Born in Huy at the end of the 19th century, Junia Letty grew up in a world where women’s education was limited. Yet she managed to study at the ULB, publish at an early age and establish herself in Belgian literary circles. Behind this enigmatic name lies a woman of many identities: polyglot, art critic, journalist, writer, translator... and yet she is absent from Belgian history.
In this episode, Martina Mecco, postdoctoral fellow in history - Modernitas, Faculty of Letters, Translation and Communication - introduces us to this little-known figure responsible for so many cultural exchanges between Belgium, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia. From Brussels to Prague, from Belgian magazines to the intellectual salons of Central Europe, Junia Letty became a veritable ferryman of cultures, writing about everything from literature, theater and cinema to popular traditions, religion and modernity. But her influence often unfolds in the shadows: her translations are not always signed, her archives have disappeared, and even her first name is uncertain. But behind this invisibility lies the portrait of a free, independent woman, and a life of travel, languages, love and scandal.
Les Grands Petits Belges is a podcast produced by Eve Filée - Modernitas, Faculty of Letters, Translation and Communication - that sheds light on Belgian personalities, famous or forgotten, who have shaped our country. Told as a story, each episode focuses on a key figure in Belgium’s history, drawing on existing literature as well as new, little-explored archives. This project invites the general public to rediscover Belgium’s rich human heritage, often little-known even to its own inhabitants.
Research carried out with the support of the MSH Seed-Money grant and as part of the ARC project ’The Artist, The Scientist, The Industrialist’, led by the Modernitas research center, housed at the ULB MSH
