ABSTRACT
Prior to the First World War, women activists in Southeastern Europe did not regard themselves as the British-style suffragettes of the region. At the international women’s congress in 1913, the Serbian representative from Austria-Hungary disregarded the so-called “militant suffragettes” in favor of the home and family which were said to be central to “feminism” in non-Western societies in Europe. Women needed to fight for their rights “slowly, spontaneously, in line with the time and culture,” and not focusing exclusively on the right to vote. In the nineteenth century, access to (higher) education and the professions were crucial demands by women in the region. Women were expected to act as national edifiers in the process of nation building. Women’s associations appeared at the same time. They merged in wider national unions and umbrella organizations after the establishment of the national states and during the first decades of the twentieth century. Still, Marija Jurić Zagorka, a Croat writer and journalist, seriously criticized the “social, cultural, and political” conditions in Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary), where there was still no women’s movement and where feminism was dismissed as “the fight for trousers.” The First World War saw many women, as did the Balkan Wars, actively supporting the war efforts of their respective nations. The nationalization and politicization of women intensified during wartime and continued to be (re)conceptualized in the 1920s and 1930s. The interwar period signaled more radical demands for full social, political, and civil equality with men. There was still a huge gender gap that continued across the region in voting rights. It was not until the 1940s and 1950s that the women of these countries achieved full suffrage.
