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Ana Pauker (1893–1960): The Infamous Romanian Woman Communist Leader

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The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists around the World

Abstract

This chapter discusses the life of the Romanian Ana Pauker, née Hannah Rabinsohn, who in 1947 became the world’s first female foreign minister and was an important political leader. The chapter deconstructs the problematic historiography about Ana Pauker by confronting the dominant narratives with the information provided by the newest archival sources, available since 2015. The analysis insists on three key points: Pauker’s formative experiences, her activity as leader of the women’s mass organization, and her representation in public memory as the embodiment of evil/incompetence in communist regimes. The chapter thus demonstrates the complexity of being a communist woman leader in Europe in the 1940s through the early 1950s.

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Bibliography

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile, Bucharest, Romania

    Ştefan Bosomitu & Luciana Jinga

Authors
  1. Ştefan Bosomitu
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  2. Luciana Jinga
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luciana Jinga .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gender Studies, Central European University, Vienna, Austria

    Francisca de Haan

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Bosomitu, Ş., Jinga, L. (2023). Ana Pauker (1893–1960): The Infamous Romanian Woman Communist Leader. In: de Haan, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists around the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13127-1_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13127-1_6

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13126-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-13127-1

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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