Abstract
Towards the end of 1990, an unusual gathering took place in the well-known Belgrade hotel Moscow (Moskva) in which, rumour has it, gays could occasionally be spotted drinking coffee. For the first time in Serbian social history, a group of homosexual men and women came together in public space with the view of getting to know each other and talking about how their sexual preferences shaped their lives. It was an exciting moment that put Belgrade on an ever denser map of European same-sex desire and constituted the foundation of the first Serbian gay and lesbian group—Arkadija (Mlađenović 2010). The Student Cultural Centre, which had been the nucleus of the Belgrade “civic scene” throughout the 1970s and 1980s, refused to provide Arkadija with an office, constraining its members to meet in cafes and private apartments. Although activists hardly ever had an opportunity to address the public in any politically meaningful way, they did manage to organise a commemoration of the Stonewall rebellion, which happened at the Belgrade Youth Centre (Dom omladine) on 27 June 1991. The debate unfolded peacefully and stimulated a lot of attention, but it also, much to the disbelief of its organisers, coincided with the beginning of the Yugoslav wars: exactly on that day the tension between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Yugoslav People’s Army claimed its first victims inaugurating a decade of misery which would render (non-heterosexual) existence and any sort of political opposition extremely difficult.
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Notes
- 1.
The participants were Lepa Mlađenović, Vjeran Miladinović Merlinka, and Ljubomir Ljuba Stojić.
- 2.
The debate unfolded without violence probably because homosexuality “had not been a public thing, so there were no enemies in the audience, it still had not occurred to people that they should be against something” (Lepa Mlađenović, as cited in Mihajlović 2014, online). In the following year, Arkadija tried to organise another debate in the framework of student protests. However, the protest committee refused to announce the event and Arkadija’s posters were taken off the walls. In the end, three theology students prevented the speakers from entering the room, practically marking the end of Arkadija’s direct public engagement.
- 3.
Zorica Mršević (as cited in Mlađenović and Hughes 2001, p. 252), lesbian activist and legal scholar, provides a portrayal of this abrupt cut: “I have been a witness to how easily what has been (…) constructed can be destroyed. Within a few months practically everything was changed. All the rules of the game are now different. Institutions that we believed would exist forever don’t exist anymore. All that I had invested myself in is worth nothing. We became miserable. In the previous time, we lived an easy life—not on a high standard, but somehow, everything was easy—to go on holiday, to get a flat from the institution where you worked, to buy new clothes, to eat whatever you wanted, to have fun, to visit restaurants, to travel abroad, to have free medical care. Now we spend practically all our earned money only for food. Our clothes and shoes, as well as our health and good moods, come from the previous time. The winter of 1993/1994 was the hardest in my life. We lived by eating only potatoes and beans, and we had to spend our life savings to buy that. Our salaries were between ten and twenty DM per month”.
- 4.
In my previous book (Bilić 2012a, b, c) I drew upon McAdam’s theory of recruitment to high-risk activism to show that those who remained active in anti-war contention in the nationalising and militarily attacked Croatia had been already involved in a dense network of activist ties created at least a decade before the beginning of the wars. Older activists overcame their biographical constraints by drawing upon their strong activist dispositions which rendered commitment to the activist cause a significant personal value.
- 5.
Generation is here treated as a sociological, rather than a biological, category: it is not a concrete group of people of similar age, but a social space within which activists share concerns, influences, and ideas (see Kuljić 2009).
- 6.
Although I agree that processes of inventing ways of being together are at least as important as concrete activist objectives—due to which activism stays outside of the neoliberal obsession with measurement, evaluation, and “success”, my intention is to underline that such spaces often could not rise to the challenge of creating horizontal structures. Instead, they themselves reproduced practices of domination and silencing.
- 7.
It is probably not accidental that Taylor, as a lesbian scholar, has been dedicated to exploring how the American feminist movement survived through abeyance structures.
- 8.
Taylor (1989) refers to this particular variable as “movement culture”.
- 9.
A fully elaborated draft of a new Slovenian Constitution was published in April 1990.
- 10.
- 11.
It is often said that the group was named by Boris Liler after the region that was in Greek mythology celebrated as a place of wilderness and harmony. Perhaps some inspiration also came from the French homophile organisation Arcadie that was active from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s.
- 12.
ZaMir was an avant-garde electronic network of peace activist groups in the Yugoslav space, set up primarily by Eric Bachman and Wam Kat.
- 13.
This is the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Savezna Republika Jugoslavija), consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, which existed between 1992 and 2003.
- 14.
This excerpt coming from a text which we will encounter again in the chapter was written in the midst of the burdensome 1990s. See how Jelica adopts a much calmer tone a few years later when rewriting the piece for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) (Todosijević 2003).
- 15.
The Serbian Medical Society acknowledged that homosexual orientation was not an illness in 2008, 18 years after the World Health Organisation officially removed homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. This was done upon repeated requests of lesbian activists from Labris.
- 16.
It was in the context of demographic “threats” that the idea of “homosexual uselessness” entered the affective core of lesbophobia/homophobia in the post-Yugoslav region. It is still perpetuated by right-wing political options like, for example, Dveri.
- 17.
The operation of Women in Black was crucial for the cooperation that Serbian feminist/lesbian activists managed to establish with women from Kosovo throughout the 1990s. If defying Serbian nationalist and authoritarian government by means of maintaining contact with activists from Croatia (electronically, in third countries, and also in person like, e.g., in Medulin, Croatia, in 1995, see Miškovska Kajevska 2017) was courageous, being in touch with Albanian women from Kosovo was the climax of post-Yugoslav feminist solidarity. Igballe Rogova, who, with her sister Safete, founded the feminist activist group Motrat Qiriazi in February 1995, attended a Belgrade vigil of Women in Black in the same year, where she witnessed Lepa Mlađenović being spat at by a passer-by. On the same day, in Mlađenović’s home, Rogova embraced her lesbianity—“This is my family. This is where I belong. (…) It dawned upon me: I am lesbian” (Rogova 2014, online)—opening up the way for a long lesbian friendship that would resist two particularly inimical social climates. See the letters they sent to each other: Rogova (2014) and Mlađenović (2012b) on the occasion of the magazine Kosovo 2.0 issue dedicated to sexuality. As I do not have access to original sources in Albanian, I do not trace the development of Kosovo’s feminist/lesbian activism. For an account of Serb-Albanian relations, see, for example, the book by the American feminist scholar Julie Mertus (1999), who, herself lesbian, acted as a link between Serbian and Kosovar women and travelled with Rogova to Belgrade in 1995.
- 18.
For example, a lesbian activist from the United States financed the first issue of Arkadija Bulletin.
- 19.
However, such transnational contacts were not always smooth, but sometimes rather contentious and painful for Serbian activists. Tensions were mostly due to the unwillingness of Western activists to become more intimately familiar with the social and political context that Serbian and, more generally, Eastern European lesbian activists came from. For example, Jelica Todosijević (1994, online) attended the Vienna NGO Forum, a preparatory meeting for the UN Conference on Women in Beijing, which took place in 1995. She states: “I was dismayed at the patronising and dismissive attitude of the ILGA representatives, lesbians who were leading the workshop on lesbian human rights. They have no understanding whatsoever of our problems because our problems are so different from theirs. (If Eastern Europeans were better organised and more present at those thirteen ILGA’s Conferences, something like that wouldn’t have happened!) They kept asking for concrete suggestions with which I could lobby my government, not even realising that it is insane to suggest that anyone lobby the Serbian government. Fortunately, Rachel Rosenbloom, from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, was there. If they didn’t respect me, at least they respected her, and she somehow understood that those of us from the East have different concerns. For example, I pushed hard for the inclusion of education as a goal, because that is the only means we have for reaching the public—demonstrations are out of the question! I also suggested that we include the language “lesbians, single women, and women who are not attached to men” because many Eastern European lesbians do not identify themselves as lesbians. We were able to get this language into the document, largely as a product of Rachel’s efforts, but the final result was like we haven’t done anything during those two days (…) The main problem [of Eastern European lesbians], being invisible in their own countries becomes even worse by remaining invisible in the women’s human rights and the Western lesbian community as well. (…) I myself was confused by what was expected of me at such a conference, but now I realize the importance of being involved in drafting language for these large conferences. If I hadn’t been there, the language on lesbian human rights would not have addressed Eastern European lesbians’ concerns at all”.
- 20.
- 21.
Before the establishment of Labris, on 16 November 1994, Lepa Mlađenović appeared on the Belgrade TV Art Channel (in the programme Incidentals (Nus pojave)) together with Wendy Eastwood, British lesbian feminist and cartoonist, who was, at the time, living in Novi Sad, Serbia. This was the first time in the social history of Serbia that a lesbian activist appeared in a TV show in that capacity (Todosijević 1994, online).
- 22.
The idea behind the Electronic Witches (n.d., online) project was to render public experiences of those people, mostly women, who stayed outside of the purview of mainstream journalism: “Electronic Witches is afforded the opportunity to meet women from divergent backgrounds who are pursuing a diversity of life and work ambitions and living under widely varying levels of state violence. This provides a rich view into gender relations, which cut across ethnic, class, and urban/rural divisions. Universally, women expressed frustration with the habit of the local and foreign media of making women visible only as symbols, victims or dependents. Rarely do journalists widen their view to include pictures of women in all our diversity taking effective action. We do not read about the lesbian who raised money to support a lesbian and gay human rights group; the woman who returned from exile to initiate a literacy program; or the woman who lives in a refugee camp and is learning to use computers”.
- 23.
The Network of East-West Women (NEWW) was founded in 1991 to help women activists and women NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space influence public policy regarding women’s lives. It brought together more than 1000 women in 30 countries and had its first meeting in June 1991 in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where the participants were addressed by one of the Network cofounders, Slavenka Drakulić. The NEWW US representative, Sonia Jaffe Robbins (1996, online), states that the Network was avant-garde in terms of its reliance on electronic correspondence: “E-mail was an idea for NEWW before it was a practicality. Some academic members of NEWW in the United States were just being connected to e-mail at our institutions and it seemed the ideal solution to most of our communication problems. If key women in each of the countries where NEWW members lived could only be connected to e-mail, we could break through many of the difficulties we faced and perhaps even create new ways for women activists to relate to each other internationally and non-hierarchically”.
- 24.
For example, soon after the establishment of Labris, four activists organised a night action of writing lesbian graffiti in Belgrade. They were attacked by three men, one of whom broke Lepa Mlađenović’s glasses shouting that he could kill them without anyone noticing (Mlađenović 2012b). The activists then used email to inform their colleagues and supporters about the incident.
- 25.
For an exhaustive account of Labris activities in the first 20 years of its operation, see Živković (2015).
- 26.
Here one can observe the influence of the Lesbian Lilith’s manifesto as the same sentence appears there too.
- 27.
A women-oriented organisation that insisted upon this dichotomy was, for example, the Multimedia Women’s Centre, Nona (Multimedijski ženski centar Nona), established in Zagreb in 1993. One of its cofounders, art historian Nataša Jovičić (as cited in Marušić 2015, online) states: “Nona was dedicated exclusively to women… Above all, our women from Vukovar and women from Bosnia and Herzegovina… We cooperated with women’s organisations which dealt with [the consequences of] the Serbian aggression upon Croatia and Bosnia. In contrast to some other women’s organisations we already then took a clear stance as to who was the victim and who was the aggressor”. In this regard, the cofounders of Nona were members and later cooperated with Kareta (established in 1990, one of its founding members was Katarina Vidović who appeared in the previous chapter), a “patriotically oriented” radical feminist group, which also gathered lesbian women who were not active publicly or agreed to join initiatives that would be done together with gay men (see Špehar, as cited in Tratnik and Segan 1995). In an interview with Antonela Marušić (2015), Nataša Jovičić makes it clear that she was in a relationship with the other Nona’s cofounder, writer Đurđa Miklaužić. In all likelihood, Nataša Jovičić and Đurđa Miklaužić were the lesbian couple that Lydia Sklevicky referred to in her intervention at the 1987 Ljubljana feminist gathering mentioned in the previous chapter. In 1997, Nataša Jovičić went to study in Chicago, where there was already an initiative—Balkan Women Empowerment Project—which supported Nona and was also led by a lesbian couple Aimee Wielechowski and Susan Soric (Holden 1994; Marušić 2015; Yakub 1993).
- 28.
Pavlović (1999) observes that, in the rapidly homogenising Croatia, the tradition of Yugoslav feminism was denounced as men hatred produced by Yugoslav and Marxism-oriented women. This is ironic because, during socialism, feminists were perceived as anti-communist and anti-Marxist. Such contradictory portrayals testify to the resilient misogynist currents running through both periods.
- 29.
Instead of recognising how the nationally homogenising projects were based on a strong patriarchal backlash that marginalised women, the activists argued that the low representation of women in Croatian politics in the early 1990s was a consequence of socialism: “The 45 years of socialism had also its influence on the self-confidence of women, so the result is missing of women in government (in 1990, only 4% of women were present in the Parliament of Croatia), and their influence on the political events in the country is none. And politicians, legislators and priests continue with their practice not to care about the interests of women” (Lesbians in Croatia 1997, online).
- 30.
While there is no author associated with this text, some of its parts appear in Špehar (1994), suggesting that Andrea Špehar may have written it.
- 31.
How new and unexpected the question of homosexuality was for many representatives of the Croatian political parties is shown by a survey organised by a few women’s organisations with the members of the Croatian parliament. One of the questions in the survey was: “What do you think about the freedom of sexual choice?” In the report sent to their international colleagues, the activists wrote: “It is hard to describe all the fun moments but one of them sticks out because it shows the gap that exists between us here, in the Balkans and Europe, a gap regarding the understanding of the most basic concepts. The question that was asked was about the freedom of sexual choice. Only two or three representatives (Radin, Kovacevic, Opacic) understood what the question was referring to, that is heterosexual or homosexual choice. The others thought we were talking about the right to choose your own partner instead of your parents doing it for you. It was very amusing listening to all the conservative representatives, including those from the ruling HDZ, approving that right ‘absolutely’. At least we can say that everyone agrees in Croatia that gays and lesbians should have all the rights (!)” (What Croation politicians thinks of freedom of sexual choice! (sic), 1995, online).
- 32.
There were around ten lesbian activists in LIGMA around the time of its beginning (Tratnik and Segan 1995).
- 33.
As we will see below, the anarchist thread was particularly relevant for the survival and further development of the lesbian activist cause.
- 34.
- 35.
Both numbers of Speak Out are available here: https://monoskop.org/Arkzin
- 36.
These are the first three words of the Croatian anthem.
- 37.
This class aspect of one’s capacity to live lesbianity appears also in the article that Andrea Špehar (as cited in Sagasta 2001, p. 363) published in the magazine Bread and Roses (Kruh i ruže) in the autumn of 1991: “There are many reasons why lesbians are so rarely engaged in a specific homosexual/lesbian culture. When a lesbian openly speaks out about her sexuality to her friends, family or at her workplace, we say that she ‘came out’. Coming out in public for most lesbians is not simple, and the necessary requirement for it to be possible at all is that a woman/girl has accepted herself as a lesbian, and that she has started thinking about lesbianism in a positive way, which includes overcoming all the negative myths about lesbians as abnormal, immoral, perverse or non-existent, and has started to overthrow the influence of all the religious, social and family stereotypes according to which there is something wrong with a girl until she becomes a wife and a mother. In order to protect themselves from their intolerant environment, women are forced to hide their sexuality, and in this not only the social pressure but also financial dependence plays an important part. (…) That is why all of us involved in LIGMA are trying to work on our own identity, and connect with each other to create a positive vision of lesbianism, and to fight for our political and cultural rights”. Bread and Roses was published by Women’s Infoteka (Ženska infoteka) founded in November 1992 by the feminist activist Đurđa Knežević. Infoteka acted as a resource centre for gender-related topics and was particularly important for the development of electronic communication among post-Yugoslav and international activists through ZaMir and Electronic Witches projects.
- 38.
For example, Matea Popov (as cited in Marušić 2014b, online), lesbian activist, decided to leave Zagreb Pride “(…) due to the hierarchical and patriarchal structures that put women and young people under a glass ceiling beyond which they cannot rise. Of course, there is always a possibility of entering into power fights and trying to win your own place. It is hard to explain these power structures and how firm they are, but at the end of the day (like everywhere else) it somehow turns out that women leave while men stay and that those programmes that are done by women are treated as ‘just some kind of workshops and friendships’, whereas the programmes led by men are perceived as ‘rescuing the world and high politics’”. Another lesbian activist who did not feel welcome at Zagreb Pride organisation was Ana Brakus (2015). See also Zagreb Pride’s (2015) response to Brakus’ text in which she talks about what she found problematic in the operation of that activist group.
- 39.
This was, of course, hard to put in practice. For a critical account, see Cvek et al. (2013).
- 40.
Being labelled as “pro-Yugoslav” was one of the most widely used delegitimisation strategies of the Croatian authorities. Andrea Špehar (as cited in Tratnik and Segan 1995, pp. 110) also refers to it in her 1993 interview with two lesbian activists from Ljubljana: “we all know that there is a war and that there are huge problems. I think that LIGMA does not need also that label that we are pro-Yugoslav or something like that. The public certainly would not understand why we communicate with Belgrade, we would be constantly reproached and just add yet another prejudice to those which are already there”.
- 41.
For a discussion of the anarcho-feminist activist currents in the late 1990s and beyond, see Marjanić (2009).
- 42.
In the winter of 1996–1997, there was a series of university student and opposition parties protests taking place in Belgrade against electoral fraud of the Slobodan Milošević regime. Even though Milošević was destabilised by these protests, it was only in October 2000 that he would be forced to resign.
- 43.
In the words of Lepa Mlađenović (as cited in Von Känel 2017, online), who travelled to Bologna: “even though it was all in Italian, we were really happy, but what happened was that the lesbians from Slovenia went back and organised the first Lesbian Week for us”.
- 44.
See in this context, for example, the text by Igballe Rogova (2008), whom I mentioned in the section on Serbia.
- 45.
It was only after these elections that Kontra was registered as a non-governmental organisation.
- 46.
Milošević died in 2006, a few months before the verdict was due for his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
- 47.
Gayten LGBT (now Geten) is a Belgrade-based LGBTIQA organisation established in 2001 as a successor of Arkadija.
- 48.
Kajinić (2019) participated in and wrote about both marches on the basis of the interviews which she conducted with many lesbian activists. I will therefore not address these events here. More information about LGBT activism in the 2000s can be found in our volumes Bilić (2016a) and Bilić and Kajinić (2016a).
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Bilić, B. (2020). Times of Splits: Surviving the 1990s. In: Trauma, Violence, and Lesbian Agency in Croatia and Serbia . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22960-3_3
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