Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights

Zsófia Lóránd is an intellectual historian of feminism in post-WWII state-socialist Eastern Europe. Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc is a political scientist dealing with political issues from the perspective of culture studies. Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz is a social historian working in the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences.

Introduction


 


1.        The legacy of the pre-1945 period


●       Ecaterina Arbore, The Working Woman in the Struggle towards Emancipation, 1911 (Romania)


●       Žemaitė (Julija Beniuševičiūtė-Žymantienė), To the Enemies of Women’s Equality, 1912 (Lithuania)


●       Rosika Schwimmer, The Grievances of Feminism under the Proletarian Dictatorship, 1919 (Hungary)


●       Mariska Gárdos, On Sexuality, Prostitution, and Feminism, 1906 and 1941 (Hungary)


●       Shaqe Marie Çoba, On Feminism, 1921 (Albania)


●       Johanna Päts, Why Must Women Elect Women to Parliament?, 1932 (Estonia)


●       Irena Krzywicka, The Fall of Male Civilization, 1932 (Poland)


●       Halina Krahelska, The Roots of Changing Sexual Mores, 1937 (Poland)


●       Angela Vode, The Woman in Contemporary Society, 1934 (Yugoslavia/Slovenia)


 


2)       Women and war


●       Žena danas Editorial Board, The New Feminism, 1936 (Yugoslavia/Serbia)


●       Ina Jun-Broda, Two Poems by a Partizanka, 1943/44 (Yugoslavia)


●       Maca Gržetić, Report on Women in the People’s Liberation Struggle, 1945 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Romanian Workers Party, Fallen in Battle: Olga Bancic, 1949 (Romania)


●       Lina Kostenko, A Female Poetic Voice against Totalitarianism and War, 1957, 1962, 1987 (Ukraine/USSR)


●       Staša Zajović, Antiwar Activism in Serbia, 1996 (Serbia)


●       Śviatłana Aleksijevič, What is Our Memory?, 1998 (Belarus)


 


3)       Ideologies of women’s emancipation


●       Hana Gregorová, About 8th March and Feminism, n.d. (Slovakia/ Czechoslovakia)


●       Anna Kéthly, Women in Politics, 1945 (Hungary)


●       Milada Horáková, Women in Politics, 1945 (Czechia/Czechoslovakia)


●       Dušanka Kovačević and Razija Handžić, On Lifting Veils on Muslim Women, 1940s (Yugoslavia/Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina)


●       Martha Arendsee, The Right to Motherhood, 1946 (GDR)


●       Edwarda Orłowska, Paper Delivered at the Plenary Meeting of the Main Board of the League of Women, January 12th,1949, 1949 (Poland)


●       Aina Jurciņa, The Consequences of Emancipation?: Theoretical Findings, 1980 (Latvia)


●       Lydia Sklevicky, The Antifascist Front of Women as a Potential Factor in the Process of Cultural Change, 1985 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Nada Ler-Sofronić, Marxism and Neofeminism, 1986 (Yugoslavia/Bosnia and Herzegovina)


●       Drita Bakija Gunga, The Women of Kosovo in the Period of Socialist Construction: 1945-1978, 1986 (Yugoslavia/Kosovo)


 


4) The international aspects of women's rights


●       German Democratic Women’s League, “The First German Women’s Delegation to Stockholm”, 1947 (GDR)


●       Call of the Tukums District Female Activists to District Women on the Decisions of the World Congress of Women in Copenhagen, 1953 (USSR, Latvia)


●       Mitra Mitrović, The Woman’s Position in the Contemporary World, 1960 (Yugoslavia/Serbia)


●       Rózsa Ignácz, Connections to Distant Women through Travelogues, 1968 (Hungary)


●       Esma Redžepova, Songs by a Yugoslav Romani Vocal Icon, 1961-1987 (Yugoslavia/Macedonia)


●       Vida Tomšič, On the Question of Women’s Social Position in the Contemporary World, 1976 (Yugoslavia/Slovenia)          


●       Marija Gimbutas, An Interview about Prehistoric Matriarchy, 1981 (Lithuania)


●       Elena Lagadinova, Statement at the Nairobi Conference, 1985 (Bulgaria)


 


5)       Politicizing motherhood (and fatherhood)


●       Maria Skokowska-Rudolfowa, Mother and Child Day, 1946 (Poland)


●       Zlata Grebo, Opinions of Rural Women, 1964 (Yugoslavia/Bosnia and Herzegovina)


●       Serhii Hryhoriev, Son, 1969 (USSR, Ukraine)


●       Alla Horska, Maternity in Ukrainian Dissent, 1960-1964 (USSR, Ukraine)


●       Leokadija Diržinskaitė-Piliušenko, Soviet Women, Active Builders of Communism, 1976 (USSR/Lithuania)


●       Cristina Nicolae, Two Movies on the Lives of Women Factory Workers in Romania, 1983, 1992 (Romania)


●       Júlia Szilágyi, A Spoken World, 1983 (Romania)


●       Maria Dinkova and Chavdar Kjuranov, Women, Gender, and the Use of Time in Socialist Bulgaria, 1979 (Bulgaria)


 


6) Time budgets and double burden


●       Libuše Háková, Promoting the Marxist Conception of the Woman Question, 1967 (Czechia/Czechoslovakia)


●       Central Council of Polish Trade Unions, The Professional Work of Women and the Family, 1967 (Poland)


●       Sonia Bakish, Let’s Cancel the Second Shift, 1967 (Bulgaria)


●       Ecaterina Oproiu, Two Key Questions, 1977 (Romania)


●       Mileva Filipović, Working Class and Emancipation of a Woman in Socialism, 1979 (Yugoslavia/Montenegro)


●       Vizma Belševica, Time Budgets and the Double Burden, 1981 (Latvia)


●       Regīna Ezera, Betrayal, 1982 (Latvia)


 


7)       Violence against women and gender based violence


●       Blaženka Despot, Feminist Marxism and Violence against Women, 1987 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Frauenteestube Weimar: Our Critique of the Legal Concept of Rape, c. 1987 (GDR)


●       Andra Neiburga, Domestic Violence, 1988 (USSR/Latvia)


●       Mojca Dobnikar, Feminism and Social Work, 1997 (Yugoslavia/Slovenia)


 


8)       Women in politics


●       Júlia Rajk, Christmas Troubles, 1948 (Hungary)


●       Tsola Dragoicheva, Eight Years of Equality and Happiness, 1952 (Bulgaria)


●       Latinka Perović, Ahead of the Elections, 1963 (Yugoslavia/Serbia)


●       Olivia Clătici, On the Social Condition of Women, 1973 (Romania)


●       Vera Veskoviḱ-Vangeli, Women in History, 1974 (Yugoslavia/Macedonia)


●       Women’s Forum, To the Presidium of the 9th Extraordinary Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party, 1981 (Poland)


●       Ina Merkel, Without Women, There is No State, 1989 (GDR)


 


9)       Reproductive rights and demography


●       Maria Jaszczukowa, Proposal on the Criteria of Abortion Permissibility, 1956 (Poland)


●       Zsuzsa Körösi, Petition for the Protection of the Freedom of Abortion, 1973 (Hungary)


●       Aimee Beekmann, Freedom to Choose, 1978 (Estonia)


●       Jasenka Kodrnja, The Diary of a Woman in Labor, 1981 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Ana Blandiana, Children’s Crusade, 1984 (Romania)


●       Vlasta Jalušič, Abortion, Women and Politics, 1990 (Yugoslavia/Slovenia)


●       Ágnes Geréb, The Circumstances of a 1995 Home Birth Case, 1995 (Hungary)


 


10)     Health and the body


●       Katalin Ladik, Performance Art and Marginalization, 1970 (Yugoslavia/Vojvodina)


●       Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Is a Woman a Human Being?, 1972 (Poland)


●       Anna Świrszczyńska, “I am baba” (selected poems), 1973 (Poland)


●       Lepa Mlađenović and Biljana Branković, Alternatives to Psychiatry in Yugoslavia, 1985 (Yugoslavia/Serbia)


●       Sanja Iveković, Sweet Violence – Mass Media and Feminist Art in Yugoslavia, 1970s-1980s (Selected art works) (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


 


11) Sexuality


●       Ágnes Heller and Mihály Vajda, Family Structure and Communism, 1970 (Hungary)


●       Todor Bostandziev, Sexology—A Belated Conversation, 1970 (Bulgaria)


●       Slavenka Drakulić, Women and the Sexual Revolution, 1980 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Radu Dumitriu, Sexology and Sexual Education, 1972 (Romania)


●       Erzsébet Galgóczi, I Am the First Woman Writer of Peasant Origin in Hungary, 1975 and 1981 (Hungary)


●       Vesna Kesić, Isn’t Pornography Cynical?, 1982 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Suzana Tratnik and Nataša Sukič, The Slovenian Lesbian Movement, 1990 (Yugoslavia/Slovenia)


●       The Violet Pulse, Fury the First, 1999s (Poland)


 


12) Debating “Western“ feminisms


●       Nadežda Čačinovič, Equality or Liberation, 1976 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Rada Iveković, The Position of Women: Immediate Tasks and Neglected Aspects, 1978 (Yugoslavia/Croatia)


●       Stana Buzatu, Issues for a Fruitful Dialogue Between Feminism and Marxism, 1979 (Romania)


●       Žarana Papić, Sex and Gender—Categories of the Social Organization of Sexuality, 1984 (Yugoslavia/Serbia)


●       Agate Nesaule, Conversation about The Second Sex, 1991 (Latvia)


●       Jiřina Šmejkalová, Pavla Horská, and Jaroslava Pešková, Feminism and the Woman Question at the Time of Transition, 1991 and 1992 (Czechoslovakia/Czechia)


●       Barbara Limanowska, Why Is There No Feminism in Poland?, 1993, and Agnieszka Graff: Patriarchy after “Sexmission,” 2001 (Poland)


 


13) Dissidence


●       Nadiia Svitlichna,Women’s Status in Contemporary Ukraine, 1979 and Vira Lisova, Women in the Resistance Movement of the Seventies, 1997 (Ukraine)


●       Dije Lohaj, Innocence (A poem from Ilegalja movement), 1980s (Yugoslavia/Kosovo)


●       Larysa Hienijuš – Confession, two poems: Belaruska, The Beds of Rivers are Filled with Running Blood  and Ivonka Surviłła – The Road (Belarus)


●       Jana Juráňová, …Without Context… How Is Feminism Doing in Slovakia?, 1994 (Slovakia)


●       Veronika Cherkasova, The Country Just Across the Way, 2004 (Belarus)


 


14) Transitions


●       Dunja Blažević, The Activist of the Avant-Garde, 1982 (Yugoslavia)


●       Ágnes Daróczi, Making Gypsiness Bearable, 1984 (Hungary)


●       Teuta Arifi, Police and Cooking Recipes. Yugoslav Feminism’s Precarious Solidary with Kosovo, 1991 (Yugoslavia/North Macedonia/Kosovo)


●       Irene Dölling, with Adelheid Kuhlmey-Oehlert, Gabriela Seibt and Women in the GDR, “Our Skin” - Women about Autumn 1990, 1992 (GDR)


●       Mihaela Miroiu and Laura Grünberg, Breaking the Spell / Feminism as Personal Experience, 1994 and 1996


●       Hana Havelková, A Liberal History of the Woman Question in the Czech Lands, 1995 (Czechoslovakia/Czechia)


●       Kazimiera Prunskienė, Women’s Party Program, 1996 (Lithuania)


●       Nicoleta Bițu, The Romani Women’s Movement in Romania, 1999 (Romania)