| Notes |
['Govekar emphasized the role of Scandinavian women writers in the awakening of the nation and in the struggle for women’s rights. She writes that “the nation-conscious and dynamic Finnish women had much credit in the restoration of the Finnish nation”.\nAccording to Minka Govekar, the first person to encourage Finnish women to work for the national cause was the male poet Zachris Topelius, who encouraged women to awaken love for their despised mother tongue in the hearts of their children. His words (“Without women’s assistance, we will never be able to raise our children for any important idea!”) did not go unheeded, and Finnish women became aware of the important task they had.\nGovekar mentions the Swedish writer Fredrika Bremer as a person with many merits, who in her novel Herta depicted the heroine vividly as a determined, emancipated woman who thinks independently and enjoys public recognition. Govekar points out how the newspaper critics wrote that Herta Bremer failed in her vocation, since a real woman is a weak creature, who seeks and finds shelter in her husband. Then she mentions that Friderike Runeberg, “the wife of the greatest Finnish poet and Writer I. L. Runeberg, had also fought for women’s rights” and adds:\n“Around 1860 Mrs. Ehrenroth had started the fight for women’s rights. In 1870 the women’s academy was founded, where university professors teach. One person who has great merit in enlightening Finnish women (they are probably the most enlightened among the small nations) is the woman writer Mina Canth. She set all hearts on fire with her witty social drama ‘The Worker’s wife’”. \nAt the end of the article, Govekar summons Slovenian women to take Finnish women as their role models. This feminist encounter between the Nordic and the Slavic testifies how quickly feminist ideas travelled from one European fringe to the other. ']
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