Ženy od A do Z : příbuzné Ladislava a Antonína Zápotockého v generační perspektivě

• Authors: Martin Jelínek , Michal Stehlík

Title variants

EN

Women from A to Z: the Zápotocký family across generations

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The present study provides a broader, three-generational view of the family of one of the leading figures of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa, KSČ), that of Czechoslovak Prime Minister and President Antonín Zápotocký (1884-1957) and his father, the social-democratic politician Ladislav Zápotocký (1852-1916), in the period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid twentieth century. The authors focus on female actors, especially Antonín's mother, Barbora Zápotocká (the heroine of his children's book Barunka, 1855-1925), his three sisters, his wife Marie Zápotocká (1890-1981) and two daughters. They also discuss his third, almost unknown illegitimate daughter, Táňa (born Antonie) Tůmová. In doing so, they move away from the traditional focus on the dominant figure of Antonín Zápotocký, without denying his sometimes significant or even decisive influence on the family's fate and political orientations, and from the idealized image as established by Zápotocký himself in his autobiographical fiction and later by communist propaganda. The authors show that the female element was prominent in the Zápotocký family and place their lives in the context of the women's emancipation movement. They conclude that the women often played more than a passive role in caring for the family and raising children, and that they were involved in public affairs, usually within the labour movement. The most interesting and peculiar in this respect is the successful career of Zápotocký's sister, Julie Himmelsdorferová (1882-1943), who did not join the newly founded Communist Party and served as a social-democratic municipal politician on the council of the Moravian regional town of Olomouc from 1923 to 1939. Between the wars, Antonín's daughter Marie Zápotocká-Kaiserová (1911-1954) went to work as a textile designer in Berlin and the Soviet Union.

Keywords

CS

Československo; dělnické hnutí; ženská emancipace; sociální demokracie; Komunistická strana Československa (KSČ); Antonín Zápotocký; Ladislav Zápotocký; Marie Zápotocká; Julie Himmelsdorferová; ženy v rodině Antonína Zápotockého

EN

Czechoslovakia; labour movement; women's emancipation; social democracy; Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; Antonín Zápotocký; Ladislav Zápotocký; Marie Zápotocká; Julie Himmelsdorferová; women in the Antonín Zápotocký family

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
• Year: 2025
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 68-101
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Martin Jelínek

• Soudobé dějiny, redakce, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i., Vlašská 9, 118 40 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Michal Stehlík

• Soudobé dějiny, redakce, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i., Vlašská 9, 118 40 Praha 1, Czech Republic