Description
Book Synopsis Milena Jesenská, born in Prague in 1896, is most famous as one of Franz Kafka's great loves. Although their relationship lasted only a short time, it won the attention of the literary world with the 1952 publication of Kafka's letters to Milena. Her own letters did not survive. Later biographies showed her as a fascinating personality in her own right. In the Czech Republic, she is remembered as one of the most prominent journalists of the interwar period and as a brave one: in 1939 she was arrested for her work in the resistance after the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, and died in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944.
It is estimated that Jesenská wrote well over 1,000 articles but only a handful have been translated into English. In this book her own writings provide a new perspective on her personality, as well as the changes in Central Europe between the two world wars as these were perceived by a woman of letters. The articles in this volume cover a wide range of topics, including her perceptions of Kafka, her understanding of social and cultural changes during this period, the threat of Nazism, and the plight of the Jews in the 1930s.
Trade Review “Jesenská’s essays offer firsthand observations on a society that was slowly imploding between the years 1920 and 1939 [and] will certainly encourage lively classroom debates (especially in women’s studies, political science and history courses) concerning politics, the condition of women, and social problems of yesterday and today.” · Slavic and East European Journal
Table of Contents Acknowledgements
A Note on the Text
Introduction
Illustrations
I. Articles from Tribuna, 1920–1922
What People Eat in Vienna
The New Big-City Type
Bathing Costumes
The New Big-City Type II
The Café
The Letters of Eminent People
Shop-Windows
The Household and Overalls
Dance over the Abyss
Children
My Friend
Mysterious Redemption
Melancholy in the Rain
Superficial Small Talk about a Serious Subject
II. Articles from Národní listy and Lidové noviny, 1922–1929
On the Psychology of the New Society
Devil at the Hearth
The Bath, the Body and Elegance
A Few Old-Fashioned Comments About Women’s Emancipation
A Theme that has Nothing to do with Fashion
A Beautiful Woman
From One Person to Another
The Curse of Outstanding Qualities
For Whom Do We Write About Fashion in the Newspapers?
Baby
A Cry for Independence
Civilised Woman?
III. Articles from Pˇrítomnost, 1938–1939
Judge Lynch in Europe
There will be no Anschluss
Hundreds of Thousands Looking for No-Man’s-Land
Beyond Our Strength
What Remains of the Communist Party?
Married Women out of Work
In No-Man’s-Land
Good Advice is Better than Gold
Prague, the Morning of 15 March 1939
The Art of Standing Still
Am I, First and Foremost, Czech?
Soldaten wohnen auf den Kanonen…
Bibliography
Index
