Imázsképzés és időkezelés a Nyugatosok Szendrey Júlia-diskurzusában

To re-evaluate the figure of Júlia Szendrey and to gain a better understanding of her career, it is of great significance to reflect on the rhetorical changes, common epithets, and characteristic attributes that defined her image. This problem cannot be examined separately from the question of why the the authors of the periodical Nyugat in the early twentieth century changed their attitudes towards her as compared to nine- teenth-century approaches. This study aims to investigate this particular transformation. It primarily seeks to answer the question of why Júlia Szendrey’s figure, bitterly attacked in the nineteenth century, became so attractive in the eyes of the authors of the first decades of the twentieth century, and how they created a myth around her that still persists today. Why and how did Júlia Szendrey, considered as masculine in the nineteenth century, become a symbol of the emancipated, modern female by the early twentieth century? Why was she considered the ‘Hungarian George Sand?’ The articles published in Nyugat show Júlia Szendrey in various lights, incorporating several stereotypical female roles such as the muse, the writer’s wife, the bluestocking, the eccentric woman, the revolutionary woman, and the femme fatale. In doing so, they diverged from a discourse that only captured the image of an unfaithful widow who discarded the widow’s veil, and placed her into their modernist narrative, adapting her figure to the contemporary feminine ideal. Thus, the transformation in the image of Júlia Szendrey, which can be dated to this time, was based on two parallel processes: the change in the national discourse and the change in the female ideals of the time. Although nationalist narratives remained noticeably forceful, the progressive approach to women’s roles in society, coupled with the modern authors’ emphasis on their modernity and their orientation towards Western European culture. All of this sheds light on how the perception of (historical) time shaped the discourse of the authors on Júlia Szendrey, and how this view influences the perception and construction of her public image.