Progressive Women’s Movements in Austria and Hungary: Conflict, Cooperation, Circulation

At the dawn of the twentieth century, three trailblazing women’s associations emerged from the Austro-Hungarian middle class: Vienna’s Allgemeiner österreichischer Frauenverein (AöF) and Budapest’s closely linked Nőtisztviselők Országos Egyesülete (NOE) and Feministák Egyesülete (FE). Spearheaded by educated professional women, these groups championed progressive and often radical ideals, forging robust international connections with other women’s movements. However, the shifting political landscapes in Austria and Hungary eventually led to their decline and near-erasure from history.

In Progressive Women’s Movements in Austria and Hungary, Dóra Fedeles-Czeferner dives deeply into these movements, transcending conscribed national narratives to uncover the daily workings of these Austrian bourgeois-liberal and Hungarian feminist organizations. She reveals how they both influenced and were influenced by international activism. Unlike their contemporaries in the Christian-Social and Socialist Democratic women’s movements, the AöF, NOE, and FE operated independently of official political parties, leveraging the influential connections of their leaders and using strategic publicity to garner support. Despite their mutual inspirations and connections, these organizations had significant differences. They varied in their origins, their ability to engage rural members, and their strategies for achieving their goals.

Fedeles-Czeferner employs entangled history methodologies to examine these organizations’ foundations, key figures, memberships, objectives, and activities from the beginning of the 20th century until the beginning of the 1920s. By challenging regional narratives that have marginalized these radical women’s movements, she reconnects Austria-Hungary’s pre-war feminist past to its transnational roots, revealing their true historical significance.

Dóra Fedeles-Czeferner is Junior Research Fellow at the Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HUN-REN). She is the author of two monographs in Hungarian. This is her first book to be published in English.