The Prnjavor Women Fight for Their Midwife: Professional, Social, and Cultural Continuities from Habsburg Bosnia to Yugoslavia
The Prnjavor Women Fight for Their Midwife: Professional, Social, and Cultural Continuities from Habsburg Bosnia to Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: Researching regime change in Bosnia and Herzegovina means, especially for women’s history, also asking about continuities. In 1918 when the new southslavic administration took over, it was preceded by a four years long wartime. After this very hard and cruel time span nothing was like before. I nevertheless argue that there were various continuities, principally for women, as I will show at the example of the former Habsburg’s midwives. Firstly, a lot of midwives remained on the ground during the whole wartime from 1914 to 1918 unlike most Habsburg’s physicians who left the country. Midwives in many places were still there when the new postwar administration took over. Previous attributions as members of the Habsburg administration got irrelevant when a midwife passed the difficult wartime with “her” women’s community. Secondly, the relations between midwives and administration, established by the Habsburgs, prevailed and were adopted by the new administration of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This relation can be traced in the paperwork and in surviving administrative techniques as the regular control of midwives’ bags by the medical officer. The relation midwife-administrator served as a mediation to help establish the relation between the male administrators and the female habitants. It means the inclusion of women in “state”. Thirdly, also the relation between local women and administration continued to be very conflicting. At the example of the midwife Antonia Savic I can show both: how local women fought for their midwife and how women learned in Austro Hungarian time their role, their rights and the ways to claim them. Finally, the local administration of Prnjavor had to adjust, women’s solidarity and their correct and modern articulation won: the old midwife gained her work permit back.

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