Life Writing between Fact and Fiction: Croatian World War II Women Diarists

Abstract

This article initiates the discussion of intellectual women’s experiences of the Second World War in Croatia/Yugoslavia with the introduction of the recently discovered war diaries of Jewish intellectual Ina Juhn Broda (1899–1983) and journalist Vinka Bulić (1884–1965), along with the war diary of the nurse Lujza Janović Wagner (1907–1945). These scattered examples of intellectual women’s life-writing and their role in women’s transition from one to another totalitarian regime lack a thorough analysis and theoretical interpretation. This article therefore analyses how World War II represented a major shift in women’s rethinking of war and peace, but also of the Yugoslav future as a socialist project. It also discusses the very nature of the genre and sees the act of writing (about) oneself as a substitution for abruptly discontinued intellectual activity and the public presence of these women intellectuals.