Feminist Activism at War: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s, by Ana Miškovska Kajevska, New York, Routledge, 2017, $149.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9781138697683

Abstract

Ana Miskovska Kajevska accomplishes her main goals-to correct misconceptions in the existing literature concerning feminist activism during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and to explore the different "positionings" of feminist activists during this time. Written in an effort to "understand and explain" rather than "rehabilitate and denounce" the various "positionings" or viewpoints of activist women, Kajevska's work is pioneering and inspiring, especially for scholars who are interested in writing about this time in Yugoslav history. Kajevska successfully lays down a scholarly foundation for future research, providing the necessary missing details and filling in crucial components of previous work. Completed as a doctoral dissertation in 2014 and adapted to a book format in 2017, Kajevska's work has the advantage of a critical temporal distance from the issue at hand, as she deems necessary for objective insight and analysis. Through extensive personal interviews (48 in total) with feminist activists and those familiar with the movement in the (post) Yugoslav region, a detailed and thorough analysis of previous literature and relevant original documents, Kajevska creates a persuasive narrative that informs new beliefs, as much as it challenges previously held beliefs. Nuance is a significant part of this work-as is clarification. The breakup of Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and the various conflicts that began as a result, was a tragic occurrence with complicated causes and consequences that still linger in the ex-Yugoslav region. Throughout Kajevska's impressive work, it is apparent that she acknowledges and is sensitive to this complexity and attempts to explain it further. By examining significant "clusters" of feminists involved in anti-war efforts, who through humanitarian and lobbying efforts tried to counter the bellicose and nationalist character of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, Kajevska acknowledges the complications of that time. The feminist women, according to Kajevska and others, performed admirable deeds in the wake of severe conflict. Feminist activists provided services such as psychological counseling and housing to refugee women, who were often the victims of sexual violence. Through links to Western feminists, feminists of the Yugoslav region also worked to increase international awareness about the disturbing nature of the nationalistic violence that was occurring in the region and affecting women in particular and troubling ways. These accomplishments, however noteworthy, sadly belied serious tensions and differences that existed among activists. This is where the Kajevska work makes a significant contribution: previous interpretations of this anti-war movement speak mostly of one group, the so-called anti-nationalist group, at the expense of the other, nationalist group, so that in this replication of an overstated and uniform positionality, significant nuance and details have been lost. Kajevska refers to the "homogenizing" tendencies of previous scholarship in her work and dedicat...