Jelena Tešija
Asistentka
I am a historian specializing in gender and labor history, with a focus to date on Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar and post-World War II periods.
Since March 2026, I have been working as a research assistant at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. I am currently engaged in research projects about women’s political thought in Central and Eastern Europe and peasant women within socialist systems.
As an advanced PhD candidate in Comparative History at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, I am nearing the completion of my dissertation. The dissertation explores the complex dynamics between social democrats and communists in the International Co-operative Women’s Guild (ICWG) from the 1920s to the 1960s. My research primarily focuses on women co-operative activists from Eastern Europe, with a particular emphasis on those from socialist Yugoslavia.
From 2020 to 2026, I worked first as a doctoral researcher and then as a research affiliate on the ERC-funded project “ZARAH: Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Transnationally, from the Age of Empires to the Late 20th Century”, at the CEU in Vienna.
I hold master’s degrees in Journalism and Gender Studies. My MA thesis in Gender Studies (2014) examined the history of Yugoslav women’s socialist organization in the 1950s. Before starting my PhD, I was a feminist journalist, independent researcher, lecturer, and activist, focusing on labor and women’s movements. In my non-academic career, I also worked as a communications coordinator in the NGO sector and managed various projects.
Research Interests:
- gender history of the (Yugoslav) co-operative movement
- transnational history of feminisms and women’s labor activism
- historical perspectives on gender and social reproduction
- historical relationships between socialism and feminism
Selected Publications:
Books
with Selin Çağatay, Mátyás Erdélyi, Alexandra Ghiț, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann. Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Beyond. A New Transnational History. London: UCL Press, 2025.
Edited Volumes
with Selin Çağatay, Alexandra Ghiț, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann, eds. Through the Prism of Gender and Work: Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2024.
Co-edited Special Issues
with Alexandra Ghiț, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann, eds. Women’s Labour Activism in Central and Eastern Europe and Internationally in the Twentieth Century, Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 31, no. 2 (2023).
Articles and Book Chapters
with Selin Çağatay, Alexandra Ghiț, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann. “Introduction: Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond: Towards a Long-Term, Transregional, Integrative, and Critical Approach.” In Through the Prism of Gender and Work: Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Selin Çağatay, Alexandra Ghit, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Jelena Tešija, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann, 1–80. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2024.
“’Millions of Working Housewives’: The International Co-Operative Women’s Guild and Household Labour in the Interwar Period.” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 31, no. 2 (2023): 321–38.
with Alexandra Ghiț, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann. “Women and the Gendered Politics of Work in Central and Eastern Europe, and Internationally, in the Twentieth Century: Activism, Governance, and Scale.” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 31, no. 2 (2023): 227–40.
Other Publications:
Community-Oriented Articles, Blog Posts, Interviews (Selection)
“Kako je pranje rublja učinilo arhivsko istraživanje zanimljivim [How doing laundry made archival research interesting].” VoxFeminae, 9 April 2025.
“The Potential of Doing Laundry? Let the Source Speak!” Fernetzt – Der Blog. Online publication, blog post, 16 March 2025.
“Reproduktivni rad i ujedinjenje žena radničke klase [Reproductive labour and the unity of working class women].” Libela.org, 8 December 2024.
with Selin Çağatay. “Through the Lens of Women’s Work and Activism: Introducing the ZARAH Guest Blog Series.” Online publication, blog post, 3 November 2022.
“Jelena Tešija: ‘Neki još smatraju da je feminizam opasan’ [Jelena Tešija: ’Some still think that feminism is dangerous’].” Interview by Ines Madunić. Gloria Glam, 8 March 2021.
Adela Jušić and Andreja Dugandžić. “Arhiv AFŽ-a čuva najvažnije emancipacijsko naslijeđe koje imamo [The AFŽ archive preserves the most important emancipation heritage we have].” Interview by Jelena Tešija. Libela.org, 2 July 2015.
Jelena Tešija. “Gradimo socijalizam, pomažemo radnoj ženi i uvjeravamo drugove da je to bitno [We are building socialism, helping the working woman and convincing our comrades that this is important].” Libela.org, 28 January 2015.
Jelena Tešija. “Više konja nego žena* ili kako je AFŽ vraćen iz zaborava i što s ostalima [More horses than women* or how AFŽ was brought back from oblivion and what about the others].” Libela.org, 6 December 2014.
Public Outreach:
Lectures, Panels, Conferences (Selection)
“Navigating a divided labour universe: Social democrats and communists in the International Co-operative Women’s Guild, 1920s–1960s.” Invited lecture at the ZRC SAZU Institute of Culture and Memory Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 11 December 2025
“They (don’t) only know how to carry baskets to the market?: Yugoslavia and the International Co-operative Women’s Guild, 1951–1963.” Lecture at the Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 4 June 2025
“Reproduktivni rad i položaj žena u Jugoslaviji [Reproductive labour and the position of women in Yugoslavia].” Invited lecture at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Belgrade, Serbia (remote participation), 18 November 2024
“Feministkinja, a komunistkinja? Primjer međuraća [A feminist and a communist? An example of interwar].” Presentation at the conference “Organizirane žene na ljevici između dva rata [Organized women on the Left between World Wars],” organized by the Centre for Women’s Studies (Zagreb, Croatia) and the Association for Culture and Art – Crvena. Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, BiH, 13 October 2018.
Co-presenters: Barbara Blasin, Ana Lovreković, Ivana Pejić, Jelena Petrović, and Gordana Stojaković
- E-naslov:
- jelena.tesija@inz.si