A Woman Politician in the Cold War Balkans: From Biography to History

This is an Archive of a Past Event

The lecture, based on the life of Tsola Dragoitcheva (1898-1993), a Bulgarian political functionary during state socialism, presents (her) biography as a useful historical tool which allows scholars to find a balance between treating women from patriarchal contexts as agents of change or as individuals constrained by historical structures. As such, it contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the condition of women and gender relations in the East European socialist countries during the Cold War period.

Krassimira Daskalova is a CREEES visiting scholar and professor of modern European cultural history at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, in Bulgaria. Her most recent monograph is Women, Gender, and Modernization in Bulgaria, 1878-1944, published by Sofia University Press in 2012. Her current research project deals with comparative gender history of 19th- and 20th-century Southeast Europe. Read her full bio here.