Dr. Svetlana Slapšak: Women of the Balkans: Heroines, Saints, Witches, the Culture of Daily Life

Women played a leading role in keeping alive the tradition of oral literature – including folk epics. From antiquity to the present day women's lamentations have constituted the only proven continuity in the Balkan culture, which opens up a wide field of gender ratio in the patriarchate, societal attitude towards death, birth and fertility... Women, often censored in church texts, forgotten in national literature, omitted from chronicles and historiography, are found behind the scenes, in the complexity of historical events, in the covert diplomacy and different politics, and above all in everyday life, in the customs and knowledge delegated to women. In exploring the female world relegated to the fringes of patriarchal society, historical anthropology reveals exceptional prerogatives, knowledge and competence of women in culture and art, traditional medicine, education, cults and social rules. What are the traces of the female world in culture?