Matky – Rankov Pavol (2013)

The heroines of this novel experience motherhood in extreme situations. Zuzana Lauková conceives a child with Russian partisan Alexei at the end of World War II, who is soon shot by German soldiers. After the war, Zuzana is falsely accused of treason and pregnant, she is taken to a Russian gulag run by a fanatical officer. Camp life is a survival test for others, even more so for a vulnerable mother with a small child. After Stalin's death, Zuzana is released thanks to an amnesty and can finally return home, but her son is now a Soviet citizen and wears a pioneer scarf around his neck. Zuzana's fate is also intertwined with the present. She tells her story to student Lucia, who wants to use it as a source for her thesis. Lucia is also dealing with her own pregnancy and a complicated relationship with her mother, who wished for a better life for her daughter. Men play only a marginal role in Mothers; it is a women's world, centered around two strong women, rebels in relation to their mothers, but uncertain, doubting beings in relation to their children.