Editorial Strategies of Hungarian Women Editors in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

While significant research has been done on periodicals for women readers published in Hungary in the second half of the nineteenth century, little is known about the editors of these periodicals. This article offers a brief discussion of how Hungarian women’s editorial strategies differed from those adopted by their male colleagues. It argues that although periodicals edited by women tended to feature more female literary authors than those edited by men, they generally had no aim of creating a female group consciousness. The essay then goes on to focus on one significant exception, the first periodical edited by a woman in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Emília Kánya’s (1828–1905) Családi Kör [Family Circle] (1860–80), which, on the contrary, connected its marketing strategy with female community building. The analysis draws on insights from the fields of women’s studies, history of literature, and history of journalism.

As we know from previous gender-focused research about the history of journalism, in many European countries, periodicals for women readers appeared in the eighteenth century and soon became increasingly popular and widespread.1 This growth was due to several reasons, the most important one being that women readers became significant market factors. As far as the Hungarian context is concerned, this process did not start until the nineteenth century.2 If we study the list of Hungarian periodicals in that period, we can notice a tendency: in (and before) the 1850s, the first journals for women readers were edited by men; after 1860, however, numerous periodicals for women appeared that were established and edited by women alongside those edited by men. This article deals with the profile and the editorial strategies of the journals edited by women. The aim of my essay is to answer the following questions: Were there any differences between the Hungarian journals for women edited by men and the ones edited by women? How did the journals in the second group differ from each other? Did they aim to establish group consciousness among women, as women writers and women's clubs did?

The Specific Character of Periodicals Edited by Women
Hungarian periodicals for women readers, especially from the 1840s, distinguished themselves from other types of journals: their main feature was that they concentrated on 'female topics' such as domestic practices, advisory articles on female roles, fashion illustrations, and fashion reports. In addition -similar to 'family magazines' -they published numerous literary texts.3 The idea behind this strategy was to educate women who, in turn, would raise children to become loyal citizens of the homeland.4 While women's periodicals can be seen as a separate group in terms of their readers and profile, we can, however, identify one aspect that created a faint dividing line within the group: the editors' gender. I have analysed the profile of seven Hungarian periodicals edited by men and seven periodicals edited by women in the second half of there was a more significant emphasis on the presence of female literary authors in the periodicals edited by women. If we compare the proportion of the authors' gender in literary columns, we can see that women's periodicals edited by women published more poems and novels by female authors as well as a higher number of female authors than those edited by men. One reason for this could be that women's periodicals edited by men aimed at educating women through literature in general, whereas female editors specifically wanted to introduce middle-class women to female writers and poets as well as showing them that writing poems or novels could (or should) be a respectable occupation for a middle-class woman.
In the promotion of female authorship, the journal Családi Kör [Family Circle] (1860-80) had a pioneering role. Before Családi Kör, periodicals for middle-class women already contained lengthy literary columns. A huge innovation of this journal was to include more female authors. The predominance of female literary figures indicates that women editors (who, in Hungary, in this period were, without exception, authors at the same time) considered women writers and poets as a group that deserved foregrounding in its own right. 6 The connecting link, in other words, was gender.
This phenomenon is familiar. Women regarding women as a group occurred in other social spheres and historical periods, too. In European literature, the best-known example is Christine de Pisan (c. 1365-c. 1429), who, in her renowned work Le Livre de la cité des dames (finished in 1405), created an allegorical city of ladies and defended women by collecting a wide array of famous women throughout history. Since the end of the nineteenth century, women historians appeared (like Johanna Naber [1859-1941]7) who started to rewrite the history of women constructed only by men up to that point, and intended to explore the lives and achievements of women in the past. 8 We can also mention the 'Literary Ladies', a women writers' dining club in England (1889), which not only represented a significant innovation in fin-de-siècle authorship, but was also a forerunner of the New Woman.9 Furthermore, as far as the nineteenth-century Hungarian context is concerned, two anthologies of Hungarian women authors were   promoted the idea of a women's group in the intellectual field: from 1885, the wife of the well-known painter Gyula Benczúr started to build a library of all the traceable texts (books, magazines, manuscripts, letters) about, for, and by women from Hungary and Europe.10 The most obvious example of group consciousness among women is the rapid growth of women's clubs during the nineteenth century in many parts of the world and in Hungary as well.11 While these women's clubs still preserved the differences between social classes, they can be seen as part of an effort to create female group consciousness.12 The idea of community was crucial to their conception: they mostly included female members, most of them had a foundational document that regulated their operation, and they were an effective means to build a network of connections among women.13 For instance, the Mária Dorothea Egylet [Association of Dorothea Maria], founded in 1885, established a work registry office for middle-class women, and it supported old, poor female teachers. The Országos Nőképző Egyesület [National Women's Training Association], founded in 1868, organized literary groups for women, and it had connections with other women's associations abroad.
These and many other, similar initiatives ran parallel with the phenomenon that women editors' periodicals published women authors' texts in a systematic way. More research of letters or memoirs is needed to examine if women authors had a similar type of group consciousness that women's clubs had in that period. Nevertheless, the tendency among female periodical editors to consider women writers and poets as a group shows at the very least a desire to create group consciousness among women in the literary field. We can also describe this process from the perspective of women's Editorial Strategies of Hungarian Women Editors in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century studies.14 Within this conceptual framework, we can say that these women editors tried to create a female literary canon; they made women visible whose work had hardly ever appeared in public before; they directed the attention to women authors; and their aim was to facilitate the remembrance of women authors. In addition, by weakening the gender-specific (masculine) characteristic feature of the profession in that period, they helped women start a writer's or a poet's career. Hence, they consciously contributed to the extension of intellectual female roles.

Group Consciousness Among Women Editors?
On the basis of what I have discussed so far, one significant question comes up. If the editors thought of women literary authors as a group, if they participated in women's clubs, and if they advertised women's clubs in their periodicals, did they also consider themselves -that is, women editors -as a group? Did they have the same group consciousness that women's clubs had? To answer these questions, we also need to ask if they reacted to each other's journals similarly to how they constantly referred to books by women authors. I examined several volumes of the Hungarian journals edited by women between 1860 and 1900, paying particular attention to the first years of publication.15 I was interested in finding out if new periodicals edited by women were announced or acknowledged in any way in periodicals edited by female colleagues. My conclusion was that they did not refer to each other's periodicals, although they had the opportunity to do so. 16 There were some periodicals edited by men which referred to journals by women editors (Nagydiósi,p. 206 Yet Magyar Bazár did not announce or welcome their foundation. In short, in contrast to female literary authors or women's clubs, we cannot speak of a group consciousness among women editors nor of the desire to create one.

Gender as Marketing Strategy
As far as the functioning of the press is concerned, we must also take into consideration the role of publishing offices in literary life.19 It was the publisher who gave permission to advertise something in a journal and whose interests prevailed. The marketing view was clearly considered more important than gender aspects. However, we can find an exception: Családi Kör by Emília Kánya (1828Kánya ( -1905. (Fig. 1) ' Library]. In addition to this, her periodical had a permanent column in which she presented middle-and upper-middle class women as a model for Hungarian women readers.
The exception of Családi Kör concerning marketing strategy is surprising precisely because its target readership was approximately the same as that of other periodicals for female readers: middle-class and upper-middle-class intellectual women. As we know from scholarship on the history of journalism, the struggle to increase circulation was a key issue in commercial periodical publishing: because each periodical depended on subscribers and belonged to a particular publishing house, they all had to deal with economic aspects and had to regard business competition.21 As a result, periodicals with similar target readerships would have been reluctant to promote competing titles.
Családi Kör was in a similar position in that it also depended on subscribers. At the same time, Emília Kánya's journal had two main missions that appear to have taken priority over marketing considerations: to educate women and to create a female strategy in two ways. On the one hand, we can say that, for Emília Kánya, the gender aspect took precedence over a marketing view as she ignored the competition with other women periodical editors by promoting their work. On the other hand, as marketing and commercial aspects are vital to the survival of almost any periodical, each strategic step can be seen as part of the business procedure. Therefore, the intention of creating an imagined community of women as opposed to concentrating only on marketing can be considered a good marketing strategy in itself.

Conclusion
Nineteenth-century Hungarian journals for women edited by women differed significantly from those edited by men. There was greater emphasis on the presence of women literary authors as a group as well as a tendency to create group consciousness among middle-class women in general. At the same time, although all female editors were authors as well, we cannot detect a similar tendency to create a sense of community among female periodical editors. Evidently, in mid-nineteenth-century Hungary there was a difference between considering the gender of an editor and that of an author. Being a writer seemed to be a more emancipated position than being an editor.
Emília Kánya's Családi Kör is an atypical example in the history of Hungarian women's periodical publishing. In her journal, she eschewed competition with other women editors, instead attempting to build a network among them. Családi Kör was published for twenty years, which was quite rare in that period in Hungary. Key to understanding this success is the unusual editorial strategy adopted by Emília Kánya. Unlike her competitors, she ran a successful periodical that intentionally avoided business competition in favour of creating a sense of community among female readers, authors, and editors.
Petra Bozsoki is a postdoctoral researcher in Hungary. She is a co-editor of Verso, a Hungarian literary history periodical. Her research field is women's studies and Fig. 2 The masthead of Családi Kör picturing women engaging in different activities, such as painting, music, and childcare