Born: 18 November 1847, Czechia
Died: 26 November 1926
Country most active: Czechia
Also known as: Alžběta Pechová
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Born Pechova, “Krasnohorska” was her pen name. Educated in art and music, she began at an early age to publish verse. At the age of twenty-three she was placed in the forefront of Czech patriotic poets. In 1875 she founded the Zenske Listy (Woman’s Journal), in which her contemporaries were aroused to a knowledge of the old Czech ideals favoring the unrestricted education of Czech girls.
She became the head of the Women’s Industry Society, founded by Karolina Svetla, stressing technical and art training. Eliska Krasnohorska founded the “Minerva Society,” whose aim was, above all, to secure higher education for Czech girls. In 1890 the Minerva Society founded a lyceum for girls, which, after the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1918, was made a State institution. Eliska Krasnohorska was also an exceptionally talented translator. From the Polish she translated Mickiewicz’s epic Tadeas, from the English, Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, from the Russian a volume of Pushkin’s poems, and from the German, Hamerling’s epic The King of Sion. Krasnohorska was also happy as an author of librettos. For the Czech composer Bendl she wrote the librettos for four works; for the greatest of Czech composers, Bedrich Smetana, she wrote the librettos for The Kiss, The Secret, and The Devil’s Wall. Some of her works won prizes. Her best poetry is From May, and From the Sumava, a collection.