3 options
On the Verge of History : Life Stories of Rural Women from Serbia, Romania, and Hungary, 1920–2020 / Izabella Agardi, Andreas Umland, Andrea Pető
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Agardi, Izabella, Author.
- Series:
- Soviet and post-Soviet politics and society ; Volume 241.
- Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 241
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Frauen.
- Gender.
- Genderforschung.
- Hungary.
- Romania.
- Serbia.
- Women's life.
- Local Subjects:
- Frauen.
- Gender.
- Genderforschung.
- Hungary.
- Romania.
- Serbia.
- Women's life.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (485 pages)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Hannover ibidem 2022
- Biography/History:
- The author: Dr Izabella Agárdi studied English and American Philology, Literary Theory, History, and Gender Relations in Szeged, Budapest, and Utrecht. Since 2015, she is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg (iASK) and Lecturer at the University of Pannonia Kőszeg Campus, Hungary. Previously, Agárdi was a junior researcher at Utrecht University and member of Athena, Cliohres, and ATGender. She is co-editor of Making Sense, Crafting Histories: Practices of History Writing (Pisa UP 2010). Her papers on the material culture and political rhetoric of former socialist countries as well as on the legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire have appeared in Hungarian Cultural Studies, Múltunk, Kaleidoscope, Hungarian Historical Review, and several volumes published by Pisa University Press. The author of the foreword: Dr. Andrea Pető is Professor of Gender Studies at the Central European University at Vienna.
- Summary:
- Rural women have not had a formative role in the public histories of Central Eastern Europe. Izabella Agárdi aims to correct that by concentrating on their life stories and their connections to general histories. She investigates how Hungarian-speaking, ordinary women in rural contexts born in the 1920s and 1930s remember and talk about the twentieth century they have experienced, and how, through their stories, they articulate historical change and construct themselves as historical subjects. In her analysis, Izabella Agárdi traces the interactions between micro- and macro- narratives as well as the specific tools women of this generation appropriate to talk about personal memories of their often traumatic past. From these stories, a particular mnemonic community emerges, one that speaks from a highly precarious position ‘on the verge of history’. It is up to future generations whether these women’s experiences will be remembered or forgotten.
- Contents:
- Intro
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword. About the Significance of Stories
- Introduction. Memories of Change in Central Europe
- Thirty Women-Three Countries
- Women's Life Stories as Historical Sources
- Oral History and the Narrative Approach: Praxis and Theory
- 1 Dis/connections. Memories of Childhood and the Interwar Period
- "And then this Trianon-thing came…": The 1920 Treaty of Trianon in Memories
- Scene from Childhood: The "Horthy Era" and "Old Yugo" (1920-1941/1944)
- Religious Education: Narrating the Political in Childhood Stories
- Summary
- 2 Dance Lessons, Balls and Bullets. Memories of Adolescence and the Second World War
- The Happiest and Most Terrible Time
- Periodization Through Two Turning Points
- Russian Soldier, German Soldier
- Mothers and Daughters
- 3 Progress or Stagnation? Remembering Adulthood in Socialism
- Collectivization Narratives
- Stories of Survival and Personal Advancement
- Motherhood and the State
- Socialist Nostalgia
- Socialism in a Narrative of Stagnation
- 4 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Ethnicity in the Voices of Minority Women
- The Legacy of Nazism in Personal Memories: Erasure and Ethnicization of a Regime
- "Clean as a glass": The Racialization of Difference
- 5 Change and Continuity. Stories of Retirement, Old Age and the 1989 Transitions
- Rupture: Retiring during the Time of Transitions-A Personal Decision
- Continuity: Work during Retirement
- 6 A Different Way of History-Telling. Home and Movement in Women's Narratives
- Home as "Greater Hungary": Nostalgia for the Lost Land
- Home as Community: Nostalgia for the Federation
- Home as Movement
- 7 "Now we are laughing but back then…". Humour and Performative Laughter
- Conclusions. Divided Memories of a Generation
- Bibliography.
- Other Format:
- Print version: Agardi, Izabella On the Verge of History
- ISBN:
- 3-8382-7602-7
- OCLC:
- 1288210305
- Publisher Number:
- 9783838276021
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.