Women and Yugoslav Partisans A History of World War II Resistance [Hardcover]

This book focuses on the mass participation of women in the communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance during World War II.The book focuses on one of the most remarkable phenomena of World War II: the mass participation of women, including numerous female combatants, in the communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance. Drawing on an array of sources, this study explores the history and postwar memory of the phenomenon.The book focuses on one of the most remarkable phenomena of World War II: the mass participation of women, including numerous female combatants, in the communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance. Drawing on an array of sources, this study explores the history and postwar memory of the phenomenon.The book focuses on one of the most remarkable phenomena of World War II: the mass participation of women, including numerous female combatants, in the communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance. Drawing on an array of sources  archival documents of the Communist Party and Partisan army, wartime press, veteran reminiscences, and Yugoslav literature and cinematography  this study explores the history and postwar memory of the phenomenon. More broadly, it is concerned with changes in gender norms caused by the war, revolution, and establishment of the communist regime that claimed to have abolished inequality between the sexes.Introduction; 1. 'To the people, she was a character from folk poetry': the party's mobilizing rhetoric; 2. The 'organized women': developing the AFW; 3. The heroic and the mundane: women in the units; 4. The personal as a site of party intervention: privacy and sexuality; 5. After the war was over: legacy; Concluding remarks. Meticulously researched and convincingly argued, this is a fascinating and important story long in need of serious examination - important for its contribution not only to Yugoslav and women's history but also to literature on modernization, comparative communism, and gender and war. I look forward to assigning it! l³^