Netizens across former Yugoslavia celebrate 75 years of women’s suffrage · Global Voices
Kristina Hadzi-Vasileva

A married couple of Yugoslav Partisans in a photo taken in Slovenia, 1944. Source: znaci.net. Public Domain.
This past August 11 marked 75 years since now-dissolved Yugoslavia's granted women the right to vote. Human rights activists and feminists from the successor states remembered the date by sharing photos from that period on social media — and used the opportunity to advocate for equal rights.
Universal suffrage was part of the political program of Yugoslavia's communist-led resistance to occupation by Nazi Germany and its allies. It became law in 1945 following Nazi defeat, and women voted for the first time in the November parliamentary election that solidified the power of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
Compared to other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia introduced universal suffrage a bit late — Russia did in 1917, Poland in 1918, and Czechoslovakia in 1920. Communist Bulgaria and Albania also granted women the right to vote after World War II, and anti-communist Greece only did so in 1952.
In 2020, Twitter users celebrated the anniversary by sharing photos — some of them contrasting sharply with the genocidal nationalism that plagued the region both during WWII and the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
Twitter user @arthurgordonpy3 shared a photo of an ethnic Albanian female activist giving a public speech on International Women's Day in 1945. Along with the photo, they said in Macedonian:
На денешен ден, 11 август 1945, жените се избориле за право на глас во Југославија!
Фото: Историски музеј на Југославија, Менсура Шаќири држи говор на митингот на Антифашистичкиот фронт на жените (АФЖ) по повод 8-март 1945. pic.twitter.com/RqQdQJs42b
— Duchess?‍ (@arthurgordonpy3) August 11, 2020
On this day, 11 August 1945, the women won the right to vote in Yugoslavia!
Photo: Historical museum of Yugoslavia, Mensura Shaqiri holding a speech at a meeting of Women's Antifascist Front on March 8, 1945.
Some users posted photos of the women fighters who were members of the anti-fascist National Liberation Army and Yugoslav Partisan Units. The celebratory comments stressed how women earned the right to vote by actively participating in the armed struggle and the post-war reconstruction — in contrast to often-used language that implies women were “given” that right.
Na današnji dan, 11. avgusta 1945. godine, žene u Jugoslaviji izborile su se za pravo glasa. pic.twitter.com/MJXlSUYacW
— zarko bogosavljevic (@zarkobns) August 11, 2020
On this day August 11, 1945 women in Yugoslavia fought and won the right to vote! Via @voxfeminae
Na današnji dan 1945. godine žene u Hrvatskoj, u okviru Jugoslavije, izborile su pravo glasa!
Via @voxfeminae pic.twitter.com/NL8SduJHjS
— Divljakuša (@mogualnecu) August 11, 2020
On this day in 1945 women in Croatia, which was then part of Yugoslavia, won the right to vote! Via @voxfeminae
Others reminded the public of a rather obscure piece of historical data: The one occasion when women from Yugoslavia temporarily had the right to vote, 28 years before universal suffrage became law. That took place in some parts of Vojvodina, a province of Serbia that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.
Током новембра 1918. године, у 200 изборних јединица на територији Бачке, Баната и Барање, посланици су изабрани за предстојећу Велику народну скупштину, на којој би се та подручја неопозиво придружила Краљевини Србији, а жене су имале право гласа први пут у европској историји. https://t.co/NqoJWYMvfx
— Севастократор (@Sevastokrator3) August 11, 2020
During November 1918 in 200 polling stations on the territories of Bačka, Banat and Baranja, elections of deputies for the future Grant Popular Assembly took place, which declared joining of those territories to the Kingdom of Serbia, with women having the right to vote for the first time in [sic] European history.
Macedonian graphic artist Zoran Cardula celebrated the anniversary by drawing attention to his artwork “The Heroines of Yugoslavia,” a series of pop art portraits of the 91 women who received the Order of National Hero, the highest military decoration in the former Yugoslavia. Cardula originally made those for International Women's Day in 2018.
In the introduction of the collection of portraits, he wrote that his goal with the series was to reinvigorate interest in the stories of those women, fighters, “who raised their voices against the occupier, against fascism, and many of them paid their freedom with their own lives. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, they remained forgotten, even with a tendency to completely minimize their struggle.”
The portraits contain short biographies of the women fighters, including their nom de guerre and the year they received the medal.
“Heroines of Yugoslavia” by Zoran Cardula, a collection of portraits of officially esteemed female anti-fascist fighters from World War II, presented alongside their nom de guerre. Used with permission.
Cardula said on a tweet commemorating the 75th anniversary of universal suffrage:
На денешен ден 11 август 1945 година жените во Југославија се изборија за право на глас. Во Втората светска војна загинаа 600.000 жени, се бореа 110.000 жени а загинаа 25.000, 40.000 ранети,3.000 неспособни за работа, 2.000 официри, Партизанска спом. 3.344, а Народни хрои 91.
On this day August 11, 1945 women of Yugoslavia won their right to vote. During the World War II, 600,000 women were killed overall, 110,000 women fought in the anti-fascist resistance, out of which 25,000 female fighters were killed, 40,000 were wounded, 3,000 were deemed incapable for work (had permanent disability). There were 2,000 females army officers, 3,344 received the status of veterans of 1941, and  91 were declared national heroes.
Right-wing social media users reacted negatively, denouncing the lack of full democracy under communist rule. Many argued that the right to vote is pointless in a single-party political system. This, in turn, triggered a debate on what it means to be a democracy:
Покушавам, брате, цело јутро, и не вреди. Лепо кажем да кад постоји једна партија нема никаквог смисла тај глас, да ни на шта не утиче. Неки кажу да је тад било много више демократије. ??
— Седи жаба сама? (@Milan54541) August 11, 2020
Tweet 1: Commie idiocy goes so far as to claim that women had the right to vote in 1945.
Please tell me what kind of arguments should one use with such people?
Tweet 2: Bro, I'm attempting to argue the whole morning, but it's no use. I tell them nicely that in a single-party political system, voting is pointless, has no influence on anything. Some of them say that there was more democracy then.
Proponents of equal rights responded by defending the significance of the development in light of its historical context:
Na današnji dan 1945. žene su po prvi put u našoj zemlji dobile pravo glasa. S tim u vezi, normalno da su se danas povampirili razni “antikomunisti” sa tezom kako to i nije toliko značajno budući da je tada stvoren jednopartijski sistem gde slobodni izbori nisu ni postojali.
— Viktor Stamenković (@Simpo_fotelja) August 11, 2020
On this day in 1945 women in our country earned the right to vote for the first time. Regarding that issue, as usual, various “anticommunists” crawled from under their rocks, with the thesis that this was not so important because that year a one-party system was created which didn't allow free elections.
Ti si neznalica i ignorant. Zene su izborile pravo glasa i izjednačile se po tom pravu sa muskarcima. To je poenta. Osvojile su pravo da glasaju u sistemu ma kakav on bio. To je sustina, kapish? I to pravo su zene izborile u, pazi sad da se ne onesvestis, komunizmu ?.
— Damir Tatalovic (@damirtatalovic) August 11, 2020
You are an unknowing and ignorant person. Women won the right to vote at equal footing with men. That is the point. They won the right to vote regardless of the nature of the political system. That is the essence, understand? And women managed to win that right–be careful not to faint–under communism.
Žensko pravo glasa u Jugi nije se odnosilo samo na izbore nego i na opštu ulogu žene u društvu, institucijama i političkim strukturama tadašnje države.
— igbala skalonja (@iggyscully) August 11, 2020
Women's right to vote in Yugoslavia didn't only refer to elections but also on their general role in society, the state institutions and the political structures of that state.
ni ja. ako nista, to sto su se zene jugoslavije izborile za pravo glasa (i to relativno rano, ranije od mnogih) je na simbolickoj razini vazno. ali ne mogu oni animozitet prema sfrj staviti po strani ni za takve stvari.
— Em. (@matr0shka_) August 11, 2020
I don't understand the need of some people to mansplain this. Even considering the lack of democracy, the fact that women of Yugoslavia won the right to vote (which happened relatively early, compared to many other countries) is important in a symbolic way. However some people cannot restrain their animosity towards the SFRY even when discussing issues of this kind.
The conversation also expanded to comparisons with Western European countries:
Zanimljivost:
Žene u Švajcarskoj dobile pravo glasa 1971. godine.
Za verovali ili ne.
— Dusan Pavlovic (@dushanbay) August 11, 2020
Fun fact: Women in Switzerland got the right to vote in 1971.
This is for [Ripley's] Believe it or Not.