The family history of the writer Tereza Vansová (1857-1942) was affected by two world wars. She lived through the Great War and World War II as an adult person – as the wife, later widow of an Evangelical pastor, socially engaged member of the Slovak intelligentsia aware of their national identity. There is no doubt that her distinguished position in society and her religion as well as her social status determined the character of her personal and family experience; furthermore, they influenced her conditions during and after the wars in terms of the applied "strategies of survival".