Shaking the Empire, Shaking Patriarchy: The Growth of a Feminist Consciousness across the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy by Agatha Schwartz, Helga Thorson (review)

Feminism within the Austro-Hungarian Empire has received relatively little academic attention. This is partially due to the relatively small number of studies of women in the Empire in general, which often focus on empresses like Maria Theresa and Elizabeth, women as mothers of nations or charitable organizations in the context of World War I. In addition, the close interconnection between feminism and nationalist movements, the relatively small size of women’s rights groups, the natural search for continuities between social movements and successor states, and feminists’ failure to effect significant legal change have all hindered a coherent telling of Habsburg feminism. Agatha Schwartz and Helga Thorson’s collection of primary sources, Shaking the Empire: Shaking the Patriarchy, shows that the story is rich and complex. While feminism generally failed to gain acceptance within the Empire, there was significant progress in achieving a feminist consciousness and a wider discussion of women’s rights and roles. Schwartz and Thorson draw from novels, plays, manifestos, and articles. As befitting a reader devoted to the culture of Austria-Hungary, Shaking the Empire, Shaking the Patriarchy is incredibly diverse, with selections from all of the crownlands and translated documents from a dozen languages. The subjects of the sources are likewise diverse, ranging from condemnations of patriarchal and religious hypocrisy, to organizational documents, to novels, to nationalistic aspirations. All in all, Schwartz and Thorson give a sense of the many flavors of feminist thought within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Schwartz and Thorson start with an excellent overview of feminism across the Empire and then launch into a dozen nationally organized breakdowns of local and crownland feminist organizations and writers. While this can encompass a dizzying amount of personalities and competing aspirations, the approach illustrates several important trends. First, feminist movements across Europe, America, and elsewhere also had to overcome regional, cultural, and ideological differences. The Austro-Hungarian case does represent a somewhat extreme level of difficulty due to language barriers, but feminist movements naturally are made up of very haphazard coalitions. Second, the national overviews show some commonalities but really emphasize the disparities separating, say, Italian, Romanian, and Polish feminists. Viennese feminists had to answer the prevailing Freudian worldview, while Ukrainians were usually more concerned with literacy and economic conditions. Slovak, Polish, and Italian feminisms were much more tied to their respective national projects than was the case for Austrians. Likewise, this section illustrates the varied outcomes to the feminist movements of the Empire. Hungarian feminism fared much worse under the conservative Horthy government than did Czechoslovak feminists. Schwartz and Thorson provide twenty-five documents ranging from across the Empire, organized thematically. This occasionally has the disadvantage of confusing the reader but has the real advantage of allowing alternate perspectives on an issue. Kazimiera Bujwidowa’s forceful “Should Women Have the Same Rights as Men?” pairs nicely with the more subtle and literary “A Conversation” by Olha Kobylianska. These two selections are combined with a literary exploration of the new roles for women, Terka Lux’s Girls, giving the whole section an example for application.

Most of the thematic sections combine fiction with manifestos, proclamations, and speeches. One exception is the section on sexuality, which features only fictional portrayals of sex. It focuses overwhelmingly on sexual violence and behavior seen as deviant at the time. Grete Meisel-Hess’s Fanny Roth gives a fictional example of marital rape, Gabriella Zapolska’s “Kitten” shows spousal neglect and abuse, and Růžena Jesenská’s “A World Apart” explores lesbianism, if somewhat tentatively. These readings combined give a good sense of the conservative and patriarchal values of the time. “Kitten” in particular also draws attention to hypocrisy and double standards of the time. Women are often at the mercy of their abusive husbands and fathers in these stories, a sadly common fate in the Empire.

As with most works on the...