About Project

The project's title Кnjiženstvo is an old and not much known word for "literature" in Serbian, chosen because it sounds as a combination of the words for "book" (knjiga) and "femaleness" (ženskost, ženstvo).

The project emphasizes theoretical and historical issues, such as: the applicability of feminist theoretical models on the research of literature; the history of literature as oral history; the reception and influences of women's writing. It will also focus on contextualizing of the events, processes and its participants in the actual historical time and space. Special attention will be devoted to notions and terms such as "literature" and "woman writer" (whose meaning will be historically contextualized and reconsidered), as well as to the questions of influence, education, and schooling system.

Knjiženstvo consists of an online database containing information about Serbian women writers until 1915: primarily basic biographical and bibliographical data, but also information regarding translations and other forms of reception of the texts, possible connections with other women writers (both Serbian and foreign), bilateral influences, links that lead to digitized texts, connections with other male and female authors, etc.

In addition to database, the journal Knjiženstvo is also the result the project.

The project cooperated with COST Action IS0901 entitled "Women Writers In History: Toward a New Understanding of European Literary Culture". This Action was being carried out with the help of an online database, central to the project and used as a tool for research into women's writing and their (national and international) reception in Europe up to 1900: WomenWriters.