The End of the AFŽ – The End of Meaningful Women’s Activism? Rethinking the History of Women’s Organizations in Croatia, 1953 – 1961 - Jelena Tešija
Submitted to
Central European University
Department of Gender Studies
In partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Arts in Gender Studies.
Supervisor: Professor Francisca de Haan
This thesis, as part of emerging scholarly work on rethinking the complex relations between feminism and socialism, explores the Savez ženskih društava Hrvatske (Union of Women’s Societies of Croatia, SŽDH), the women's organization that existed in Yugoslavia from 1953 to 1961. The SŽDH was the successor of the Antifašistički front žena (Antifascist Women’s Front, AFŽ), and while there is ample literature about the activities of the AFŽ, the activities of its successor organizations are hardly researched. This thesis examines the case of the SŽDH in order to understand better what was happening in a forgotten period of Yugoslav women’s history. I first discuss second-wave feminist historians’ perspectives on the AFŽ, and in particular the fact that that most historians who have written about the AFŽ claim that its dissolution in 1953, as an autonomous organization, was detrimental for meaningful work on women’s problems in Yugoslavia. Second, I look at archival documents of the SŽDH. I approach the material from a bottom-up perspective, which goes against the hegemonic narrative on communist women’s organizations as being simply obedient “Party tools”. I research the activities and goals of the SŽDH, the discussions and debates within the organization as well as the problems that the SŽDH women were facing in their practical work. I focus on the SŽDH women’s own perspective and the terms which they used themselves when discussing and explaining their work. Using a bottom-up approach and avoiding to apply the second-wave feminist “autonomy principle” for a state socialist women’s organization, this analysis shows that the SŽDH was not simply a “Party tool”. This research proves that the SŽDH women had their voices and opinions; that they had a well-thought-out strategy and ideas on how to enhance women’s position in the context they lived in; and that they extensively discussed the SŽDH’s position in the new circumstances of self-management in Yugoslavia.
Jelena Tešija
www.academia.edu
2014.
Jelena Tešija
PDF
English
14-IR
83 pages
From Partisans to Housewives: Representation of
Women in Yugoslav Cinema - Marijana Stojčić, Nađa Duhaček
Ovaj rad analizira načine na koje se predstavljanje žena promijenilo od partizanki kao revolucionarnih tema, do kućanica i potrošačica u kasnim 60tim godinama. Ova je promjena vezana uz društveno-političke promjene u jugoslavenskom kontekstu i uz napuštanje ideje ženske emancipacije koja je osmišljena i prihvaćena tijekom i nakon rata. Naime, partizanska borba za oslobađanje od nacističke okupacije te socijalistička revolucija dva su temeljna mita Socijalističke Jugoslavije. Žene su igrale aktivne uloge u toj borbi, kao borci ali i daleko od borbenih linija (logistička podrška, špijuniranje, liječenje i dr.). Također, jednakost između muškaraca i žena je bio važan segment službene ideologije države. Ovi su se narativi kasnije i zabilježili u kolektivnoj memoriji kroz književnost, film, glazbu i stripove. U našem radu istražujemo pet načina prikazivanja ženstvenosti u jugoslavenskom filmu: (1) partizanka, (2) žena u pozadini, (3) suradnica, (4) radnica i (5) domaćica, kako bi prikazali načine na koje predstavljanje žena između 1947. i kasnih 60tih korespondira službenoj politici emancipacije te na koji način ovi prikazi korespondiraju svakodnevici tog vremena. Nadalje, ovo predstavlja analizu filma sagledanog kao skup priča koje su jugoslavenski
muškarci i žene sami iznosili o sebi. Ovakav pristup ima potencijal ukazati na antagonizme unutar društvenog konteksta u kojem su ovi filmovi nastajali, tako što naglašava nedostižne ideala slobode i emancipacije. Istovremeno, cilj ove analize nije samo otvoriti još jedan vid istraživanja prošlosti, već također ponovno razmotriti emacipacijski potencijal kojeg ovakvo istraživanja pruža danas.
Marijana Stojčić, Nađa Duhaček
https://www.academia.edu/38370100/FROM_PARTISANS_TO_HOUSEWIVES_REPRESENTATION_OF_WOMEN_IN_YUGOSLAV_CINEMA?email_work_card=title
Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena
Časopis za povijest Zapadne Hrvatske
2016.
Časopis za povijest Zapadne Hrvatske, XI./11., 2016.
Revolutions and revolutionaries: from the gender perspective
PDF
English
21 - IR
40 pages
Antifascist Front of Women within the socialist transformation of society - Andrea Jovanović
Andrea Jovanović
Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena
Andrea Jovanović
PDF
English
9-IR
13 pages
Partizanke - Their dangerous legacy in the post-Yugoslav space - Chiara Bonfiglioli
Partizanke, Drugi svjetski rat, Jugoslavija, AFŽ, NOB
The Dangerous Women Project is an initiative of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
Chiara Bonfiglioli
http://dangerouswomenproject.org/
Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena
The Dangerous Women Project
01.06.2016.
Chiara Bonfiglioli
PDF
English
7-IR
8 str.
Revolutionary networks - Women’s Political and Social Activism in Cold War Italy and Yugoslavia (1945-1957) - Chiara Bonfiglioli
Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht University, 2012.
Chiara Bonfiglioli
https://www.academia.edu/3025831/Revolutionary_networks._Women_s_political_and_social_activism_in_Cold_War_Italy_and_Yugoslavia_1945-1957_
Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena, Utrecht University
2012.
Chiara Bonfiglioli
PDF
English
10-IR
296 pages
Becoming citizens: the politics of women's emancipation in socialist Yugoslavia - Chiara Bonfiglioli
Chiara Bonfiglioli
www,academia.edu
http://www.citsee.eu
2012.
Chiara Bonfiglioli
PDF
English
13-IR
5 pages
Making a Partisan: Founding Narratives on the Participation of Women in the People’s Liberation Struggle in Yugoslavia - Iva Jelušić
Iva Jelušić
CEU
Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena, CEU
2015.
Copyright in this text rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author.
I hereby declare that this dissertation contains no material accepted for any other degrees in any other institutions and no materials previously written and/or published by another person unless otherwise noted.
PDF
English
11-IR
106 pages
Yugoslav female partisans in World War II - Ivana Pantelić
Partizanke, Jugoslavija, Drugi svjetski rat
Ivana Pantelić
Cahiers balkaniques
Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales
http://ceb.revues.org/3971
2014
Cahiers balkaniques
PDF
Engleski/English
1-IR
Socialist-Era New Yugoslav Feminism between “Mainstreaming” and “Disengagement”: The Possibilities for Resistance, Critical Opposition and Dissent - Zsofia Lorand
Through a focus on early publications by feminist intellectuals in Yugoslavia in the 1970s, this paper aims at showing ways of feminist critiques of the theory and practice of women’s emancipation in the context of a state socialist (in this case, self-managing socialist) country in East Central Europe. After a brief overview of feminist organising in YU till the late 1980s, the paper looks at conferences and journal publications, which also gives a chance to understand a bit better the workings of the Yugoslav public space and publishing processes. The text, written with a conceptual and intellectual historical focus, analyses the discursive interventions and reformulations of matters related to women’s emancipation. The new Yugoslav feminist approaches rethink and reformulate the “women’s question”. Reading the recent currents of feminisms in North America and Western Europe, the feminists in Yugoslavia are in a search for ways to reframe this question into a critique that is constructive as well as innovative in their own context.
Zsofia Lorand
https://www.academia.edu
The Hungarian Historical Review
New Series of Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Volume 5 No. 4 2016
1956 and Resistance in East Central Europe
Péter Apor, Sándor Horváth Special Editors of the Thematic Issue
2016.
https://www.academia.edu
The Hungarian Historical Review
PDF
English
11-IR
pages 854-881