Female Public Employees during a Post-Imperial Transition: Gender, Politics and Labour in Fiume after the First World War

Abstract

After the demise of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, Fiume's long political transition provided women with new challenges and opportunities. This was especially true for female public employees who had to adapt to a weak and fluid state that provided them with social security and benefits in exchange for loyalty and control. Beginning with two case studies of women elected to the Fiume city council in 1919, this paper explores how the two professional cohorts they represented – teachers and tobacco workers – learned to cope with the turbulent national and political events, as well as with the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

Redefining Fiumians: Flag Usage and the Ambiguities of the Nation-Building Process in the Former Habsburg-Hungarian corpus separatum, 1914–1924

“…76 Other citizens singing and waving the Fiumian flag were attacked by fascists and, more importantly, the fascists searched houses for a Fiumian flag that had been made by female workers from the local tobacco factory for the Constituent Assembly. 77 The final example shows the flag's importance for both groups for diverging reasons: a symbol to be destroyed by the annexationists, and a symbol to be celebrated by the autonomists.…”