Jugoslovenka and her Discontents: Feminist Resistance During Yugoslav Socialism & After

My presentation looks at the question of “thaw” and “repression” in Eastern Europe by focusing on women’s emancipation in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1948–1992) and its demise. Considering feminism as central to the socialist project, I examine the changes in women’s access to agency during the period of Yugoslav socialism and show how the feminist context within Yugoslavia complicates the notion of “thaw” in Eastern Europe. Yugoslav socialism both supported and repressed feminism over decades, while the post-socialist context made matters much worse for women and minorities during and after the break-up of socialist Yugoslavia. Central to my study is the concept of the Jugoslovenka, or Yugoslav woman, a term I use to address multiple generations of women who lived under Yugoslav socialism, or who were born during the Republic and came of age during its 1990s partition into independent nations. In a visual exegesis of women’s political resistance to patriarchal cultural control during socialism and neo-liberal capitalism, this essay hones in on what “thaw” and emancipatory strategies meant during socialism, along with an analysis of Yugonostalgic feminist practices after the end of socialism. The feminist art of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as contemporary engagements with the question of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s will be foregrounded in this analysis. Specifically, the presentation will put in conversation performance works by Sanja Iveković, Vlasta Delimar, Tanja Ostojić, Selma Selman, Lala Raščić, and Jasmina Cibic.