Barbora Rezlerová-Švarcová, née Rezlerová (7 July 1890 – 2 September 1941), was a Slovak

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

and

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

journalist.

Life

Barbora Rezlerová-Švarcová was born in Blaibach, in the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...

on 7 July 1890. Her father, Jozef Rezler, was one of the founders of the

Czech Social Democratic Party Social Democracy (, SOCDEM), known as the Czech Social Democratic Party (, ČSSD) until 10 June 2023, is a social democratic political party in the Czech Republic. Sitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum and holding pro-European ...

. When she was a child, the family moved to Košín,

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

, and she became a textile worker. Sometime during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, she moved to Prague and became a cook. While living there, she married the communist activist, Ladislav Švarc and they had two sons together. They moved to

Banská Bystrica Banská Bystrica (, also known by other #Etymology, alternative names) is a city in central Slovakia, located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Greater Fatra, Veľká Fatra, and t ...

(now in Slovakia) when he became the regional secretary of the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Com ...

there in 1921. Often harassed for their views by the government, they moved to Prague in 1925 and then to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

the following year where she studied at the State Institute of Journalism in Moscow. She later worked at the newspaper ''

Izvestia ''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, r=Izvestiya, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in February 1917, ''Izvestia'', which covered foreign relations, was the organ of the Supreme Soviet of th ...

'' and for the radio station of the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

. Sometime in the 1930s, she and her husband divorced. As suspicions of foreigners increased during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

of the late 1930s, Rezlerová-Švarcová lost her jobs in 1938 and was forced to teach Czech to tourist guides to survive. She was arrested in 1941 and shot on 2 September.

Activities

In 1922–23, she served as the Regional Secretary of the Communist Party organization Slovak Women () and then became the editor-in-chief of the Slovak women's communist magazine ''Proletarian Woman'' () from 1923 to 1925. "She was the first woman journalist in Slovakia to write on feminist issues such as reproductive rights, human rights and the political participation of women, as well as on gender asymmetry in the distribution of political power and legal rights."Juránová, p. 467

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rezlerova-Svarcova, Barbora 1890 births 1941 deaths Slovak feminists Socialist feminists Women's rights activists Communist Party of Czechoslovakia members Czechoslovak Comintern people Great Purge victims Czechoslovak expatriates in the Soviet Union Marxist journalists Executed communists