Original scientific paper
THEY WOULD THROW YOU OUT THROUGH THE DOOR LOTS OF TIMES, BUT YOU WOULD GO BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: EXAMINING THE HISTORY OF WOMEN DURING WORLD WAR II
Renata Jambrešić Kirin
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Reana Senjković
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The authors show the ways in which the models of ideal patriotic women, established by way of propaganda activities on the part of the two competitive ideologies in Croatia during World War II, have been transformed and adapted to diverse genres of the culture of memory from 1945 until the present day. In order to indicate the inter-relation between media-ideological constructs and self-determination, the authors have compared cultural representations of acceptable and obnoxious females in war circumstances with etnographical interviews conducted with participants at the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the AFŽ (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front) Istrian Conference. The relation between recollections and official memory have confirmed once again that memories are adapted to dominant cultural perceptions and the expectations of researchers, leaving “unfitting truths” untold, but also how they are resisted by way of a mainstay in personal experience, various sources of historical knowledge and the timeless past of tradition.
Keywords
history of women; war propaganda; World War II; personal and social memory
Hrčak ID:
2929
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2005.
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