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Sacrifice and the Self: The Feminine Sacrificial Identity and the Case of Milada Horakova

Publication |
2021

Abstract

This study aims to portray the self of the sacrificial subject, specifically the feminine sacrificial self. The Christian discourse on sacrifice is dominated by the scholarship of Rene Girard and his followers.

This study briefly presents Girard's approach and pinpoints its weaknesses in order to complement it with the work of Julia Kristeva and Jan Patocka. All these approaches, taken together, provide a complex picture of what the autonomous feminine sacrificial self looks like.

Starting from thorough theoretical and analytical analyses of Girard, Kristeva and Patocka, this study then applies their insights through the particular example of the feminine sacrificial self of Milada Horakova. The example of this political prisoner and victim of a Stalinist showtrial in 1950s Czechoslovakia aptly illustrates the uniqueness of the feminine sacrificial self.