The project focuses on researching and promoting the history of women in Croatia through a diachronic approach grounded in fundamental historical concepts such as the historical subject and historical change. The project has two main objectives:
- The primary objective is to encourage research and reflection on women in Croatia as active participants in historical change. The project aims to identify historical processes that opened or closed opportunities for women’s agency and to define the ideological and practical spaces where women could engage in social activities across distinct historical periods (such as monasteries, educational institutions, humanitarian and women’s organizations, national, cultural, or women’s movements, wars, and public, social, and economic institutions). Furthermore, the project examines how women influenced social processes through intellectual, social, and cultural activities and explores the impact of historical changes on the status and identity of women over the centuries. The research results will be presented in several books, numerous scholarly articles, presentations at domestic and international conferences, and a collection of papers focused on the biographies of women from each historical period, whose individual life stories offer insights into the dynamic interactions between individuals and social, cultural, and political forces.
- The second key objective is to foster scholarly dialogue among historians working on women’s history from different periods by comparing theoretical and methodological approaches, conclusions, and experiences. This will be achieved through organizing workshops, roundtables, international conferences, and joint initiatives such as developing a project bibliography or publishing a collected volume.
Given the project’s diachronic focus, the methodology and research sources are tailored to the specific needs of each historical period and include the analysis of epigraphic records, notarial and legal documents; along with multiple types of personal documents, printed materials, literary-historical works, and both public and private communications. The theoretical framework will combine perspectives from women’s history, intellectual history, social and cultural history, the history of emotions, literary history, biography, global history, and postcolonial critique.
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Great strength of this project lies in its engaged and motivated team, which includes researchers specializing in various historical periods, from Antiquity to contemporary history. The team comprises members across the career spectrum, from established professors to doctoral candidates still working on their dissertations. The project brings together scholars from three Croatian scientific institutions (the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, the Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb, and the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts) and three prestigious international academic institutions: CEU (Austria), the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History (Romania), and Vanderbilt University (USA).
The project will advance the development of women’s history in Croatia by organizing and systematizing both existing and new knowledge, thereby enabling a deeper understanding of the continuities and changes in women’s influence, status, and actions throughout history, while also laying the groundwork for future research in this field. Moreover, the research findings will deepen our understanding of other historical processes in specific periods. Finally, the project’s results can be applied to a range of science communication initiatives, such as exhibitions, media presentations, workshops, and public discussions, while also being integrated into educational programs at both the secondary and university levels.
The project is fully funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.