Laudatory Speech on the Anne Klein Women's Prize to Lepa Mlađenović

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, dear Lepa,

It is both an honor and a great pleasure for me to honor you today. However, trying to describe in just a few words who you are and all that you have accomplished as a lesbian-feminist women’s rights and peace activist leaves me at a loss for words. You have made such a difference, inspired and encouraged so many women – not only in your country but all over the world – and provided so many thought-provoking insights into feminist action and feminist ethics that I find it difficult to choose just a few.

You have been and continue to be a defining influence on feminist theory and practice in Yugoslavia – before, during, and after its violent dissolution. Speaking of you, therefore, always means speaking of the feminist movement in your country – both past and present.

I know: You don’t like being singled out like this at all. You’ve repeatedly emphasized that you worked on and fought for all of this together with others. That’s certainly true. And yet I’d like to stress that such movements and organizations cannot emerge, thrive, and continue to develop without people to drive them forward. That’s why I’m asking you to just bear with this for a moment today.

Many people here have little more than a vague memory of the fate of Yugoslavia and its people. But especially against the backdrop of the wars, your – and all of your – unwavering, clear, and public advocacy for democratic, anti-militarist, and feminist principles seems all the more courageous and admirable. Moreover, your integrity and your actions, dear Lepa, in the midst of the murderous Serbian nationalist frenzy, demonstrate what it means to take responsibility – an attitude that is sorely lacking not only in your country but also in this postwar German society.

One more personal note: This laudatory speech has two authors. It was co-written by our mutual longtime friend, fellow activist, and medica mondiale co-founder Gabi Mischkowski. Unfortunately, she cannot be here in person today, but she is all the more present in spirit and through our shared words.

Lepa Mlađenović is part of Yugoslavia’s feminist avant-garde, which has been rebelling against state-imposed policies on women since the late 1970s and developing alternatives. In the 1980s, small but very active autonomous women’s groups sprang up everywhere in cities such as Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. The creation of even the smallest women-only spaces – in a country that believed it had resolved the women’s issue and where the unity of the working class, embodied by a single party, was considered sacrosanct – immediately sparked fierce and undoubtedly defamatory backlash from above. Nevertheless, I imagine these early years as a time marked by a spirit of optimism, workshops, and passionate discussions about violence, abortion, sexuality, women’s rights, and much more – just as in so many other places around the world back then in the 1970s and 1980s. There was also tailwind from the ever-growing democracy movement, which in turn received important impetus from Yugoslav feminists.

But this hopeful time was short-lived. The nationalist, racist, and opportunistic elements that rode the wave of the democracy movement grew everywhere, in a way that could not be overlooked or ignored. Feminists in Yugoslavia responded by utilizing their newly acquired political tools: They founded a women’s lobby and, ahead of Yugoslavia’s first multiparty election, organized nationwide campaigns against nationalist parties and warmongers; they helped field a women’s party for the election and ultimately established their own women’s parliament on March 8, 1991, after the nationalist parties won and the percentage of women in parliament remained painfully low. Lepa Mlađenović played a key role in all of this.

Racist propaganda intensified and eventually became a catalyst for male aggression, which – transcending race and ethnicity – was directed against women and led to an explosion of sexual and domestic violence. Lepa Mlađenović’s response was both political and immediately practical: she founded an SOS hotline in Belgrade for women and children.

Then the worst fears came true. War broke out, Yugoslavia ceased to exist as a state, and Yugoslavia’s feminists found themselves not only as citizens of different states but also, supposedly, as members of hostile ethnic groups. Yet even under the most difficult conditions, they maintained contact and openly and demonstratively advocated for anti-nationalism and anti-militarism, in Belgrade as well as in Zagreb – in Sarajevo, the focus would soon be solely on sheer survival. For their unequivocal commitment to peace, they were once again defamed, persecuted, and physically attacked on both sides as enemies of the state and traitors.

Yet they did not back down. And Lepa Mlađenović would not be Lepa Mlađenović if she were to shirk her responsibility – even for a war she had never wanted. Together with other women, she founded “Women in Black,” modeled after the Israeli movement. Starting on October 9, 1991, they stood for years, Wednesday after Wednesday, clearly visible in the heart of Belgrade, in silent yet eloquent protest against the war. “You do not speak for us,” their signs read, “We speak for ourselves.” They were the only anti-war group in Serbia to maintain such a public presence over such a long period – including during the Kosovo War of 1998–99.

The fact that Lepa Mlađenović so uncompromisingly denounced her own Serbian government as warmongers and primarily responsible for expulsions, the destruction of cities, mass murder, and mass rape is why Bosnian-Muslim women’s groups still speak of her with great respect to this day. Throughout the war, she organized aid and support for traumatized women and girls; and immediately after the war, she facilitated one of the very first meetings between women from the Muslim-Croat and Serbian parts of the now-divided country. She helped Medica Zenica establish one of the first SOS hotlines in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, in turn, received further training in psychodrama from Medica’s psychologists. 

For Lepa Mlađenović, feminist analysis and theory-building always go hand in hand with practical solidarity among women. Even during the war, she helped found the Center for Women’s Studies in Belgrade and, at the same time, initiated the expansion of the SOS hotline to provide practical support for women who had been raped during the war. This naturally led to the creation of the “Autonomous Women’s Center Against Sexual Violence.” This development perhaps illustrates particularly clearly how fruitful the connections are that Lepa Mlađenović knows how to forge. To this day, the center not only provides direct support to women affected by violence, but through its educational and training work, it has also become the starting point for an ever-expanding feminist network of women’s centers throughout Serbia – including new offshoots such as the Incest Trauma Center or the Roma Women’s Center.

Lepa Mlađenović is not only a feminist; above all, she is a lesbian feminist. This is not merely an adjectival qualifier. For Lepa Mlađenović, being a lesbian in a society that is homophobic today just as it was then means facing additional hostility, including physical attacks. But it is also a source of her strength, her confidence, and her specific contributions to feminist theory and the practice of women’s solidarity.

In the face of the atrocities of war, discrimination based on sexual orientation became a second-class human rights violation within human rights and anti-war groups. Lepa Mlađenović, however, refused to hide any of her identities. And she rightly saw a common root between nationalist delusion and homophobia – what she later wrote was “the patriarchal code of hatred toward the ‘others.’” Together with like-minded women, she founded the lesbian group “Labris” in Belgrade in 1994. They protested against homophobia and were beaten and persecuted by the police as a result. 

The matter-of-fact way in which Lepa Mlađenović lives as a lesbian continually encourages so many other women to to cast off the shackles of a sexuality and way of life they did not freely choose – not only in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, but everywhere in the world where Lepa Mlađenović lives, teaches, works, and simply exists. Her insistence on the visibility of her lesbian identity is at the same time a feminist insistence on an ethic of difference, of recognizing the Other.

Bertolt Brecht once warned that even hatred of baseness and anger at injustice distort one’s features. He wrote: “We, who wanted to prepare the ground for kindness, could not be kind ourselves.” Well, he didn’t know Lepa Mlađenović. Even when she herself is exhausted, she always finds the words to cheer others up, make them laugh, and help them feel better. To the ethics of difference, she adds women’s solidarity and the ethics of caring for oneself and others as a starting point and a path toward a better world. 

We are happy and proud, Lepa, to be part of this movement alongside you and to continue learning from you.

Monika Hauser is the founder and executive director of medica mondiale. In 2008, she received the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award).