This Master's thesis addresses questions about the concepts of maternal love and views toward motherhood through the eyes of Slovenian female intellectuals (Elvira Dolinar, Marica Nadlišek Bartol, Vida Jeraj, Zofka Kveder, etc.) at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. As the title states, the analysis of this topic draws from ego documents, most of them intimate letters, but also from a personal journal, memoirs, works of fiction, and the Slovenka newspaper. The motherhood experience and the emotions connected to it are displayed more directly in these works compared to registry books or court files. The first part of the thesis describes the emotional state of the 19th century, which was marked by strong sentimentalism. I am interested in which broader social factors of that time period (the Industrial Revolution, involvement of the Church, development of opinion journalism and science, diseases, the rise of educational opportunities, and the Romantic artistic period) led to the formation of discourse on motherhood, as every era has a particular »set of emotional rules« that dictate the emotional regime of that time. In the second part of the thesis, more concrete experiences of women are presented through primary sources, including different practices, views, and forms of motherhood, and the phenomena connected to them. I am interested in which elements of motherly love are present, and also what women's actual views on motherhood were. The main topics that can be extrapolated from the primary sources can be roughly divided into: sentimental descriptions of children and rituals; concerns about well-being, upbringing and education of children; birth and the compassionate father, and different motherhood identity constructs (mother as a friend, mom gulit etc.).
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