Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HERESSEE (The History of Feminist Political Thought and Women’s Rights Discourses in East Central Europe 1929 - 2001)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-06-01 do 2025-11-30
This project will produce the first comprehensive and multi-disciplinary history of feminist political thought and women’s rights discourses in East Central Europe in a broad chronological perspective. The project builds on a solid base of existing scholarship, but does more than weave the stories of individual women or fragmented national case studies in the existing scholarship into a coherent narrative. Instead, it reinterprets the story of feminism in the region in relation to state socialism and the history of state socialism through the lens of feminism. It treats the interwar pre-history of debates between socialism and feminism, as well as the post-1989 struggles to deal with the state socialist past as integral parts of the history of state socialism. Intellectual historians have paid relatively little attention to this region, to women, and to feminism. Yet it is precisely the issues traditionally at the heart of their field – such as the origins and transformations of ideas in their social and cultural contexts – that are required to understand feminism in East Central Europe. Recent advances in the field have often been driven by methodological innovations, and particularly the use of sources beyond political essays and academic publications. This project also draws upon sources like popular women’s magazines, literary and art works, samizdat publications, party documents, and oral history interviews. The research team reflects the diversity of the European continent, mobilising linguistic and methodological skills to match the project’s broad source base, inclusive geography, and extended chronology and to produce a body of research that is both comprehensive in scope and sensitive to local particularities. By situating them in their local, regional and transnational contexts, this project integrates feminist political thought, women’s rights discourses, and their authors in East Central Europe into the broader European intellectual tradition.
1. Successful Project Kick-off with Keynote lecture “Radical Togetherness and Non-Binarism for Caring, Sharing and Survival” by Dr. Rada Iveković
2 “Dignity and Historical Injustice: An Albanian family´s history” Keynote delivered by Prof. Lea Ypi, event organized by the project.
3 Publication: Zsófia Lóránd, “Women, Democracy, and the Political Thought in the Writings of Women Intellectuals in Hungary and Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1948”, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschiichtswissenschaften. Status: accepted, publication planned for July 2025
4 Zsófia Lóránd in the Panel “Women's Emancipation in Politics and State Socialism in Central and East Europe” at the 2024 ASEEES Annual Convention (Boston, 21–24 November, 2025
5 HERESSEE Team Conference Panels:
• Conference: “Human Nature – Humans and Nature in the History of Political Thought.” 7th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the History of Political Thought, CEU Vienna (25-27 September,2024). HERESSEE Panel: Women’s Nature in Women’s and Feminist Political Thought in East Central Europe from the Interwar Period to the Yugoslav “Second Wave”
• Conference: “Left-Wing Women's Activism and Organizing in the Twentieth Century,” Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy (20-21 February,2025). HERESSEE Panel: Women’s Activism and Women’s Rights Discourses in Central and South Eastern Europe
6. Publication “Women, Democracy, and the Political in the Writings of Women Intellectuals in Hungary and Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1948” in the OeZG (Austrian Journal of Historical Studies) by Zsófia Lóránd
2 “Dignity and Historical Injustice: An Albanian family´s history” Keynote delivered by Prof. Lea Ypi, event organized by the project.
3 Publication: Zsófia Lóránd, “Women, Democracy, and the Political Thought in the Writings of Women Intellectuals in Hungary and Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1948”, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschiichtswissenschaften. Status: accepted, publication planned for July 2025
4 Zsófia Lóránd in the Panel “Women's Emancipation in Politics and State Socialism in Central and East Europe” at the 2024 ASEEES Annual Convention (Boston, 21–24 November, 2025
5 HERESSEE Team Conference Panels:
• Conference: “Human Nature – Humans and Nature in the History of Political Thought.” 7th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the History of Political Thought, CEU Vienna (25-27 September,2024). HERESSEE Panel: Women’s Nature in Women’s and Feminist Political Thought in East Central Europe from the Interwar Period to the Yugoslav “Second Wave”
• Conference: “Left-Wing Women's Activism and Organizing in the Twentieth Century,” Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy (20-21 February,2025). HERESSEE Panel: Women’s Activism and Women’s Rights Discourses in Central and South Eastern Europe
6. Publication “Women, Democracy, and the Political in the Writings of Women Intellectuals in Hungary and Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1948” in the OeZG (Austrian Journal of Historical Studies) by Zsófia Lóránd
Going beyond the state of the art: The team has been working with non-traditional sources and new theoretical frameworks since the beginning. Our method of working transnationally through dialogues across the team and using methods from literary and art theory, as well as methods from anthropology and sociology for integrating marginalized voices.