The Women’s Cause and the National Interest: An Overview of Women’s Social Initiatives and their Interpretations in Hungary from the Mid-19th Century until the 1920s

• In Event: Nationalism and Women’s Emancipation: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The so called ‘Reform Age’ during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy started in the mid-1820s, when Mostly Hungarian noblemen and intellectuals organized for more national freedom of Hungarian culture and social life and also for democratic social changes. At this time the women’s cause and the so called ‘national interest’ went hand in hand, and women were understood as legitimate contributors to the struggles for Hungarian national independence. The proposed paper aims to give an overview of how this initial attitude changed and how women’s endeavors for emancipation became understood later as issues against the ‘interest of the nation’ in the coming decades until the 1920s.

Author

• Judit Acsády, Centre for Social Science (Hungary)