An (Un)Established Academic and Scientific Network: Branches of the International Federation of University Women on the Balkans (1920-1950s)

Abstract

This article explores the branches of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) in the interwar period and up to the early 1950s as feminist organisations on the Balkans gathered women intellectuals with various fields of expertise and devoted its initial efforts to equal rights of education and professional career. By means of historical and social network analysis the associations of university women in Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey and their as attempt to create a scientific network of women academics on the peninsula are studied. The main question is to discuss whether or not the Balkan associations of university women were organizations which supported women’s movement against the segregation in the University and the museums, which promoted their scientific work in domestic institutions, which assisted them before public prejudices, which gave them opportunities to make contacts with colleagues abroad, and which provide them with scholarships. The analysis of the Balkan associations is made with a comparison with similar women’s scientific networks in the Western Europe.