Abstract
The publication deals with the position of the work by the emancipated autodidactist and the first Sorbian author Herta Wićazec (1819-1885) on the ethnic model of Sorbian culture and the interpretation of her work, which was in conflict with her own statements. When interpreting her work, there is an apparent effort to identify it with her life destiny.
In the spirit of the Apollinic cultural model of Sorbian culture, she was considered to be "poor girl" (deceived soul - Adolf Černý, impatiens noli-tangere - Jan Radyserb Wjela), who did not marry out of unhappy love and therefore her texts are not optimistic either. Rather, we must appreciate that despite belonging to the artisanal layer, it was intellectually superior to the folklorist patriotism of that period, as in the Czech lands Karel Hynek Mácha.
Only the Sorbian researcher Róža Domašcyna, at the end of the 20th century, emphasizes the author's life attitude: "To find a form of love with which one can live, form of love that involves affection and the preservation of personal dignity." Today, Wićazec can be declared a representative of Sorbian spiritualism. Unfortunately Wićazec did not have the conditions to assert itself.
Like many woman authors in the first half of the 19th century she remained closed under a "glass ceiling" of misunderstanding. The study is accompanied by extensive (largely unpublished) material of translations into Czech and the original of biographical novel.