Women, Democracy, and the Political in the Writings of Women Intellectuals in Hungary and Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1948

Abstract

This paper examines the negotiation of women’s rights and democracy in the newly established people’s democracies of Yugoslavia and Hungary in the aftermath of World War II. Focusing on the biographies and activism of women intellectuals who had engaged with both feminism and socialism during the interwar period, the contribution reveals the multiple and often conflicting meanings of democracy in this transformative era. Central to the analysis are figures such as Mariska Gárdos, Mitra Mitrović, Angela Vode, Rosika Schwimmer, and Boris Fái, whose interpretations of democracy placed women’s rights at the centre of their political vision. These women reached divergent – sometimes opposing – conclusions about the potential and pitfalls of people’s democracy for advancing women’s rights and different democratic ideals. The paper analyses their work through a dual theoretical framework: Marxist conceptions of democracy as articulated by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, and feminist critiques of liberal democracy.