Herstory Revisionism. Women´S Participation in Political Upheavals

BALTIC Guest editor: WORLDS Weronika Grzebalska Herstory Revisionism Co-guest editor: Andrea Pető Introduction. Writing women’s history in times of illiberal revisionism hrough the past century, East- the front and the rear or the home front, Stemming from this perceived absence Central Europe has been the and symbolically subjugate women’s of women and their political participation scene of numerous spectacular emancipatory goals to revolutionary or in official narratives about the past, the T political upheavals and often national ones. rationale for women’s history of wars, violent political change: from revolutions, and political upheav- the Russian Revolution of 1917, als seems to have been straight- the Second World War, and the forward. First and foremost, it Warsaw Uprising of 1944to the inscribed women back into the 1956 revolution in Hungary and “blank spots” of official narra- the Velvet Revolution of 1989, tives about the past. In fact, from to Maidan protests of 2014 and the 1970s onwards, women’s and the subsequent war in Ukraine. gender history constituted itself All these events have since been as a vigorous field of study mostly transformed into potent political in reaction to the absence of myths, and their leaders serve as women and gender from written national or revolutionary heroes, history and collective memory. their interpretations shape fu- Hence the systemic omission ture political projects, and their of women from history, called commemorations define the “the problem of invisibility” by values underlying contemporary the prominent feminist scholar collectives. Women played active Joan Wallach Scott,3 has long roles in all of these watershed remained the foundational issue events, as feminist scholarship for women’s history. In conse- on gender and war in the region quence, the feminist perspective and beyond has shown.1Their has largely functioned as a criti- participation, however, has often cal tool to uncover female figures been ignored by mainstream ac- active in the past, as well as to counts,2 which largely reproduce explore and document women’s the gendered division between contribution to society.4Against ILLUSTRATION: KARIN SUNVISSON Baltic Worlds 2017, vol. X:4 Special section: Herstory Revisionism. Women’s participation in political upheavals 40 introduction “THIS REVISIONIST STRAND OF NATIONALIST HERSTORY HAS CERTAINLY MADE SOME WOMEN VISIBLE IN NARRATIVES ABOUT HISTORICAL EVENTS, BUT IT IS ALSO HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC.” this background, it is much rarer to find symbols of independence movements or of the war effort has resulted in the mar- women’s history works that have attempt- broader political projects. Like feminists ginalization of women in historical nar- ed to revise mainstream accounts of the who have engaged in the ethical task of ratives about the past. Reproducing the past and reformulate knowledge about righting injustice by recording the stories gendered imageries of national projects politics using these discoveries. It can be of individuals and institutions “whose which cast men as the metonym of the argued that this relative underrepresenta- experience [they] share and whose life nation and women predominantly as its tion of significance-driven revisionism5 stories and world views they often find metaphor,10mainstream accounts of both has, in turn, led women’s history to func- laudable”,7 right-wing circle shave also these conflicts portrayed women’s con- tion largely as an appendix to political studied and celebrated their women tributions as exceptional and subsidiary. history, a separate field with little bearing worthies in frameworks rooted in con- Similarly, Zuzana Maďarová argues that on mainstream understandings of politi- servative or nationalist politics. In fact, the dominant narrative of heroism and cal processes. it can be argued that nationalist herstory suffering under Communism has created has often been an effective avenue for en- a paradoxical image of female activists as HOWEVER, AS THE papers in this special suring women’s visibility in the political “strong women who resist the authori- issue alert us, absence and invisibility process, recovering female figures from tarian regime but are obedient towards are not necessarily the key challenge and the “epigons’ niche” of women’s history8 their husbands and fathers”11 through point of departure for feminist research and mainstreaming them into the very her analysis of the memory of the Velvet on wars and political upheavals in East- center of national history. This has even Revolution in Slovakia. Agnieszka Mrozik Central Europe. In fact, some countries in led some right-wing historians to claim analyzes the portrayals of women com- the region have recently witnessed what that the marginalization of women’s his- munists in the Stalinist period in Poland, can be called the ‘herstorical turn’ — an tory research stems from its rejection of produced in the framework of nationalist outbreak of interest in women as partici- the national-militarist tradition and the history during the illiberal turn. She ar- pants in historical events, accompanied role it gives to women’s emancipation. In gues that biographies of women dignitar- by a departure from viewing the past in line with this narrative, Undersecretary of ies served the broader political function a ‘male stream’6 framework. Even more State Magdalena Gawin of the Polish Min- of delivering a cautionary tale against telling is the fact that this shift has often istry of Culture under the illiberal party “excessive” liberation of women, so that been carried out, not by feminists, but Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) has recently female communists were often presented by right-wing actors. Among them have argued that “research on women does not as beasts and demons rather than politi- been right-wing authors engaged in her- enter the mainstream because it is often cal agents. Similarly, Nadezda Petrusenko story writing, neoconservative political written against the national tradition.”9 argues how conservative historians from groups that use women as symbols of the the early 20th century pro-governmental national struggle, and newly founded na- AS THE ARTICLES in this issue demonstrate, tradition in Russia have presented female tional memory institutions that research this revisionist strand of nationalist her- terrorists as mad and promiscuous. By and commemorate women as national story has certainly made some women showing how conservative historians heroines and martyrs. In this issue, the visible in narratives about historical depoliticized women by explaining their articles by Andrea Pető and Weronika events, but it is also highly problematic as radicalization with reference to emo- Grzebalska reflect on the recent main- it often reproduces traditionalist notions tional and psychological dysfunctions, streaming of women into history in a na- of femininity, masculinity and ideas about the latter two articles unveil the broader tionalist framework as part of a broader women’s “proper” place in history and gendered power relations in history writ- illiberal shift in Hungary and Poland. As society. In doing so, it has often distorted ing. In all three articles, the authors show they argue, women’s history has become the political significance of women’s how the discursive framework of anti- one of the spaces where the values and participation and downplayed the impor- Communism or counterrevolution has narratives underlying the new anti-mod- tance of gender politics as a tool of man- often appropriated their political agency ernist project of the New Right are being power mobilization. Looking at women and concealed the motivations of their forged and popularized. soldiers in the WWII Red Army and the ideological engagement. Of course, the phenomenon of nation- Ukrainian Armed Forces fighting in the Contributions in this issue remind us alist herstory is not a novelty. Across the Donbas region, Olesya Khromeychuk ar- that right-wing historical revisionism is region, various women ‘worthies’ and gues that the primacy of the nationalist in- itself an example of value-driven revision- their biographies have often been used as terpretative framework for making sense ism, a tool used for the production of the introduction 41 nation here and now, aimed at weaving a references contents certain value system into the very fabric 1 For the state of the art, see the discussion of 39 Introduction, Weronika Grzebalska of society’s self-knowledge. As such, it critical feminist historiographies of memory peer-reviewed articles and war in Ayşe Gül Altinay and Andrea has often used women’s history instru- 42 Roots of illiberal memory Pető, eds., “Introduction: Uncomfortable mentally in the service of these broader politics. Remembering women political and ideological goals. Yet much Connections; Gender, Memory, War”, in Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories: Feminist in the 1956 Hungarian revolution, of women’s history has shared the same Conversations on War, Genocide and Political Andrea Pető predicament. In fact, Andrea Pető makes Violence, Routledge, 2016. 58 Experiences of women at war. the important assertion that this high de- 2 See Grzebalska in this issue. Servicewomen during WWII and gree of reliance on value-driven revision- 3 Joan Wallach Scott, “The Problem of in the Ukrainian armed forces in ism has been the fundamental weakness invisibility”, in S. Jay Kleinberg(ed.), Retrieving the conflict in Donbas, Olesya of women’s history in the region and else- Women’s History:

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