Angela Vode
Encyclopedia
Angela Vode was a Slovenia
n pedagogue, feminist
author and human rights
activist. An early member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, she was expelled from the Party in 1939 because of criticism against the Hitler-Stalin Pact. During World War II
, she joined the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
, but was expelled in 1942 because of disagreements with the Communist Party of Slovenia. In 1944, she was interned in a Nazi concentration camp. After the war, she was arrested by the Yugoslav communist authorities, trialed at the so-called Nagode trial and imprisoned for several years. After her release from prison she was excluded from public life for the rest of her life. In the 1990s, she became one of the foremost symbols of victims of totalitarian
repression in Slovenia.
, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduating from the teachers college in Ljubljana in 1912, she worked as a teacher in several schools.
In 1921, she undertook specialization in teaching mentally disabled children. For the next 25 years, she worked as a teacher-defectologist. She published several articles on education of handicapped children, and in 1936 she published a book on the subject, entitled The Importance of Auxiliary Schools and Their Development in Yugoslavia (Pomen pomožnega šolstva in njegov razvoj v Jugoslaviji).
Vode was one of the first women's rights activists in Slovenia, and one of the first organizers of human rights groups. In the interwar period
, she was elected president of the Women's Movement of Yugoslavia
and president of Female Teachers' Society of Slovenia. She published numerous texts dealing with social injustice and women's rights. Some of her most important books are The Woman in the Contemporary World (Žena v sedanjem svetu , 1934), The Woman and Fascism (Žena i fašizam, 1935, written in Serbocroatian language). Her most important theoretical work was Gender and Destiny (Spol in usoda), published in 1938.
In 1922, she joined the illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia. She referred to this decision as an act of idealism, sprung from a sincere belief in the fight against injustice and support for the weak. She saw communism
as an ideal of social and political emancipation, which would have included the full equality of the Slovene people in the Yugoslavia
and the autonomy of Slovenia in a de-centralized federation.
After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia
in early April 1941, Vode urged for a united anti-Fascist front, criticising Slovene communists who had been supporting Stalin's collaboration with Hitler.. In spite of her conflict with the Communist Party, Vode joined the Communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
after the Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union
in June 1941, when the Yugoslav Communists decided to launch an armed struggle against the Axis occupation forces. Vode became one of the members of Supreme Plenum of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People as a representative of Slovene women's movements. In late 1941, she joined the group Stara Pravda ("Old Justice") led by the left wing activist Črtomir Nagode. In 1942, Nagode's group was expelled from the Liberation Front because of constant disagreements with Slovene Communists.
After her expulsion from the underground resistance movement, Vode continued with charity on her own hand. While life was difficult In the Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana
, matters were even worse in the German-occupied part of Slovenia. In the Province of Ljubljana
, there were many Slovene refugees that fled the German-occupied zone, in order to escape the brutal anti-Slovene policies of Nazi Germany
. Vode organized aid for these refugees. In 1942, the Italian occupation forces started executing hostages in the Province of Ljubljana
. Vode wrote a petition to Benito Mussolini
and started collecting signatures, trying to save the lives of the hostages. The Slovene Communist organization prevented her from collecting signatures and destroyed the petition. This was apparently done so that the Communist organization could maintain its position as the only viable force fighting the occupation forces in Slovenia - a key element in legitimating the Communist takeover of power after the war. In spring of 1943, Vode was arrested by the Italian Fascist
authorities, and spent several weeks in jail. In January 1944, she was arrested by the Germans and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp
. She returned home after several months, in late autumn 1944, exhausted but alive.
, imprisoned, and tortured for two months. In autumn of 1947, she was put to trial at the so-called Nagode trial, a show trial organized against several renowned Slovene pro-Western politicians and activists. All of them were accused of being enemies of the working class, agents of capitalism, western spies, etc. They were all sentenced to death or long term imprisonment and cancellation of all rights.
Vode was accused of "writing an extensive spy report on the political and economic situation in Slovenia in which she wrote heavy defamations on people's authorities concerning the war and intended to present it to a representative of the American Red Cross in Yugoslavia". She was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment and cancellation of all rights for further five years. She was released after six years, probably because of pressures of international organisations on Tito's Yugoslavia
.
After the release from prison, Vode became a nonperson
, that is a person without any rights. She couldn't have a job or any personal income. She didn't have medical insurance neither social support. She couldn't get a passport. Her name was prohibited in public: she was prevented from publishing, while her works could not be quoted in books or articles. She was totally in care of her sister Ivanka Špindler for several years. She was given her passport back only in the mid 1970s. Her first public appearance happened shortly before her death in the mid 1980s, when she gave an interview for the alternative journal Nova revija
.
She died in Ljubljana in 1985.
She instructed her nephew Janez Špindler (who lived abroad) to publish the book at an appropriate time in the future. In the 1990s, the manuscript was given to the renowned author, journalist and historian Alenka Puhar
who edited it. It was published in 2004 by the publishing house Nova Revija
..
The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Vode describes the time of war from her personal viewpoint. She depicts her clashes with the Slovenian Communists, who treated her war efforts to help Slovene women as an act of collaboration with the occupying forces. In the second part, she depicts her imprisonment including interrogations and torture. She then describes her life without the basic human rights, which she defines as "a life of an alleviated and diluted variant". In the third part, Vode evaluates the Yugoslav Communist system. She analyzes the Slovene and Yugoslav Communist regime as a semi-totalitarian society, where a ruling elite misleads the people with lies, promising them a better future, but in fact only satisfying their own greed..
In 2008, TV Slovenia
produced the film The Hidden Memory of Angela Vode, based on the second part of Vode's manuscript.
In Slovene:
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n pedagogue, feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
author and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
activist. An early member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, she was expelled from the Party in 1939 because of criticism against the Hitler-Stalin Pact. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she joined the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
On 26 April 1941 in Ljubljana the Anti-Imperialist Front was established. It was to promote "an international massive movement" to "liberate the Slovenian nation" whose "hope and example was the Soviet Union"...
, but was expelled in 1942 because of disagreements with the Communist Party of Slovenia. In 1944, she was interned in a Nazi concentration camp. After the war, she was arrested by the Yugoslav communist authorities, trialed at the so-called Nagode trial and imprisoned for several years. After her release from prison she was excluded from public life for the rest of her life. In the 1990s, she became one of the foremost symbols of victims of totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
repression in Slovenia.
Early life
Angela Vode was born in LjubljanaLjubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduating from the teachers college in Ljubljana in 1912, she worked as a teacher in several schools.
In 1921, she undertook specialization in teaching mentally disabled children. For the next 25 years, she worked as a teacher-defectologist. She published several articles on education of handicapped children, and in 1936 she published a book on the subject, entitled The Importance of Auxiliary Schools and Their Development in Yugoslavia (Pomen pomožnega šolstva in njegov razvoj v Jugoslaviji).
Vode was one of the first women's rights activists in Slovenia, and one of the first organizers of human rights groups. In the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, she was elected president of the Women's Movement of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
and president of Female Teachers' Society of Slovenia. She published numerous texts dealing with social injustice and women's rights. Some of her most important books are The Woman in the Contemporary World (Žena v sedanjem svetu , 1934), The Woman and Fascism (Žena i fašizam, 1935, written in Serbocroatian language). Her most important theoretical work was Gender and Destiny (Spol in usoda), published in 1938.
In 1922, she joined the illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia. She referred to this decision as an act of idealism, sprung from a sincere belief in the fight against injustice and support for the weak. She saw communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
as an ideal of social and political emancipation, which would have included the full equality of the Slovene people in the Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
and the autonomy of Slovenia in a de-centralized federation.
The conflict with the Communist Party and World War II
In 1939, Vode sharply criticized the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which led to her exclusion from the Communist Party.After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
in early April 1941, Vode urged for a united anti-Fascist front, criticising Slovene communists who had been supporting Stalin's collaboration with Hitler.. In spite of her conflict with the Communist Party, Vode joined the Communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
On 26 April 1941 in Ljubljana the Anti-Imperialist Front was established. It was to promote "an international massive movement" to "liberate the Slovenian nation" whose "hope and example was the Soviet Union"...
after the Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in June 1941, when the Yugoslav Communists decided to launch an armed struggle against the Axis occupation forces. Vode became one of the members of Supreme Plenum of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People as a representative of Slovene women's movements. In late 1941, she joined the group Stara Pravda ("Old Justice") led by the left wing activist Črtomir Nagode. In 1942, Nagode's group was expelled from the Liberation Front because of constant disagreements with Slovene Communists.
After her expulsion from the underground resistance movement, Vode continued with charity on her own hand. While life was difficult In the Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana
Province of Ljubljana
The Province of Ljubljana was a province of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Nazi German Adriatic Littoral during World War II. It was created on May 3, 1941 from territory occupied and annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia, and it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when...
, matters were even worse in the German-occupied part of Slovenia. In the Province of Ljubljana
Province of Ljubljana
The Province of Ljubljana was a province of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Nazi German Adriatic Littoral during World War II. It was created on May 3, 1941 from territory occupied and annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia, and it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when...
, there were many Slovene refugees that fled the German-occupied zone, in order to escape the brutal anti-Slovene policies of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Vode organized aid for these refugees. In 1942, the Italian occupation forces started executing hostages in the Province of Ljubljana
Province of Ljubljana
The Province of Ljubljana was a province of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Nazi German Adriatic Littoral during World War II. It was created on May 3, 1941 from territory occupied and annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia, and it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when...
. Vode wrote a petition to Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
and started collecting signatures, trying to save the lives of the hostages. The Slovene Communist organization prevented her from collecting signatures and destroyed the petition. This was apparently done so that the Communist organization could maintain its position as the only viable force fighting the occupation forces in Slovenia - a key element in legitimating the Communist takeover of power after the war. In spring of 1943, Vode was arrested by the Italian Fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
authorities, and spent several weeks in jail. In January 1944, she was arrested by the Germans and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück ....
. She returned home after several months, in late autumn 1944, exhausted but alive.
Persecution under Communism
After World War II she continued to work as a teacher. In 1947, she was arrested by the Communist Yugoslav secret policeUDBA
The Department of State Security was the secret police organization of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.Although it operated with more restraint than other secret...
, imprisoned, and tortured for two months. In autumn of 1947, she was put to trial at the so-called Nagode trial, a show trial organized against several renowned Slovene pro-Western politicians and activists. All of them were accused of being enemies of the working class, agents of capitalism, western spies, etc. They were all sentenced to death or long term imprisonment and cancellation of all rights.
Vode was accused of "writing an extensive spy report on the political and economic situation in Slovenia in which she wrote heavy defamations on people's authorities concerning the war and intended to present it to a representative of the American Red Cross in Yugoslavia". She was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment and cancellation of all rights for further five years. She was released after six years, probably because of pressures of international organisations on Tito's Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
.
After the release from prison, Vode became a nonperson
Nonperson
A nonperson is a citizen or a member of a group who lacks, loses, or is forcibly denied social or legal status, especially basic human rights, or who effectively ceases to have a record of their existence within a society , from a point of view of traceability, documentation, or existence...
, that is a person without any rights. She couldn't have a job or any personal income. She didn't have medical insurance neither social support. She couldn't get a passport. Her name was prohibited in public: she was prevented from publishing, while her works could not be quoted in books or articles. She was totally in care of her sister Ivanka Špindler for several years. She was given her passport back only in the mid 1970s. Her first public appearance happened shortly before her death in the mid 1980s, when she gave an interview for the alternative journal Nova revija
Nova revija
Nova revija is a Slovenian publishing house and cultural institute that developed from the literary journal with the same name.- The magazine :...
.
She died in Ljubljana in 1985.
The Hidden Memoir
In the late 1960s, Vode started writing her autobiography, in secret. She completed the manuscript in 1971, and entitled it Skriti spomin or The Hidden Memoir. The text in fact remained hidden for the next 30 years.She instructed her nephew Janez Špindler (who lived abroad) to publish the book at an appropriate time in the future. In the 1990s, the manuscript was given to the renowned author, journalist and historian Alenka Puhar
Alenka Puhar
Alenka Puhar is a Slovenian journalist, author, translator, and historian. She is known for her columns in the Slovenian journal Delo, for her writings on the dissident movements in Socialist Slovenia and Yugoslavia, as well as for her book "The Primary Text of Life" , a combination of...
who edited it. It was published in 2004 by the publishing house Nova Revija
Nova revija
Nova revija is a Slovenian publishing house and cultural institute that developed from the literary journal with the same name.- The magazine :...
..
The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Vode describes the time of war from her personal viewpoint. She depicts her clashes with the Slovenian Communists, who treated her war efforts to help Slovene women as an act of collaboration with the occupying forces. In the second part, she depicts her imprisonment including interrogations and torture. She then describes her life without the basic human rights, which she defines as "a life of an alleviated and diluted variant". In the third part, Vode evaluates the Yugoslav Communist system. She analyzes the Slovene and Yugoslav Communist regime as a semi-totalitarian society, where a ruling elite misleads the people with lies, promising them a better future, but in fact only satisfying their own greed..
In 2008, TV Slovenia
Radiotelevizija Slovenija
Radiotelevizija Slovenija – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization. Based in the country's capital, Ljubljana, it has regional broadcasting centres in Koper and Maribor and correspondents around Slovenia, Europe and the world...
produced the film The Hidden Memory of Angela Vode, based on the second part of Vode's manuscript.
Sources
- Peter VodopivecPeter VodopivecPeter Vodopivec is a Slovenian historian and public intellectual.He was born in a Slovene family in Belgrade, Serbia, then capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He studied history at the University of Ljubljana...
, Usoda slovenskih demokratičnih izobražencev: Angela Vode in Boris Furlan, žrtvi Nagodetovega procesa ('The Fate of the Slovenian Democratic Intelligentsia: Angela Vode and Boris FurlanBoris FurlanBoris Furlan was a Slovenian jurist, philosopher of law, translator and liberal politician. During World War II, he worked as a speaker on Radio London, and was known as the "London's Slovene voice". He served as a Minister in the Tito-Šubašić coalition government...
, Victims of the Nagode Trial'; Ljubljana: Slovenska maticaSlovenska maticaSlovenska matica , also known as Matica slovenska, is the second-oldest publishing house in Slovenia, founded in the 19th century as an institution for the scholarly and cultural progress of Slovenes...
, 2001).
External links
In English:In Slovene: