Alongside innovation, creativity is an important driver of economic and social development. For this reason, Slovenia’s Intellectual Property Office has decided to draw attention to five notable women who were active in the fields of literature, theatre, journalism, translation and education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
At a time when the world of the arts was far less welcoming to women than it was to their male peers, they had to struggle even harder, more courageously and more unbendingly to win the recognition that was due to them. The works of these women, who lived and worked both in Slovenia and abroad, have left an important mark in Slovene history.
Zofka Kveder was born in Ljubljana. By the age of eighteen she was already writing short stories and novellas. She wrote articles on the difficult situation of women for the newspaper Slovenski narod. She then lived for several years in Trieste, Bern, Munich and Prague, devoting herself entirely to writing, translating and journalism. Her first book, Misterij žene (The mystery of a woman), published in Prague in 1900, establishedher as one of the leading figures of the Slovene women’s movement. Several more books followed.
She wrote in Slovene, Czech, Croatian and German. For many years she was the editor of the monthly Domači prijatelj, which featured work by established Slovene writers. In 1904 she moved to Zagreb, married and started a family. From 1917 she published the magazine Ženski svet and edited and contributed to numerous other periodicals. She championed women’s equality and independence, encouraging her contemporaries to pursue their professional ambitions and secure their own means of livelihood.
Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Slovenia
