The Historical Studies Department’s Professor Emerita Dr. Francisca de Haan organized a panel titled Socialist Women (Re-) building Their States: An International Comparative Perspective at the European Social Science History Conference 2025, held March 26-29 and hosted by the International Institute of Social History in cooperation with Leiden University.
She was joined by CEU’s former and current students and research fellows Isidora Grubacki, Sarah Ahmed, Gulrano Ataeva, and Agnieszka Mrozik.
Taking a comparative international approach, the panel examined how women in socialist and communist states helped rebuild their countries after war or revolutions. It focused on their contributions to legal equality, social policy, education, culture, social reproduction, and rural women's issues as well as changing representations of women in the press.
Drawing on new primary research, the panel included case studies from Yugoslavia, Poland, Yemen, and Soviet Central Asia (1945–2000), challenging the dominant narratives that portray women in these contexts primarily either as victims or tools of the state‘s political agenda.
Abstracts of the presentations
Sarah Ahmed
Socialist state building and pro-women policies in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (1970-1990): the role of the General Union of Yemeni Women and the Popular Defense Committees in the implementation of the 1974 Personal Status Law
On January 21, 1974 the socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen introduced the Personal Status Law, which was one of the most progressive cases of pro-women legislation in the Arab World. The General Union of Yemeni Women (1968-1990) and the Popular Defense Committees (1973-1990) were two key state socialist mass organizations that collaborated to ensure the implementation of the Law. Based on archival research and oral history interviews, this paper examines how the two organizations utilized their formal and informal socio-political relationships to serve women’s interests under the 1974 Personal Status Law, particularly in cases of divorce including those that took place on the grounds of domestic violence. The analysis situates the collaboration between both organizations in a) their historical origins in the 1960s anti-colonial armed struggle against the British rule of South Yemen; and b) the broader process of post-independence state building that began in 1967 and moved towards state socialism in 1970, with women’s emancipation and autonomy becoming fundamental aspects of the constitution and subsequent policies of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Gulrano Ataeva
Late Soviet Reforms in Central Asia: Transformations in the Images of Women and Nation in the Soviet Kyrgyz and Uzbek Republics’ Press
This study explores changes in the representation of women and their roles in the Kyrgyz and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republics during perestroika (1985-1991) in two women’s journals and other relevant press. Focusing on labor and nationhood as two topics intertwined with women’schanging relationship towards the state and society, it reveals the interplay of multiple layers of narratives. These narratives ranged from concerns about women’s difficult working conditions to changing attitudes to labor, redefining motherhood, and integrating national values into a Soviet framework. The discourses invoked contentment (shukur and sabr) and the tragic hardships of pursuing political and economic opportunities. In contrast to scholarly accounts casting women as “lost voices” in “re-traditionalizing” Central Asian societies, the women’s periodicals provided a platform for a tapestry of dynamic accounts of traditionalism, nationalism, and emergent individualism, reflecting a complex interaction of cultural agency, economic realities, and political transformation. My findings highlight women’s active participation in shaping evolving societal and national constructs. In addition, the depictions of women were remarkable in that they moved beyond conventional discourses of what a woman should be to what a woman could be and beyond the binary depiction of traditional versus modern.
Isidora Grubački
Continuing their activism: Yugoslav women (re)building the state after the Second World War
This paper explores the role of women in building the new, socialist state – the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia – in the first decade of the post-World War Two period. Building on the work of historians who have written about postwar Yugoslav gender policies, the Antifascist Women's Front, and women's participation in post-war politics, such as Lydia Sklevicky and more recently Ivan Simić, the paper will revisit some of the official women's magazines, Žena danas (Woman Today) from Belgrade and Naša žena (Our Woman) from Ljubljana, and some archival sources of the Antifascist Women's Front. Instead of approaching the ideas expressed there as being unconnected to earlier women’s activism, this paper will ask to what extent there was continuity with women's ideas and activism from the pre-World War Two period, for example in the field of work with peasant women. By taking into account the interwar activism of several more and less well-known women activists, such as Vida Tomšič and Neda Sremec, the paper will provide new perspectives on the opportunities and limits of women's participation in the (re)construction of the Yugoslav state.
Agnieszka Mrozik
Female Architects of Communist Poland: Modernizing the Country and Emancipating Women through Education and Culture
This paper analyzes the involvement of Polish communist and socialist women in designing the socialist modernization of post-World War Two Poland and implementing the program of women's emancipation through education and culture. Its female protagonists, idealistic and competent politicians and civil servants (e.g. Żanna Kormanowa, Zofia Dembińska, Eugenia Krassowska), steered the reform of the Polish education system just after World War II and during the Stalinist period, creating a project for a school that was egalitarian in terms of class and gender. At the same time, as editors of magazines and publishing houses (e.g. Anna Lanota, Halina Koszutska), writers (e.g. Wanda Żółkiewska, Janina Dziarnowska, Helena Bobińska), film directors, screenwriters and pedagogical consultants of Polish Television (e.g. Wilhelmina Skulska, Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa), they were committed to shaping the image of the new Polish woman: well-trained and professionally active. The role of these “architects of communist Poland” diminished with de-Stalinization, but they were not completely marginalized. Many of them continued to be active, including representing Poland in international institutions such as the United Nations and UNESCO.
More information on the conference can be found at https://esshc.iisg.amsterdam/en.
Article written and image provided by Francisca de Haan, Isidora Grubacki, Sarah Ahmed, Gulrano Ataeva, and Agnieszka Mrozik.