An Annotated Archive of Entangled European Feminist History: The Union of Turkish Women, the Second Balkan Conference and Cécile Brunschvicg’s Visit to Balkan Feminists (1923-1935)

Aslı Davaz

doi:10.20897/femenc/8516

Abstract

This article will examine the role of women in the Second Balkan Conference which took place in Istanbul in October of 1931, and further examine if any of these women interacted or had been in cooperation prior to the conference. Two years following the Conference, Cécile Brunschvicg went on a study tour to Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania in August and September 1933. She subsequently published in La Française a report of this trip through a series of articles titled ‘Interviews with Eastern European Feminists’ in which she focused on the advancement of the women’s movement. This article will also focus on the role of the Union of Turkish Women over the course of the period from 1923 to 1935.

Highlights

As an archivist of women’s history who has been working in this capacity for over 30 years, my main aim as a feminist researcher is to bring to light documents and primary sources connected to this topic
I accessed at the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand1 (Marguerite Durand Library) (1931) the archive of the weekly journal La Française2 (1906-1940) published by Cécile Brunschvicg (1877-1946), who was the editor of the journal and an important suffragist and delegate at the Twelfth Congress of the Alliance Internationale pour le Suffrage et l’Action Civique et Politique des Femmes (International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship) (IAWSEC),3 which took place in Istanbul in 1935
The journal contains information about the rights Turkish women acquired in the new Republic and published news about the Twelfth IAWSEC Congress, as well as an article by Necile Tevfik (1911-1964), titled ‘The Turkish Women of Today’ (Tevfik, 1935)

Summary

Introduction

As an archivist of women’s history who has been working in this capacity for over 30 years, my main aim as a feminist researcher is to bring to light documents and primary sources connected to this topic. I came to appreciate how closely the journal had been following Turkish activists, Nezihe Muhiddin (1889-1958), Necile Tevfik, Lâtife Bekir (1899-1952), the UTW (Union of Turkish Women), Eastern European feminists, the Balkan Conferences, the 1935 Congress of the IAWSEC in Istanbul, and the women’s movement in Turkey.

Results

Conclusion