From war agitators to charity ladies – women in Great War

10. julij 2014 ob 14.04 • Kobarid - MMC RTV SLO

Women came closest to the battlefield as nurses, but were the driving force on the outskirts of the war. Foto: Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije

The First World War did not only bring massive political shifts, it also cut dramatically into the time marked by gradual democratization of the society and increasingly pronounced emancipation of women. The latter was not stopped by war; on the contrary, it brought women to the forefront of the society.

The role of women in the Great War is the subject matter of an exhibition set up at Kobarid by the "Walk of Peace in the Soča Region Foundation" to mark the centenary of the start of WW1.

If the current exhibition paints a picture of the role of women in 1914, i.e. in the six months before the fatal assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinard of Austria in Sarajevo and almost six months of the state of war, the next exhibitions will explore the following years, up to the year 1918. An innovative concept that strives to show the visitors the gradual change of the atmosphere from the eve of the war, when great tensions were yet to be felt in everyday life, over the completely changed life in straitened circumstances, desperation due to the ongoing war that – according to initial predictions in newspapers – had been supposed to end in a few months, to the utterly crushed morale of the final year.

The four-year project will put three exhibitions on display at Kobarid, and a fourth one will mark the centenary of the end of WW1 at the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana.
Women in formerly typical male professions
The general draft that started on the last day of July, sending numerous men into the faraway Galicia, brought up a lack of workforce which had to be resolved by women. The latter had to take care of farms, find additional funds and take over the professions formerly reserved for men. And these small steps were only the beginning, explains Petra Testen, a co-author of the exhibition.

Important forces on the outskirts
The pre-war years were a time when, as Marta Verginella writes in the introductory address, the struggle for emancipation and voting rights of women spread from the elite circles of British suffragettes towards the old continent, including Slovenian lands. When war started, women became an important force on the outskirts of the front. They became active in their home as well as professional environments, they were visible in the sphere of politics, they worked as war agitators, enthusiastic supporters of troops, spies as well as peace activists.