Teréza Nováková, née Lanhausová (31 December 1853 – 13 November 1912) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

author, editor, and

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

Life

Teréza Nováková was born in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

in the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...

(now the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

). She married a secondary school teacher, Josef Novák, and they had six children together. Novák got a job in

Litomyšl Litomyšl (; german: Leitomischl) is a town in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,900 inhabitants. It is former bishopric and Latin Catholic titular see. Litomyšl is known for the château-type castle c ...

, in eastern Bohemia, and Nováková became interested in the local

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

, influenced by the work of Karolína Světlá who she had worked with earlier in Prague. She also founded the Association of Ladies and Girls ( cs, Spolek paní a dívek) for the local middle-class women. Nováková loved the area and eventually bought a

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...

there, although the death of her eldest daughter in 1895 caused her to return to Prague. In 1903, Nováková bought a house in Proseč, where she wrote her most important works, including ''Drašar'', ''Jiří Šmatlán'', and ''Úlomky žuly''. Her health began to decline in 1907. She died in Prague on 13 November 1912.

Activities

Nováková began writing articles, short stories and novels while living in Litomyšl, the early ones depicting conventional middle-class life. By 1890, when she published ''A Small-Town Novel'' ( cs, Maloměstský román), "she turned to realism in an attempt to condemn what she thought of as the insular national idealization of Czech society." Nováková published the most ethnographic of her articles in the journal, ''Housewife'' ( cs, Domací hospodyně), with others going to

Čeněk Zíbrt Čeněk Zíbrt (1864–1932) was a Czech people, Czech ethnographer and historian, specializing in folk culture. Publications *"Jak se kdy v Čechách tancovalo: dějiny tance v Čechách, na Moravě, ve Slezsku a na Slovensku z věkǔ nejstarš� ...

's journal, ''The Czech People'' ( cs, Český lid). Her early articles did not challenge conventional attitudes about women and their role in the family, but, by the early 1890s, she had "published two important studies of women’s social status. In the first, ''On

J. S. Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...

The Subjection of Women ''The Subjection of Women'' is an essay by English philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill published in 1869, with ideas he developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. Mill submitted the finished manuscript ...

'' ( cs, J. S. Millovo Poddanství žen), Nováková expounded on Mill’s concepts of freedom and responsibility with regard to women. In the second, '' L. N. Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata from a Feminine Perspective'' ( cs, L. N. Tolstojova Kreutzrova sonata ze stanoviska ženského), she reviewed the debates over double moral standards for men and women that had been generated by Tolstoy's controversial work."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Novakova, Tereza 1853 births 1912 deaths Writers from Prague Czech feminists Czech women novelists 19th-century Czech novelists Czech women's rights activists Czech ethnographers 19th-century Czech women writers Ethnographers from Austria-Hungary Writers from Austria-Hungary Czech anthropologists Women anthropologists