Polish literary historian Lena Magnone is researching the role of women writers in the Slavic-speaking countries of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. She found peace and inspiration for writing her work in Oldenburg.
On a grey spring afternoon, Lena Magnone has almost cleared out her office. "Tomorrow I just have to pack up my things and send my bike off," she says. The Polish literature scholar's time at the university's Institute of Slavic Studies is almost up. But even though she's busy packing, Magnone raves about her research - and about the place she has come to love: Oldenburg.
"Whenever someone asks me, I always emphasise that there is no better place to do research than the University of Oldenburg," says Magnone. She has found academic inspiration and peace for her work here, and the city enchanted her on her very first visit.
The Polish literary scholar spent a good three years at the university. Two different sponsorships - a Humboldt Foundation scholarship and a position funded by the German Academic Exchange Service - made it possible for Magnone to live and work in Oldenburg. The office in the Institute of Slavic Studies, a red-brick building at the south-eastern tip of the Haarentor campus, and the room in the University Guest House have become a "writing refuge" for her over the past few years.
Magnone, then an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw, came to Oldenburg for the first time in 2018 to take part in a conference organised by the Slavicist Prof. Dr Gun-Britt Kohler. Kohler also inspired her to start the research project she is still working on today: The role that women writers in Slavic-speaking countries of Austria-Hungary played in literary modernism in Central Europe.
Marginalised: Women and their stories
"Literary modernism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries consisted mainly of men's clubs, but I have always been more interested in women's literature," explains Magnone. She scrutinises the common image of a male-dominated literary modernism and examines what united the female writers of the time and how they were able to assert themselves despite the challenges.
At the beginning of the 19th century, female writers played a central role in the formation of national identities in what was then Austria-Hungary, explains Magnone: women wrote in their native Slavic languages such as Polish, Croatian, Bohemian or Ukrainian. Even today, Maria Konopnicka in Poland and Lesya Ukrainka in Ukraine, for example, are honoured for their national literature. In contrast, female writers in countries such as France or England did not play a major role at this time.
In the course of the 19th century, however, the role of women in Central European literature changed. Literary modernism saw itself as apolitical and anti-establishment - its representatives wanted nothing to do with nationalism. As a result, women and their stories were marginalised, explains Magnone.
But how were modernist women writers marginalised and why were they forgotten by literary history? And what strategies were used by the women who were active writers despite everything? Magnone developed these questions further during her first stay as a Humboldt Fellow in dialogue with the Oldenburg researchers. She also travelled to cities such as Zagreb and Prague to spend time in archives.
When the Humboldt Fellowship came to an end, Magnone's research was far from complete. The literary scholar therefore applied for the renowned PRIME initiative of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with the help of Dr Anne Clausen, advisor for research funding in the University's Department for Research and Technology Transfer. The programme offers researchers a fully funded position at a German university for 18 months after completing their doctorate and the opportunity to conduct research abroad for 12 months. The application was successful. "Ms Clausen was a great help," emphasises Magnone.
From Oldenburg to Paris
Thanks to DAAD funding, the literary scholar travelled from Oldenburg to France. Magnone explains that the Sorbonne University in Paris has expertise in the literature of all Slavic languages - from Bohemian to Slovenian, Serbian and Ukrainian. The exchange with the researchers was very important for her. "I was able to reflect on my ideas and develop them further."
However, Magnone only found peace and quiet to write her planned book after her return to Oldenburg. Although her work is still not complete, Magnone can already draw some initial conclusions: In her view, for example, some of the women writers she is looking at were only able to gain a foothold in literary modernism if they married a representative of modernism - a pattern she found in all the small languages of Austria-Hungary.
Magnone says that the fact that women authors wrote in Slavic languages and not in German - the dominant language in Austria-Hungary at the time - also contributed to their marginalisation: due to the language barrier, women were unable to form a transnational feminist movement in "this misogynistic era". But although "the women mostly worked alone, what they wanted to achieve was very similar in all languages in terms of their themes, such as female sexuality or, surprisingly, the fascination with Nietzsche's philosophy, and certain stylistic choices," explains the literary scholar.
The fact that female writers are marginalised or appropriated in Central Europe is still the case today, Magnone emphasises. One example is the Polish writer Maria Konopnicka, who lived from 1842 to 1910, she explains: The former right-wing government in Poland used the author "in her capacity as a national poet and at the same time the radical left regarded her as an LGBT icon." For Magnone, this shows how relevant her work is, even with regard to today's societies.
