Katja Mihurko

The paper will explore the ways in which the development of genres in the literature of Slovene women writers was connected with the overall program of the Slovene literature in the 19th century. The themes that occur in the works of women writers of that period did not always fit the expectations of that program: women chose the same genre as did male writers, but they showed scenes from women’s lives instead.

Slovene women writes began to publish after the revolution year 1848 when they were encouraged to enter the public sphere as representatives of the Slovene nation. They wrote nation constructive poems. At the end of the 19th century Pavlina Pajk wrote novels which were comsidered as trivial literature although they did not differ much from the works of her male contemporaries. The apparently unfair reception of Pajk's work could be one of the reasons why women writers at the turn of the century chose other genres, such as the short story, novelette or sketch.

One of the central questions of my paper will also be why women writers in the 19th century did not celebrate themselves as authors in the dramatic genre although some of them left behind some dramatic fragments.

SvD, February 2009

---

• Conferences > NEWW international conferences > Bochum 2009 > Mihurko