GENERA1933-1939 · Gendering European Antifascism: A Transnational History of Women’s Antifascist Activism in East Central Europe (1933–1939)

While research on antifascism has expanded, we still know surprisingly little about how women in 1930s Europe organised against the rise of fascism. This project provides a timely intervention into the studies of antifascism and wider historiographical debates on women's transnational and national activism by examining how women activists built alliances across political, national, and ideological divisions in response to fascist threats. To this end, the project focuses on the involvement of East Central European women in the Women’s World Committee Against War and Fascism (1934–1941), a Paris-based hub of antifascist activity, revealing the reciprocal influences between local activism in ECE and broader European movements. It examines three aspects of women’s antifascist activism: 1) organizational networks, 2) affective and informal solidarities forged in response to the urgency of the fascist threat, and 3) the ways in which democracy, fascism, and women's rights were conceptualized and negotiated within alliance-building. The project’s objectives will be achieved through archival research in the Czech Republic, France, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom, and through close collaboration with primary and secondment supervisors. Methodologically, the project combines a close analysis of organisational documents, correspondence, reports, and articles with a framework that integrates transnational, intellectual, and gender history with social movement and affect theory. The project strengthens my research expertise through archival research, advanced methodology training, and collaboration with leading scholars. Through peer-reviewed publications and outreach activities in Venice, Prague, and Zagreb, the project enhances the visibility of East Central European women in antifascist memory cultures; offers historically grounded perspectives for contemporary struggles against war, extremism, and gender-based violence; and reclaims a more inclusive history of antifascism.