Becoming a Woman Writer: The Self-representations in the Letters of Women Writers of the Slovenian Modern

In the period of the Slovene moderna in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century Slovenian women writers were establishing themselves in the literary field for the first time. With the analysis of their correspondences from the point of view of the history of emotions we focus on how they experienced the new roles they assumed in this period: the writer/poet, the editor, the intellectual, the critic and emancipated woman. The analysis shows the struggles they experienced when trying to be a part of the Slovenian literary system. Their letters were a place of critical reflection and intimate relationships forming a community of women writers that at the time were a marginalised group.