).

The extract clearly shows that during the period of ‘sexual anarchy’, young men in Hradec Králové were open to the new gender order, particularly in relation to education and the new role of women in society. The texts of the memoirs do not reveal any traces of fear caused by women’s emancipation:

The students won over female readers at dances, they brought and foisted books upon them. Along with each work of literature the girls were always given some anticlerical or political pamphlet. The girls, thus, increasingly showed signs of a Mansard education. It was not uncommon for a male student and his girl, instead of going out, to go to a reading room together. (pp. 37, 100, 112)

In particular, the references about reading books made by the young men in question provide valuable information as to a new pattern of masculinity attractive to them. Not all books were recommended for reading – only those connected with Czech nationalism were worthy of it. The authors frequently explain their motivation for reading books:

The second main feature of student life at that time was the great voraciousness with which everything that was appearing in Czech literature was read. […] especially Machar and Masaryk were carefully read and quotations and thoughts were noted down. (Kudrnovský, 1927: 123)

People such as Masaryk and Machar, as mentioned in the above quotation, were particularly important for the concept of Czech national masculinity which was communicated to young male elites during the period of the ‘sexual anarchy’. The pro-emancipation tones of some of the writings of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and of modernist Czech poet Josef Svatopluk Machar, discussed extensively by historians and literary scholars (Filipowicz, 2010: 103–115; Hannam et al., 2000: 179; Skilling, 1994: 114–120) had a tremendous impact on young men’s opinions and their identity construction. For example, Mill’s famous essay arguing in favor of equality between the sexes, ‘The Subjection of Women’ (1869), was read in Hradec Králové very soon after it had been published in Czech in 1890 (the work was translated by Charlotte Garrigue, Masaryk’s American wife).

Referring exclusively to Czech national literature, young men from Hradec Králové consciously rejected reading any other literary works, including decadent literature, containing motives of the fear of feminity (Gilmore, 2001: 115–135; Le Rider, 1993: 91), which obviously could have strengthened their misogynist inclinations and their approval of the crisis of masculinity. Instead of that, they identified themselves with softer patterns of masculinity and rejected both the existing gender order and the Austrian pattern of masculinity as was imposed on them by the Austrian educational system.

In this section, we have argued that the memoirs offer a valuable insight into the formation of a softer masculine pattern of the emerging Czech national elite in comparison with their Austrian counterparts. We have identified a particular tension between two competing masculine patterns embedded in the behavior of the Czech teachers and described it as a kind of ‘masculine schizophrenia’. Also, modern Czech masculinity was constructed as subversive to the Austrian hegemonic masculinity and was connected to a completely different perception of the crisis of masculinity. Rather than accepting the ‘crisis’, the young Czech elite profited from the liberal spirit of the women’s emancipation process and welcomed it, expressing their sympathy with it.

The previous section’s analysis of the memoirs focused on the public life of the memoirists, particularly referring to the educational institutions. Next, we will turn our attention to family background with the aim to confront the already-analyzed constructions of masculinity with their expressions in the private sphere, that is, the family. Attributed to women during that period, the family background is an excellent place to explore the constructions of Czech women’s feminity, and it is with them that we begin.

Mothers and their constructions as expressed by men

Although memoirists mention occasionally the women they loved or the women who initiated them to the world of the erotic, the main female figure in the man’s memoir was undoubtedly his mother. The 19th-century motherhood was a vocation of every women, and the sign of her virtue has been described in much historical scholarship (Abrams, 2002; Badinter, 1981). Only as a mother could a woman obtain a prestigious social position, fulfill her social role and become respected by other members of the family.

It is not surprising that mothers in the memoirs of men are described stereotypically as submissive housewives and caregivers, according to the contemporary gender norms attributed to women. Their devotion in taking care of the family was a frequent topic described by the memoirists. Loved and admired, mothers were also often pitied in the memoirs. For example, one of the memoirists recalled everything that his mother had to do in order to support the family:

Oh my mother! That dear, heavenly soul, whom I remember with the deepest feelings and the most tender love. Mother had a job and she laboured there to the point of exhaustion. Fun, walks, theatre – she was a stranger to all that. (Štolba, 1906: 19–21)

The list of things Štolba’s mother used to do shows how vigorous and forceful she was. His father was not absent from the family; he worked as a clerk and he helped raise his sons, but it is obvious that his mother bore the main responsibility for the family, even for its material wellbeing.

The striking fact is that the descriptions of mothers are alike to the extent that it appears all memoirists describe the same woman – a caring, loving, self-sacrificing saint. All narrators emphasized that, in spite of their mothers’ hard work, they were able to function first of all as caring mothers. The memoirists also stressed that the only reward for their mothers’ unconditional sacrifices was the everlasting love, respect and generous compassion of her children, in this case of their sons. The evocation of an ideal mother, not a real woman, is apparent in the language used in reference to mothers: darling mother, dear, heavenly soul, labored there to the point of exhaustion, a stranger to fun, mother’s strictness connected with her selfless goodness, her sweet and gentle nature. The descriptions of the mothers, but not those of the fathers, lack any individualizing features; none of the memoirs portrays women with specific personal characteristics. We know nothing personalized about their appearance, their behavior and their activities.

Women, in contrast to men, are presented as ‘ideals’ that correspond to the expectations and preconceptions of the time. Nevertheless, there is certain contradiction in such a description. The above-mentioned tendency to idealize childhood led the memoirists to create portraits of mothers that conformed to contemporary ideals. However, the events associated with the mothers in the memoirs suggest their completely different image. Mothers, and women in general, appear much more resilient and autonomous than in their idealized constructions. There is, thus, a clear discrepancy between the construction of mothers in the memoirs, as influenced by contemporary gender norms, and the image conveyed by the facts that the narrators recall or are willing to recall in their recollections.

Mothers and their constructions reflected in the female memoirs

In this section, we focus on the memoirs written by women themselves. There were only three such in our sample, but we argue that the female memoirs offer a sharply different perception of gender roles and of the identity constructions than the male ones. We draw extensively on the memoirs by Helena Čapková, the sister of two important brothers: the world-famous novelist Karel Čapek and the prominent modernist artist Josef Čapek; we also draw on the memoirs of Vlasta Honzáková, a prominent lawyer in interwar Czechoslovakia.

In her memoirs Moji milí bratři (My Dear Brothers, 1986), Helena Čapková referred to the years during which her brother was a student at the high school in Hradec Králové. The social position of Helena’s family was brilliant: her father was a doctor and her mother was a voracious reader as well as a collector of ethnographic artifacts. The family extensively supported the two boys, but not Helena, the eldest sibling. She wanted to continue her studies and especially study medicine, but she was also a talented pianist. Helena recounted how disappointed she had been after having told her mother about her ambitions and her mother had responded: ‘You are out of your mind. I’ve noticed for some time now your aversion to housework. Has it not occurred to you that we still have two boys? And you want to loll about studying?’ (p. 177).

She was not yet 18 years and her mother decided to marry her off: ‘But remember, my darling, it is time to become seriously engaged; we made a lot of sacrifices for you and one day you have to leave home’ (p. 196). Comparing this excerpt to the image of the idealized mothers of the male memoirists, we can argue for a very different position of mothers toward their daughters. The very same mothers were remembered differently by daughters and sons as it is evident from Helena’s brothers’ accounts:

Our mother was a very vigorous, sensitive, surprisingly well-read, alert creature; even in the remote countryside, she managed to stay abreast of modern literature; she loved Šlejhar; Zola was an event for her. She had an enormous understanding of everything that her children turned towards with their first dreams. (Čapek, 1958: 26–27)

Mother was a romantic; she was intensely fired with emotion, talent, and utter impracticality. (Čapek, 1959: 76)

The striking fact is not that the memories of mothers are gendered, but that in the way the image of a mother is constructed embodies the contradictions which existed between the model of a progressive Czech female patriot at the turn of the 19th century and the socially required position of a woman belonging to the household. On one hand, a mother was required to fulfill the duties assigned to her under the ideology of separate gender spheres (emphasized by a sense of duty also forced on her daughter), but, on the other hand, it was expected that she should take an interest in modern literature, which paradoxically often criticized the bourgeois gender ideology. The result of such contradictions could be perceived in inconsistent portraits, of a real woman, on one hand – callous and ruthless (as narrated by the daughter) – and an ‘emotional and impractical creature’ (as remembered by the sons), on the other.

Women as seen by other women

However paradoxical in their appreciations of other women, the accounts of Helena Čapková did not differ from the position of her generation. Born in 1886, she belonged to the generation that witnessed dramatic changes in the gender roles. Her memoirs described many stories about the other women, particularly about her mother and her grandmother, which illustrated the process of the change. For example, she remembered how her grandmother (whom her promiscuous husband infected with a venereal disease) drove away her grandfather’s mistress and described in detail the way her grandfather reacted to her grandmother’s unexpected acting: ‘grandfather beat her black and blue until she was left almost witless on the floor like a piece of debris’ (1986: 82).

Such brutal behavior of her grandfather, however, is not condemned in Čapková’s memoirs. The memoirist seems to accept her grandfather’s violent nature, expressing a great esteem toward her grandmother who accepted her husband’s brutishness with resignation. She even strongly appreciated her grandmother’s humility: ‘Nor was she bothered by his disregard; he was only trying to show that to him she was just a woman, who doesn’t even have a soul. She was so inordinately proud of her marriage to the extraordinary Karel, who outshone all the others!’ (1986: 42).

Although Helena Čapková expressed a completely different appreciation of her own position in the gendered society, she still judged her grandmother according to the persistent gender norms: to be a good wife, subordinated to a husband, having only one purpose in life – to look after the family. Gender roles had indeed begun to change, but in Helena Čapková’s generation, the construction of female identity was still influenced by the dominant gender discourses of the time.

Women among men and persistent gender inequality

In the sections above, we have evoked the pro-emancipatory readings of the memoirists. We have noticed that their national emancipation entailed women’s emancipation which was extensively discussed among Hradec Králové’s young elite. However, the discussions on gender equality and on the necessary change in women’s social roles were not echoed in the real actions of men and their activities. The female memoirists often described difficulties in their struggle to achieve a kind of independence, particularly in relation to their education.

Although the first female graduate of the classic gymnasium (high school) in Hradec Králové dates back to 1912, women graduates were rare before the 1920s. Vlasta Honzáková (1927), a high school student in 1915–1923, recalled,

My admission to gymnasium was not an easy process. I passed the entrance examination, but I wasn’t allowed to go to school. After six weeks I was finally admitted as an observer, but this was by no means an enviable position. I had to take exams in the middle of the year, which meant much more work and mastering all the material for the first half year in all the subjects at once, while my agile peers were excused from many things in the semester, but they still looked down on me and viewed my marks with suspicion. (pp. 180–183)

This excerpt documents that while it was officially possible for women to break the gender rules, the change was not supported by men at all. Female students received little sympathy from their teachers and peers alike. Unlike men, women’s identity formation was not emphasized by any kind of an ‘unspoken agreement’ between them and their teachers; they were obviously considered as belonging to their traditional private sphere. These findings are far more striking considering the fact that some of these women’s peers were the students who at the time or even earlier had been actively debating the issue of the social equality of women.

In that way, the memoirs present a valuable research tool regarding how to investigate the construction of female identities in the period of changing gender roles. New educational opportunities were opened to women not only in the capital but also in regional towns like Hradec Králové, and official historical narratives offer serious facts proving the progress of emancipation (Wolf, 1993: 50–63). Nevertheless, the memoirs, in contrast to official history, identify the other side of this emancipatory process, considering women as still belonging to the household. Hard work, modesty and sacrifice, such virtues were attributed to women even in the period of the rapid change in gender roles. Čapková’s texts disapprove this state of affairs, Honzáková’s memoirs witness an activity aiming at the construction of the modern Czech feminity.

In previous sections, we argued for the importance of the memoirs when studying the constructions of Czech masculinity and feminity at the turn of the 19th century. While the memoirs of men suggest a real emancipatory process on the way, the female memoirs, even if a smaller number of them have been accessible, are far more nuanced, witnessing the difficulties and stereotypical gendered thinking of men, even of those apparently most progressive.