The Queer Story of Katerina Marsalova: The Female Soldier, Ideal Woman, and Masculine Femininity

In 1845, the Czech nationalist journal Kvety featured an article telling the story of Katerina Marsalova, an eighteenth-century woman who enlisted in the Austrian army as a man. After it was discovered that she was a woman, Marsalova was summoned before Maria Theresa who publicly praised her. Such treatment was extremely rare. Furthermore, Marsalova was presented as a role model for Czech women, despite joining the army because she 'disliked caring for children'. Although she eventually married and had children, early nineteenth-century Czech nationalists did not allow women to forget their 'womanly' duties. The early death of Marsalova's children and husband, and the poverty she then suffered, seem to echo this breach. Yet, the Kvety author did not condemn her. While some elements correspond with the female soldier genre, others diverge. I rethink Judith Halberstam's concept of female masculinity through Mimi Schippers' notion of pariah femininities and suggest that Marsalova is better described as embodying 'masculine femininity'. Her story expands our understanding of gender hegemonies, indicates a more expansive range of gender possibilities and offers a window onto how notions of the feminine, ideals of masculinity and national self-assertion can come together in powerful - and queer - ways.