The Creative Output of New Women and The Cultural Capital

(Svetlana Tomić. The Hidden History of New Women in Serbian Culture: Toward a New History of Literature. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022, 304 pp.)

Abstract

The book The Hidden History of New Women in Serbian Culture, published in English, introduces a wider, international readership to the research work of Svetlana Tomić and the history of women's creativity within Serbian culture in the 19th century and from the beginning of 20th century. The subtitle Towards a new history of literature testifies to the fact that this book - as well as other studies by S. Tomić - is driven by the author's ambition to intervene in the official, institutionally based history of Serbian literature as one in which female authors are present more as an incident than as a rule, but also by the awareness that such a conception is challenging to change in our culture even in the 21st century. The book consists of three parts: "The New Women and Their Cultural Contributions," "Some of the Men Who Supported New Women," and "Construction, Reconstruction and the deconstruction of memory of new women" (The Construction, Reconstruction, and Deconstruction of Memory of New Women), and conclusions at the end. Includes illustrations, archival material, an extensive bibliography, and a name and subject index. For this study, Svetlana Tomić was awarded the award of the North American Society for Serbian Studies (The North American Society for Serbian Studies), which is awarded to the best book in the English language dedicated to Serbian social and cultural history.