Revolution and emancipation – two phenomena that bring together various aspects of revolutionary and feminist politics during the interwar period – will be examined in the light of Woman Today magazine founded and edited in Belgrade between 1936 and 1940 by a group of young left-wing woman, representatives of the Youth Section of the Women’s Movement, mostly students at the University of Belgrade and members or sympathizers of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and through the analysis of the autobiography of Mitra Mitrović (1912-2001), one of the key figures not only of the Woman Today magazine but also a leading female revolutionary of the communist movement in Yugoslavia, the manuscript written in the 1970s and published only recently (Otpisana. Autobiografski zapisi, Beograd 2023).

Through the pages of Woman Today we shall consider the place that its ideas and activities had in global framework of anti-fascism in the 1930s, in the politics of Popular Front and Communist International, but also in the Anti-fascist Woman Front and Communist Party of Yugoslavia. However, a particular attention should be given to the place of Woman Today in the international feminist movement at the intersection of Popular Front strategy and feminist politics of pacifism. Woman Today should be considered as a part of wider feminist network that included Le Comité mondial des femmes contre la guerre et le fascisme created in 1934 (which will be followed by the Women’s International Democratic Federation in 1945) and various magazines such as Les femmes dans l’action mondiale: Organe mensuel du Comite Mondial des Femmes (1934–1939, France), Jeunes filles de France (1936–1938, France), Mujeres Libres (1936–1938, Spain), La Mujer Nueva (1935–1941, Chile), Woman Today (Great Britain) and Woman Today (1936–1937, United States of America).

Mitra Mitrović’s autobiography will be discussed through the analysis of tradition female autobiographical writings. Relying upon the heritage of feminist ideas and contemporary revolutionary practice, the models that should particularly be taken into consideration are female Victorian autobiography that includes a story of a profound spiritual crisis, search for and discovery of a new faith or vocation, conversion and rebirth, and French revolutionary
tradition of female autobiography described in the works of prominent writers such as George Sand and Louise Michel that bring together personal experiences and the process of sociohistoric changes.

Participants:
Veljko Stanić, historian and translator
Stanislava Barać, senior research fellow, Institute for Literature and Art
Tijana Matijević, research fellow, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

Moderator:
Petar Žarković, research fellow, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

The event will be photographed and recorded due to publishing on social networks, the website and other information channels for the purpose of promoting the event and activities of the Institute.