Travelogues of Slovenian Female Writers and Their Themes

The purpose of this paper is to study the specificity of travelogues created by Slovenian female writers in the late 19th and early 20th century. The primary focus is on the texts of Luiza Pesjak, Marica Strnad, Marica Gregorič Stepančič, Marija Kmet and Alma Karlin. Three aspects are considered in the paper: genre peculiarities of the texts (purposes of travel, categories “Own / Other / Alien”), gender and national issues and the interconnection between them – it is a period of the active struggle of women for emancipation and a time of intensive formation of national identity. The writings of the German-speaking author Alma Karlin as well as her travels themselves stand out from the travelogues and journeys of other authors due to their scale. The aims of travels are radically different. A. Karlin wants to explore the world; she compares herself with the pioneer explorer Columbus. M. Gregorič-Stepančič also dreams of the precedence – she wants to be the first woman to visit the North Pole. M. Strnad writes with irony about her role of the missionary in the “barbarian” Russia. The discovery of the world beauty appears as a purpose of L. Pesjak’s travel, it correlates with the Romantic values. The texts in question reflect the categories of “Own / Other / Alien” in different ways – some of them show an aversion and intolerance to the people of other races (Karlin, Strnad, Kmet), others demonstrate a fascination with other cultures (Gregorič-Stepančič, Pesjak). Almost all the travelogues address both the issue of women’s rights (for example, the dangers for women traveling unaccompanied, women’s situation in other countries, etc.) and the problem of the national identity (national stereotypes, search for national identity, etc.). All the texts in Slovenian are marked with Pan-Slavism; the female authors count themselves Slovenes and Slavs. In contrast, Karlin’s travelogues raise the problem the loss of national identity