From Partisans to Housewives: Representation of Women in Yugoslav Cinema

Sa？etak This paper will analyse ways in which representation of women changed from partisans as revolutionary subjects to housewives and consumers in the late 1960’s. This transformation is linked with sociopolitical changes in the Yugoslav context and the abandonment of women’s emancipation as it was framed and adopted initially during and after WWII. Namely, the partisan struggle for the liberation from Nazi occupation, as well as the socialist revolution were two foundational myths of Socialist Yugoslavia. Women played an active role in this struggle, both as fighters and through their work behind the lines (as logistical support, spying, nursing, etc.). Likewise, equality between men and women was an important part the country’s official ideology. These narratives were later memorialized through literature, cinema, music as well as comic books. In our work, we will explore five tropes of femininity in Yugoslav cinema: (1) the role of the partisan, (2) woman in the background, (3) collaborator, (4) worker and (5) housewife, in order to map out ways in which the representation of women between 1947 and the late 1960’s corresponds to official emancipatory politics of the time and how these tropes related with everyday life in this period. Finally, this will lead to an analysis of cinema as a collection of stories Yugoslav women and men told themselves (and others) about themselves.1 This approach has the potential to indicate the antagonisms within the social context in which these films were produced, by highlighting the unattained ideals of freedom and emancipation. Simultaneously, the goal of this analysis is not to merely open up another space for a more complex exploration of the past, but also to reconsider the emancipatory potential this exploration offers us today