Political and public aspects of the activity of the Lithuanian women’s movement, 1918-1923

Abstract

[ The issue of changing gender relations was handled very differently by the two organisations selected for comparison in this chapter, namely the Association of Feminists (FE) and the Hungarian Women's National Federation (MANSZ). The chapter examines the contributions made by the two women's organisations to cultural de- or remobilisation. It draws both on archival material and on published output in the form of periodicals, which were the main means by which the organisations communicated their views. Besides mapping the differences in political discourses, common threads will also be drawn out in respect to the aims and arguments of the women's organisations in public life in Hungary after the First World War. In this respect, particular reference will be made to gender-related social issues such as suffrage, employment, education, private life, violence, health, childbirth, state welfare and the fate of returning soldiers and prisoners of war (POWs). Keywords:feminists (FE); First World War; Hungarian Women's National Federation (MANSZ); prisoners of war (POWs); remobilisation; women organisations , This chapter seeks to examine the role of female activists and organised women's movements in Bulgarian public life after the war, focusing in particular on the immediate post-war years. It begins by providing some historical background on the development of the women's movement in Bulgaria before 1915, and then goes on to explore its responses to the war and the national turmoil which followed in the wake of defeat. The chapter focuses on the intensification of the activities of the women's movement at this time, and then lights on three important aspects related to women's participation in public life: the commemoration of the war dead, the care of the wounded returnees from the front, and the involvement of women in protest movements of various kinds. It touches upon the contribution of organised women to the process of post-war stabilisation and cultural demobilisation. Keywords:Bulgarian public life; cultural demobilisation; female activists; post-war stabilisation; women movements ]