Yugoslav female partisans in World War II

Abstract

This paper deals with female partisans' role and integration with in wartime society in Yugoslavia. Women public engagement, during the war, was very important for process of emancipation in post war Yugoslavia. This was first time that women joined military forces, especially combat unites. We shall present what were their motives to join partisan movement and which were their positions in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and in People's Liberation Army (PLA). We shall also discuss about official documents that were published during the war and are immediate related to the emancipation factors. A distinctive part of this paper will include description and analysis of establishment and first activities of Women's Antifascists Front of Yugoslavia (WAFY). We shall also try to compare female partisans' engagement with the Greek and Soviet women activities in guerilla warfare during the WWII. Our research was based on unpublished and published documents of the resistance movement, wartime press as well as on the memoirs of female partisan's.