Djurdja Knezevic

I was born in 1952, 10 of May, in Croatia. At the University of Zagreb I studied History and Archeology and after finishing studies I worked for five years at high school, teaching history. Later I worked at a Cultural Center in Zagreb as an organizer of cultural events. My next job was in the Museum of Revolution of People of Croatia, first as a curator and later, in 1990-1991, as the Director. With the beginning of the war I was fired out of political reason and I spent one year in Budapest at the History Department of the Central European University.

For more than twenty years I have been active in the women's movement and organizations in Croatia. I was one of the coordinators of the first and most active feminist organization, "Woman and Society," which was founded and registered in 1977. In 1990 I was the first coordinator of the Independent Associaton of Women in Croatia.

At the beginning of the war in 1991 I joined Antiwar Campaign of Croatia as one of the founders and soon after, together with some of the women there, we established Zagreb's Women Lobby and subsequently the Center for Women War Victims.

In 1992 I founded Women's Infoteka - Women's Information and Documentation Center in Zagreb. Together with the work in Infoteka I worked for the Center for Women War Victims as a fund-raiser, from the beginning of its work in 1991 up till 1995. At that time, when the Center was a big organization with about forty women working in it and helping thousands of others, I was their main fund-raiser. After that I focused my work to Infoteka. Within Infoteka I helped some initiatives in fundraising and in creating their projects. That included the groups such as B.a.B.e. - a group for women human rights, Women Studies Zagreb, Profosa - small business for women, Croatian Association of Women in Research, Center for Education and Counseling of Women in Zagreb and some other initiatives in the whole region of former Yugoslavia.

For three years already I have been one of advisors for the Global Fund for Women.

Beside this, within Infoteka I developed publishing of the Magazine "Bread and Roses" where I am the chief editor. This is still the only feminist magazine in Croatia. I also organized publishing of a series of books. At the moment eight books are published as well as a manual for an e-mail program. Next three books are at the final stage of preparation for publishing.

I also developed a project for e-mail networking within former Yugoslavia which is now a part of the global APC -women project. In this capacity Infoteka's team is now coordinating the e-mail network in former Yugoslavia. This team is organizing regularly a number of education workshops in the whole region and developing the e-mail network further on.

For many years, and especially in the transitional period after the decline of communism, I have been very interested and also active in Eastern European countries. Through Infoteka I am in a more or less regular contact with the most of the women's groups in these countries and I dare to say that I know personally most of women active in women's or feminist groups in this part of the world. I took part in numerous conferences, seminars etc. in these countries, often as a co-organizer. During several years I organized several national and regional conferences and seminars. For the fourth year I am organizing in Dubrovnik/Croatia a seminar on political participation of women in Eastern European Countries which brought together women from all Eastern European Countries and former Soviet Union Republics. Every year after the seminar my organization, Zenska infoteka is publishing a book of the seminar documents.

During all these years of being active I published articles, essays, interviews. Mostly I wrote articles concerning women's issues but also I wrote articles, essays and reviews on history and about the peace processes in former Yugoslavia. Many of them are translated and published in feminist magazines in Germany, Italy, USA, Austria, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary and some other countries.

ARTICLES

"Male Nationalism", in Male Nationalism. ed. Rada Ivekovic. Croatia. (forthcoming)

"Women's Publishing in Croatia during the War 1990 - 1997", in Transeuropeen. Paris. (forthcoming)

"E-mail: Subversive Possibility for Direct Democracy", Bread and Roses, Zagreb (1997): No. 7.

"The Disappearance of Women from Public Life - Paradoxes of Democratic Changes in Eastern Europe," in Governments Without Women or the Long March. Zagreb: Zenska Infoteka, 1997.

"Affective nationalism", in Transitions, Environments, Translations - feminism in international politics. Ed. Joan W. Scott, Cora Kaplan, and Debra Keates. New York: Routledge, 1997.

"Men's programs for Women's Problems", in Kruh i ruze ( Bread and Roses), ed. Zenska infoteka, Zagreb (1997): no. 8.

"This what we got from our struggle", in Arkzin, Zagreb (1997): no. 3.

"Walpurghis Night", Feministike sveske, Beograd (1996): Nr. 5/6.

"The Network for the Freedom", Journal Computer, Hamburg, (May 1996): 18/19.

"Women from the East and West: How we see each other", Gender Studies Centre, Skt. Petersburg (1996).

"Zivile Intervention - oder: Wie kann nach dem Waffenstillstand der Frieden etabliert werdenî," Friedenspolitische Perspektiven im Ehenaligen Jugoslawien, Goettingen (November 1995): 17/18.

"Ueber die Situation von Frauen in Kroatien", Prelude/Auftakt, Prague (March, 1995).

"Rulers and Rhetoric Change, but Reality?", War Report, London (Sept. 1995): No. 36.

"How we miss her!", Bread and Roses, Zagreb (1995): No. 3.

" 'We' versus 'I' in Feminism: Problem of Political Identity in Croatia," in Travelling through European Feminism: Cultural and Political Practise. Utrecht: WISE, 1995.; also translated in Bread and Roses, Zagreb, 1994.

"The Enemy Side of National Ideologies: Croatia at the End of the 19th Century and in the First Half of the 20th Century", in Pride and Prejudice. Budapest: CEU - History Department, Working papers, series 2, 1995.

"We won't give the Politics to the men", ARKZIN, Zagreb (April, 1994).

"Violence against Women in Former Yugoslavia", Beitraege zur feministische theorie und praxis, Hamburg (1994): Br. 37.

"Frauen aus dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien - drei Jahre danach", EPD - Dokumentation, Bonn (Oktober 1994): No. 42.

"One step forward, two steps backward," ARKZIN, Zagreb (May 1993).

"Feminismo in Croazia. La crisi c'era. Il nazionalismo l"ha fatta esplodere." Noi Donne, Italy (March 1993).

"Losses of the Population of Yugoslavia during the II World War," Victimology, Zagreb (1990): 1/2.

"Who financed Hitler", Nase teme, Zagreb (1990): 4.

"Fascism with the Eyes of the Communist Contemporary", Kulturni radnik, Zagreb (1982): 1.

INTERVIEWS

"Femail fuer Bosnien", Spiegel Special, Hamburg (1996): Nr. 3.

"Between the War and the Feminism", FRAZ, Zuerich: (March 1994) No. 49.

"Keiner kann Sie Kontrollieren", Suedtiroler Ilustrierte, No. 49/92, XIII, December, 1992.