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UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 7th Annual International Postgraduate Conference

Inclusion Exclusion

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Friday 17 February  2:30 – 4:00: Panel F2: Development and Nationalism in South-East Europe

Orsolya Kereszty (Eötvös Lorand University): ‘Women’s spaces in nation-building discourses in Hungary in the era of the Dual Monarchy’

The so-called new Hungarian national consciousness that was being formed in the 19^th century had clear and strict gender characteristics from the beginning. The ‘homeland’ and the ‘country’ were constructed as a feminine entity, whereas it was the duty of the men to protect them. Therefore the Hungarian nation was constructed as masculine, with reference to a male identity. I develop this claim further and argue that gender relations always refer to power relations, which I aim to demonstrate with a content analysis of various journals from Hungary form the era of the Dual Monarchy.

My paper aims to develop a context that helps to analyze the continuous (re)producing relationship between gender and nation-building in Hungary in the era of the dualism. How was the Hungarian nation imagined given its politically dominant role in Hungary, though ethnically constituting the minority? Whose imagined nation was this? I suggest an approach on the construction of women’s spaces in nation-building that was sometimes ‘hidden’, but one of the key elements that suggested strict inclusion. My main focus is on women’s education as the primary means of inclusion in the nation-building processes, including both the elementary and the secondary level. From 1868 both genders in Hungary were to attend elementary school and learn Hungarian by law, which served as an inclusionary practice on the surface, but with strong assimilatory purposes. The first state secondary school for girls opened in 1896 after women were admitted to certain departments of higher education in 1895. The role of secondary education was to educate the ‘future national leaders’ of the country, which included both genders from the late 1890s.

My research is multi-disciplinary, using theoretical and methodological approaches of gender studies, history of education, political science, cultural studies, and theory of education. I analyze the segments of the gendered nation-building discourses and their relation to women’s education in the era of the Dual Monarchy in Hungary. I analyze visions and debates over women’s roles in nation-building projects in various primary sources, and also discourses about women’s education including the Hungarian journal Nemzeti Nőnevelés (National Female Education) (1879-1919) that was a medium for public debate over a variety of conceptualizations of the educational era, Magyar Paedagogia (Hungarian Pedagogy) (1892-1918) that aimed to represent the so called scientific stream of pedagogy, Magyar Középiskola (Hungarian High School) (1908-1918), and Népművelés (Adult Education) (1906-1917).

Finally I aim to suggest an approach on nation-building processes based on the analysis presented above, given the Hungarian nation’s politically hegemonic situation but being ethnically the minority.