The building that has a reference to women directly embedded in its name is the Palace or Institute of Noblewomen (Palác šlechtičen, Ústav šlechtičen) in Brno. Today, few people remember the original purpose of this Baroque building – since its foundation in the mid-17th century, this educational and welfare institution was intended to provide education for a relatively limited number of pious girls of aristocratic origin, or young women from the upper middle classes, helping them to overcome difficult economic times before they married. The purpose of the Institute of the Virgin Mary Scholastica, as the institution was officially called, remained unchanged throughout the 19th century.
Between 1896 and 1912, at the height of the Brno women's movement, its head was an important figure in the German women's movement, Countess Marie Belrupt-Tissac. The countess was the chairwoman of the aforementioned "Brno Women's Craft Association." After 1920, the Institute of the Virgin Maria Scholastica responded to the abolition of aristocratic privileges and renamed itself the Mary Scholastica Women's Foundation Institute in Brno. Orphaned girls in Bohemia and Moravia were to have access to it, but priority was given to members of prominent families with political influence.
The Moravian nobility and its women played a role in history as estate managers, patrons of the arts, and educated personalities. Literature provides us with fragmentary information about some enlightened Moravian noblewomen from the late 18th and first half of the 19th centuries who maintained written correspondence with public figures, supported technical inventions, and financed private girls' schools. Members of the ruling elite were expected to engage in socially appropriate activities in public, mainly in the form of charity work. This is where we can find the roots of women's involvement in fundraising during times of war. There are two such cases in Moravia.
The first case is the poor relief institute, which took care of widows and orphans and supported wounded soldiers after the Napoleonic Wars. Between 1831 and 1832, it also fought against a cholera epidemic.
The poor relief institute established the "Brno Women's Charity Association," which was probably the very first women's association in Moravia.
Another example is the activities of noblewomen and wealthy burgher women during the Prussian-Austrian War in 1866. Through the "Moravian Relief Association" they attempted to alleviate the consequences of the hardships of war and the cholera epidemic. They organized fundraising campaigns, both financial and material, to support lower social groups across Moravia. These activities were followed by the work of women in the Patriotic Women's Auxiliary Association of the Red Cross for Moravia, founded in 1879 and based in Brno, which built up a dense network of branches in every district. The association brought together representatives of individual municipalities regardless of nationality. Its district branches were supported by prominent noblewomen, which added to the prestige and exclusivity of this regional association, but it is hardly possible to describe it as progressive, emancipatory, or feminist.
With regard to the issue of suffrage, it should be noted that noblewomen were among the few women in the second half of the 19th century who had the right to vote. However, they had to do so exclusively through their legal representative, most often their husband or father. They were able to do so until the amendment to the electoral law in 1907, when this opportunity was closed to them as well. Although aristocratic women had sufficient financial resources and influence, they participated only sporadically in the women's movement in the Czech lands – the main group of people who promoted feminist causes in the Czech lands, unlike in Hungary, for example, were middle-class women. Noblewomen generally only played a representative role in associations – they became patrons of schools, associations, celebrations, and "mothers of flags."
Hana Krutílková. Moravské zemské muzeum
