{"id":8862,"date":"2018-03-17T14:24:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T14:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=8862"},"modified":"2018-03-17T14:25:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T14:25:32","slug":"muslim-women-in-communist-yugoslavia-and-bulgaria-between-the-hammer-and-the-anvil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=8862","title":{"rendered":"Muslim Women in Communist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria: Between the Hammer and the Anvil"},"content":{"rendered":"

U Centru za jugoisto\u010dnoeuropske studije (CSEES) Sveu\u010dili\u0161ta u Grazu u utorak, 20. o\u017eujka 2018. Ivan Simi\u0107 odr\u017eat \u0107e predavanje o muslimanskim \u017eenama u komunisti\u010dkoj Jugoslaviji i Bugarskoj.<\/p>\n

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—<\/p>\n

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CSEES<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Uni Graz<\/p>\n

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brownbag seminar<\/p>\n

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Location:<\/p>\n

SR 15:33, RESOWI<\/p>\n

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Date:<\/p>\n

Tuesday, 20 March, 2018 – 13:00 to 14:00<\/p>\n

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Speaker(s):<\/p>\n

Ivan Simi\u0107, Carleton University, Canada<\/p>\n

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Description:<\/p>\n

This paper explores gender policies of the communist governments of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, compares them and situates them in transnational history perspective. Impassioned debates about the garments of Muslim women, followed by state interventions into Muslim communities\u2019 gender relations, clothing, and identities are neither novel nor specific to our time. Initially attempted in the Soviet Union, Turkey and Iran, interventions reached new levels in Communist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. In 1951 the Yugoslav Communist Party launched an aggressive veil lifting campaign introducing severe punishment for women and those who by any means pressured them to wear the veil. The Party\u2019s activists entered houses and forced people to appear in public unveiled. The campaign followed a series of interventions into Muslim communities, including mandatory elementary education for girls, a ban on underage marriage, and the replacement of Sharia law with the universal Yugoslav law on marriage. Similar processes occurred in socialist Bulgaria a decade later. The state engaged in controlling the garment choices of Muslim women, name changing and assimilation programmes. When they failed to change people\u2019s identities and prevent them from speaking Turkish, the communist government of Bulgaria forcefully extradited hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the late 1980s. Yet, these cases are surprisingly under-researched.<\/p>\n

In this paper I will explore how gender policies towards Muslim women were utilised to exert influence over Muslim communities for state-building purposes. Soviet models heavily influenced both countries, and I look at how ideas about Muslim women, modernity, and gender relations were adapted in each case, informing aggressive policies. I will also address how Muslim women and their communities reacted, and explores the positioning of the religious authorities. Finally, I will question the broader consequences of the authoritarian state\u2019s attempt to change cultural norms aggressively and to what extent these policies contributed to islamophobia.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/www.suedosteuropa.uni-graz.at\/en\/event\/2018\/muslim-women-communist-yugoslavia-and-bulgaria-between-hammer-and-anvil<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Simic.jpg?fit=340%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":55443,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55443","url_meta":{"origin":8862,"position":0},"title":"Ivan Simic, “Sickle and Veil: Communist Gender and Policies towards Muslim Minorities in Eastern Europe”","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"24. rujna 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Communist gender policies were often violent, placing many people, particularly women, in difficult and marginalized positions. Targeted individuals were rarely consulted, yet their clothing and bodily practices were consistently policed and politicized. Across Central Asia, veils, the fez, shalvari, circumcision, and even Muslim names were banned or stigmatized. Sickle and\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Knjige"","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Simic-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Simic-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Simic-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Simic-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":55908,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55908","url_meta":{"origin":8862,"position":1},"title":"Talk with Olivera Simi\u0107: \u201cMadam War Criminal\u201d \u2013 Women, War and Justice","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"16. listopada 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"The legal scholar and author Olivera Simi\u0107 (Professor at Griffith University, Australia) will visit the University of Graz to discuss her latest book, Madam War Criminal: The Extraordinary Life and Trial of a Woman Accused of War Crimes (Hurst Publishers). 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