Gendering Politics – The Female Authorial Voice of Anna Komnene

Author(s): Larisa Vilimonović / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

Through perspective of a feminist narratology, I have tried to answer some crucial questions on the issue of unique medieval woman’s text and its distinctive mode of enunciation. Feminist criticism seeks to reassess the modern narratological theories in term of gender, social and power relations. The main issues that concern feminist narratologists are voice, context and narrative level of a specific women’s text wherefore I have chosen to deal with this pivotal narratological elements in relation to Anna Komnene’s Alexiad. My final aim was to present in which way Anna conducted a peculiar ‘genderization’ of her narrative and how these crucial elements were shaped and moulded according to the authoress’ gender and her gender-related views and interests.

Женски роли, професионални дилеми и обществено служене: акушер-гинеколожки, педиатърки и учителки-лекари в България (края на ХІХ-средата на ХХ в.)

Author(s): Zhorzheta Nazarska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1-2/2016

The paper is dedicated to the creation and activities of three major professional subgroups formed among Bulgarian female medical doctors in the late 19th century, the pioneers in the Bulgarian healthcare - obstetrician-gynecologists, pediatricians and teachers physicians. Main aims of the text are: 1. study of the opportunities that female gynecologists and pediatricians had had to make a career in public health care and reconciling it with traditional views on the place of women in the profession, and 2. study of power networks (the “glass ceiling ") of public prejudices and professional negative stereotypes who directed them to exercise traditional social roles of mothers and educators (teachers). The paper is based on analysis of archival documents, published sources, press materials and historiography. The prosopographic analysis is applied.

Women in the Protestant Missions and Modernisation in the Balkans

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Women in the protestant missions and modernisation in the Balkans.

Soviet Model for Yugoslav Post-War Legal Transformation: Divorce Panic and Specialist Debate

Author(s): Ivan Simić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This paper explores the Yugoslav legal transformation and the specialist debate regarding divorce following the Second World War. Yugoslav post-war legal transformations were deeply influenced by the Soviet model, and by placing the issue of divorce at the fore, the paper examines how and which Soviet models were transferred. The focus of the analysis will be two crucial and interconnected problems regarding divorce practice: the enforcement of alimony payments and the panic over rising divorce rates. The paper argues that new post-war legislation was a progressive force that replaced very old legal codes and challenged well-established cultural practices. Resistance to new divorce practice was widespread, while powerlessness in ensuring alimony payments and the protection of dependants was one of the first failures of the Party’s post-war gender project.

The Female Face of War. The Sisters of mercy during the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877 – 1878

Author(s): Olga O. Chernyshova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

The article examines the role of women during the war between the Russian and Ottoman Empires (1877 – 1878). The author describes the activities of the Sisters of mercy Communities that have provided medical care for the wounded and sick soldiers at both front and rear. The structural and quantitative management of the Sisters of mercy Communities as well as their administrative and legal position are analyzed. The author examines the large influence of the mass participation of the Sisters of mercy in the war on the further development of nursing education in pre-revolutionary Russia. As a result, it turns out that this war has shown not only the Slavophil and patriotic feelings of Russian women but also reflected their desire to participate actively in social and political life.

Between The magic word “war” was pronounced and The war is a terrible evil: The Beginning of the Female War Memoirs During the Russo-Ottoman War 1877 – 1878

Author(s): Anastasiya Pashova,Petar Vodenicharov / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

The authors analyze the war experience of two Russian nurses on the Balkan front. Their attitude to the Bulgarians, to their patients, to refugees, to the hospital administration have been followed. Being both religious and patriotic the two aristocratic nurses were loyal to the office al ideology of the Russian Empire and its sacred mission for “God, Tsar and Fatherland”. Yet, being women they were emotionally involved and compassionate to the sufferings of their patients – Russians, Bulgarians, Turks, and very critical to the male egoism, arrogance, cruelty and corruption at the rear of the front. Nevertheless of the prevailing religious – patriotic tone the war experience of the two nurses was ambiguous and often contradictory. Still, they did not overstep the official frames of interpreting the War and were not able to reach to pacifistic convictions.

“Yuliya Vrevskaya” – the Other Movie about the Russo-Ottoman War 1877 – 1878

Author(s): Mariyana Piskova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

The first Soviet-Bulgarian movie devoted to the Russo-Ottoman War was created in 1954 as a Soviet model for the Bulgarian national cinema. "The Heroes of Shipka" is historical chronicle of the war whose messages were directed also to the new enemies of the Cold War. At the beginning of the “golden years” of the Bulgarian cinema (1970 – 1980s) the Russian-Ottoman War became a subject of two co-productions with the Soviet cinematography – the two series movie “Yuliya Vrevska” (1878) of the director Nikola Korabov and the TV movie “The Route to Sofia” (1979) of the director Nikolay Mashchenko. The present analysis is based on the movie archives and the reviews about it in Soviet and Bulgarian official press.

Bibliography

Author(s): / Language(s): Turkish,English,Bulgarian,Armenian,Georgian Issue: 3/2016

„Килия 31/ Зад свободата“

Author(s): Olga Chavova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Резюме на английски език

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Imaginea femeii pe baza documentelor proceselor de vrăjitorie din Transilvania din secolele XVI-XVIII

Author(s): Sarolta Solcan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 2/2018

The documents remaining from the witchcraft trials from 16th-18th century Transylvania record information about women. These trials were secular. The drafted documents were numerous and varied: investigations, witness statements, sentences.In these witchcraft trials some women were accused, but most often they were among the witnesses. Their statements reflect their everyday life in the way they perceived it. Most of the women were affected by the illnesses or the death of their children or spouses. Many visited witches to prevent the violence of their men and to bring harmony to the family. Other statements describe the housewives concerns about households well-being and the health of animals.A special character in the community was the quack. Most of them were women. These quacks were believed to have supernatural powers. This was an image that they constructed in order to attract those in pain, but also to impress and to intimidate. In Transylvania, unlike in the Western Europe, most of those judged for witchcraft were quackets. Under these circumstances witches were perceived with trust, but also with fear.The multitude of concerns and the states of women in a community determined the variety of relationships between them.The analysis of documents of witchcraft trias reveals, better than any other document, the complex and contradictory character of the spiritual life of women in the 16th-18th centuries.Through these historical sources, the woman's image is complemented by new aspects of her family and community life.

The strength and weakness of Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova-Rosset (on the history of the origins of one of the women of the Pushkin era)

Author(s): Lilia Zabolotnaia / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova (06.03.1809, Odessa - 07.06.1882, Paris), nee Rosset , is a widely known personage, especially in the history of Russian literature. One of the outstanding women of the Petersburg secular society, the maid of honor of two empresses (Maria Feodorovna and Alexandra Feodorovna), the wife of a diplomat, she was distinguished by rare beauty, intelligence, education and independence of judgments. She was in close friendly relations with all the famous people of her era; Pushkin, Lermontov, Vyazemsky, Khomyakov, Rostopchina, Myatlev, and others sought her company and dedicated their poems to her.Her life is sufficiently illuminated in the scientific literature and journalism, so we do not set the task of repeating or rewriting the known events of her life. She became the object of our attention in the study of the topic of outstanding Moldavian women of the 19th century. In the works of Romanian historians already at the beginning of the 20th century there were notes in which her Moldavian origin was cultivated. Without any documentary evidence, this tradition is also shared by some contemporary colleagues.

NARCISSISTIC SUICIDE: ERNEST HEMINGWAY BETWEEN EXISTENTIAL NARRATIVE AND THE (META)FEMININE PARADOX

Author(s): Anca Peiu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

An emblematic prose master of The Lost Generation, Ernest Hemingway owes quite a lot to his classic 19th century predecessors: to Mark Twain as well as to Walt Whitman; to Stephen Crane the first American naturalist fiction writer, but likewise to Stephen Crane the fine poet, so accurately anticipating modern metaphor. Yet my concern here focuses on the particular lyrical influence upon Hemingway’s style and vision of the least expected poet, herself a champion of minimalism. For some years now Hemingway’s works and personality have been privileged objects of a certain interest revival, on the part of filmmakers, literary critics, scholars and students alike, who have once again fallen under his spell. Here I have preferred a return to Hemingway’s African safari setting and also some hints at his Spanish setting – in a couple of short stories which I hope to defamiliarize. Although (the title of) my paper here may echo the Canadian literary theorist Linda Hutcheon’s now canonic book about “narcissistic narrative” and “the metafictional paradox” (as postmodern rather than modern prose characteristics) – this essay actually represents a re-reading in a refreshing poetic key of Hemingway’s bestknown (and most obviously self-reflexive) short-stories. Moreover, by the ‘(meta)feminine paradox’ I mean literature/poetry of women about/beyond femininity – and particularly Emily Dickinson’s verse. Because, despite his self-(un)masking cynicism, Hemingway’s writings do evince deep poetic qualities, just waiting to be re(dis)covered.

Награда „Анђелка Милић” додељена Књиженству

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 10/2020

The project Knjiženstvo, Theory and History of Women’s Writing in Serbian until 1915 won the prestigious “Anđelka Milić” award for 2020 for the support to the development of creating knowledge in the area of gender studies in Serbia (theory and research).

Десет година Књиженства

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 10/2020

The project Knjiženstvo, Theory and History of Women’s Writing in Serbian until 1915 was founded within the project cycle of the Ministry of Science, Education and Technological Development that lasted between 2011 and 2019. The goal of the project is to shed light on the history of women’s literature in Serbian, and to theorise its particularities while reshaping existing, mostly western notions and models. The

THE TYPOLOGY OF THE PROVIDENTIAL LEADER IN THE MODERN ROMANIAN POLITICAL IMAGINARY

Author(s): Sorin Mitu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

The Typology of the Providential Leader in the Modern Romanian Political Imaginary. In this paper, we will attempt to provide an overview of the typology of the providential leader in the Romanian political culture. The providential ruler is a political myth which gives meaning to modern societies, divided along the fault lines of diverging economic interests and ideological beliefs. We propose a classification centred on the symbolic functions exercised by the political figures. The Saviour, the Martyr, the Vigilante and the Constructor are the four mythical constellations that can adequately structure the specific roles played by the Romanian providential leaders.

У прилог деколонијално-феминистичком читању прича Асје Бакић

Author(s): Jelena Vićentić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 12/2022

The essay explores the possibilities of a decolonial feminist reading of two collections of short stories by Asja Bakić, titled Mars and Sladostrašće (Lust), with reference to the critical thought developed by Gloria Anzaldúa and María Lugones. The analysis of the positionality of the narrator and the main motifs reveals facets of the features of ‘border thinking’, situated in the specific experiences of marginality and the workings of the hegemonic structures. Decolonial feminism is identified as a suitable analytical framework to engage the contexts of multiple exposures to violent ideologies and patriarchal order. Elements of the rhetoric of modernity, such as development, progress, anthropocentric and technological thinking as presented in the writing of Asja Bakić, are utilized to create the scenery for the violence that is instrumental for the preservation of existing hierarchies. Simultaneously, Bakić also succeeds in avoiding the trap of the essentialized gender representation. Furthermore, frequent references to European literary heritage used by the author are not attempts at cultural appropriation or an expression of an aspiration towards ‘Europeanness’ but offer a means to express or reaffirm literary forms of resistance to the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality and its inherent dehumanization of the ‘other’. Asja Bakić’s stories resist genre classification. This appears to be a deliberate subversion, rather than an incidental outcome of imaginative storytelling by the author. This move is made as an articulation of the Self enmeshed with a reflection of particular social and historical circumstances. Elements of fantasy and mythology are entangled with the memories of socialism and sexual imagery with pornographic hints. The underlying themes of these stories involve power and resistance to power, agency, seizing control, seeking out freedom and taking liberties. Asja Bakić creates literary worlds that – through destabilization, displacement and humor – challenge the imposed ‘universality’ of the male gaze, while at the same time refusing to participate in the fragmentation and dehumanization of her own readership.

Ufne w szczęśliwą gwiazdę

Author(s): Anna Mateja / Language(s): Polish Issue: 814/2023

Women Entrepreneurs from Craiova in the Interwar Period

Author(s): Narcisa Maria Mitu / Language(s): English Issue: XXIV/2023

In the present material, there was intended the presentation of some of the Romanian women entrepreneurs who developed sole partnership businesses in Craiova, in the interwar period, as they were recorded in the archival documents and in different edited sources. We notice that most entrepreneurs were housewives, they set up companies whose activities are handled by their husbands and, sometimes, their fathers, or a qualified person (he had a certificate) designated by proxy, but also people who had worked as commercial officials, gained experience working in commercial units, and who opened their own businesses. Analyzing the files of the companies registered with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Craiova, and registered in the Trade Register, we identified several profiles of the woman trader in Craiova: having her own business; as guardian of the minor heirs; after her husband’s bankruptcy; as a result of the death of the spouse; as heiress.

Female Figure and the Idea of Feminity Across Time

Author(s): Ramona Chiribuță / Language(s): English Issue: XXIV/2023

The history of women’s struggle for equality during the last two centuries is relatively well documented; studies of women’s history often construct a meliorate narrative in which the progress women have made in recent times represents the final stage in a long upward trajectory. Women’s power and authority extended beyond the limits of their families. The example of the Tudor queens Mary and Elizabeth is well known, and the ‘anomaly’ of Elizabeth’s position has been endlessly noted; but they were not the only women who exercised political authority.Generations of women have found a source of their own empowerment in the power of Shakespeare’s writing and in the cultural authority it carried. In the recent years, as we have seen, the validity of these enthusiastic responses has been called into question by arguments that mobilize the authority of history to insist that the original productions of Shakespeare’s plays-written by a male author to be performed by an exclusively male company of players-expressed an overwhelmingly masculine point of view. The most compelling of these arguments rest on the fact that the presence of a male body beneath the costume of a female character was never far from the awareness of Shakespeare’s original audiences.