Uherské cesty Boženy Němcové (K některým národopisno-cestopisným dílům)

• Authors: Markéta Palowská

Title variants

EN

Hungarian travels of Božena Němcová

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The Czech writer and women’s rights activist Božena Němcová (1817-1820 to 1862) is known to the general public as an author of fairy tales, stories and novels which are set predominantly in the rural environment. However, a narrower circle of interested people and experts knows her travel writing, in which she not only described the landscape and reported masterly on the visited places, but also noted the way of life of local inhabitants. She recorded the course of the folk customs, rituals and celebrations, as well as accompanying nursery rhymes, songs and further manifestation of folk literature. She also recorded dialectal expressions, which she supplied with explanatory notes. She commented bravely on the character and coexistence of nations within the Austrian Monarchy. the whole-life wandering to various places of the empire began with Božena’s marriage to the financial guard clerk and Czech patriot Josef Němec (1805-1879). Josef Němec was, because of his political views, persecuted by the police and Austrian authorities and transferred from one place to another. It was namely in the period of the so-called Bach absolutism (1850s).

EN

Among others, he was called up several times to Hungary, namely to the towns of Miskolc and Balássgyarmat. Our paper covers that period. Božena Němcová realized four travels to Hungary. The first one from April till May 1851 (Miskolc), the second one from August till October 1852 (Balássagyarmat), the third one from May till October 1853 (Balássagyarmat again), and the last one from August till October 1855 (mostly Slovak villages). She saw a great number of Slovak villages and became fond of Slovaks for life. She collected a lot of Slovak legends and fairy tales. The best known is Sůl nad zlato (The Salt Prince) or Dvanáct měsíčků (The Twelve Months). She also took notice of the life of Slovaks and their coexistence with the Hungarian ethnic group. This paper deals with the above mentioned issues, with remarks on everyday family and social life of both ethnic groups, keeping of the folk traditions and further ethnographic and travelling observations. Attention is paid to the works Vzpomínky z cesty po Uhřích (Hungary Travel Memories) (1854), Uherské město (Hungarian Town) (1858, 1859), Obrázky ze života slovenského (Pictures from the Slovak Life) (1859, 1860) and Z Uher (From Hungary) (1863).

Keywords

EN

Božena Němcová; history of the branch; literary science; travels; Slovakia

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Czech Ethnological Society
• Journal: Národopisný věstník
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 26_(68)
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 101-114
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Markéta Palowská

• Česká národopisná společnost, z. s., Národní třída 3, 117 20 Praha 1, Czech Republic