Agnieszka Mrozik

My book project examines the agency, collective auto/biography and the memory of female communists who contributed to the building of post-WWII Poland, with particular emphasis on their involvement in the process of women’s emancipation. It has three goals. Firstly, I explore the postwar attempts of female communist intellectuals and officials of the upper party ranks to shape the emancipatory discourse in the fields of culture, science and education, discussing their ability to act and influence the traditional thinking of Poles about gender roles. Secondly, I analyze the post-Stalinist autobiographical accounts of female communists and their biographies penned by younger generations of leftist female intellectuals to reflect on the changing patterns of women’s activism and the notions of women’s agency and emancipation. Thirdly, I examine the collective memory regarding the place of female communists and their visions of gender policy in post-1989 narratives of national history and the Polish women’s movement.