The Živena association was founded in 1869 for the purpose of educating the “daughters of Slovakia” as industrious and moral housekeepers and “zealous daughters of the homeland and the nation”; the gender-role patterns are part of their times and of the nationalist ideology which expected women’s activities in the family to expand national consciousness within the boundaries of the private sphere. The statutes of Živena prioritized girls’ schools, social activities benefiting poor women and also (after an 1884 amendment to the statutes) diverting and informative publications. Živena failed to achieve major successes in these activities. Establishing schools for girls was problematic in practice and failed to get support from the Hungarian authorities, who adisapproved of Slovak-language teaching. (Similar schools for Hungarian girls were, in fact, established, but these were unattractive to Slovak activists.)

In terms of book publication, Živena was passive: in the entire period of its pre-1914 existence it only released two issues of an Almanach Živeny (1872, 1885) and four issues of the Letopis Živena (1896, 1898, 1902, 1906). The leading position of anti-feminist men like Svetozar Hurban Vajanský in the association may be partly to blame for this. Private correspondence between Slovak feminist writers who were active in Živena, Elena Maróthy-Šoltésová and Terézie Vansová (1857–1942; until 1902 she was vice-president of the association), suggests that they were aware of the association’s conservatism and passivity. Dennica, the first Slovak women’s magazine, was established independently from Živena and indeed outside the ambit of the Slovak national movement in Turčiansky Sv. Martin. The local leadership of the national movement saw it as a threat, and Dennica was established in the event in Píla near Tisovec in 1898, with Vansová as its editor. It was supported by national activists who were ideologically opposed to the Martin-centred group, such as the Czech Slovakophile Karel Kálal (1860–1930).

Dennica had to facee ingrained traditionalism, which was also shared by female patriots such as Maróthy-Šoltésová and the writer Ľudmila Podjavorinská (1872–1951): a belief in the institution of marriage and a Christian worldview. Only a few women took issue: the first Slovak botanist Isabella Textorisová (1866–1949), the writer and the “first Slovak feminist” Hana Gregorová (1885–1958) and Ľudmila Markovičová (1866–1914), whose writings, too radical for Dennica, were published in the Czech women’s media.

The year 1910 was marked by two major events. A second Slovak women’s magazine called Živena was established as the publication of the Živena association, and two embroidery cooperatives were created. The first of these was called Lipa and was established on the direct initiative of Živena. Although the stimulation of embroidery as a home industry (it was a lucrative product and constituted a source of income) was not mentioned in Živena’s statutes, it had become an important activity since an embroidery exhibition had been held in Turčiansky Sv. Martin in 1887. The Živena embroidery collection became part of the collection of the “Slovak Museum Society”, the indirect result of which was that the first ever curator of museums in this institution was a woman, Ema Goldpergerová (1853–1917). In response to Lipa, a second embroidery cooperative (Družstvo pre speňaženie domáceho ľudového priemyslu) was created, outside of Živena, in Skalica, also in 1910. Both cooperatives returned profits. In addition, they had an undeniably nationalist component. Slovak embroidery was cultivated as something characteristically different from the Hungarian style, and anti-Semitism reared its head in the requirement that these valued articles be merchandized by “national retailers” (as opposed to Jewish traders).

In 1912-13, the issue of women’s emancipation became a visible and important part of the nationalist discourse and even had the potential to differentiate between ideological and political currents. Women’s suffrage was extensively debated in the nationalist press (the trigger for debate was the conference of the International Alliance for Suffrage which was held in 1913 in Budapest). As a result, women now found themselves engaged with the public sphere at a time when the option opened itself to create roles for themselves outside the domestic sphere. Although almost the entire spectrum of the nationalist press took issue with the conservative views of the Martin-based Národne novíny, even that conservative current of the Slovak national movement supported women’s suffrage, probably because the women’s vote was expected to express national-Slovak sympathies.

Thus nationalism would not support the women’s cause for its own sake (Hungarian-language female education was rejected), but would support it inasmuch as it strengthened the nationalist agenda, in that emancipated women should serve the nation and the national movement. This priority is the reason for the minimal relations between the Slovak and Hungarian women’s movements, despite the fact that the latter was well developed. The Slovak women’s movement was oriented more towards its Czech counterpart (whose stance on marraige and religion was, nonetheless, mistrusted).