Jelena Tešija (Zagreb): „East and West“ Together? The International Co-operative Women’s Guild Amid Cold War Divisions

Moderation: Veronika Helfert

HYBRID – Hörsaal 30, Universität Wien, Universitätsring 1 und online via Zoom (Link im Programm von GaM)

Abstract:
The co-operative movement stood out within the international socialist labor movement for its ideologically mixed membership and for collaboration between social democrats and communists during the interwar and post-World War II periods. This lecture examines the
post-World War II history of the International Co-operative Women’s Guild (ICWG), an international women’s labor organization founded in the early 1920s to represent working- class housewives and address issues such as peace, co-operative economics, and unpaid reproductive labor. It explores how Cold War divisions shaped relationships within the ICWG and affected its overall organizational politics and dynamics. The analysis emphasizes how co-operative women with differing ideological positions, including those from socialist Yugoslavia who did not align with either „bloc“, managed tensions and fostered collaboration within the ICWG.

Zur Vortragenden:
Jelena Tešija (Zagreb) is a PhD candidate at CEU in Vienna, specializing in gender and labor history. Her dissertation examines the complex dynamics between social democrats and communists within the International Co-operative Women’s Guild from the 1920s to the 1960s. She has been working as a research assistant at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana.

Der Vortrag findet in Kooperation mit fernetzt im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe Geschichte am Mittwoch des Instituts für Geschichte der Universität Wien statt.