Feminist Periodical Studies and the Avant-Garde

Abstract

After reviewing the results of the disciplinary intersection of feminist periodical studies and avant-garde studies in Serbian academic research, the importance of this intersection is shown on the example of including neglected periodicals in shaping narratives about the avant-garde of South Slavic revolutionary youth. Studying the magazine Bosanska vila, as well as informative-political (Pijemont) and women’s press (Domaćica) prior to the First World War from feminist positions, allows the inclusion of female authorship in the narrative of the first South Slavic avant-garde. In arguing this, I look at the publicist-essayistic texts, activism, and artistic practice of Nadežda Petrović, Isidora Sekulić, and Maga Magazinović. This research shows that feminism was a vital part of the works of avant-garde female authors on the eve of the First World War. Also, the feminist discourse was an integral part of the political and ethical agenda of the Yugoslav revolutionary youth, explicitly formulated in Pijemont, and implicitly in Bosanska vila. In other words, the pre-war avant-garde manifested itself in a range network of activities, within which women’s centres and women’s authorship were of constitutive importance.