Voices in the Shadows: Women and Verbal Art in Serbia and Bosnia

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Women are conspicuously absent from traditional cultural histories of South-East Europe. This text attempts to address that imbalance by describing the contribution of women to literary culture in the Orthodox/Ottoman areas of Serbia and Bosnia. The author provides a broad chronological account of this contribution, dividing the text into two main parts; the earlier period up until the eighteenth century concentrates on the projections of gender through the medium of oral tradition and the lives of a handful of educated women in medieval Serbia and the few works of literature they left. Hawkesworth also looks at the written literature produced by women, first in the mid-nineteenth century and then at the turn of the century. The second part focuses on the trials and tribulations that affected feminism and women’s literature throughout the twentieth century. The author finishes by highlighting the new women’s movement, 1975-1990, a great period for women in Yugoslavia which created a stimulating atmosphere for outstanding pieces of women’s journalism, prose and verse, culminating in the creation of new women’s studies courses in many universities.