Mind the Gap: On the Absence of Writing Women in German-Language Literature of the Czech Lands

Abstract

The absence of female writing forms a particularly striking gap in the historiography of German-language literature in the Czech Lands during the decades around 1900. Women participated significantly in the literary scene of the period but were largely forgotten. Our article will discuss the conditions and discourses that enabled women to be active in the public space but later led to their absence in literary history. Approaches are sought that make future inclusion possible again. The first step for (re-)establishing a female presence in this area is to reconstruct biographies with a focus on female-specific social realities at the time and on the interaction of cultural, social and historical factors. In the next step, attention is brought to the “minor” or “simple”, rather non-canonical literary genres that were often used by women authors at the fin de siècle.