Contribution to Research of Girlhood after the First World War: an example of Girls with Mental Disorders from rural areas of Continental Croatia

Project member, dr. Jelena Seferović, published her article titled “Contribution to Research of Girlhood after the First World War: an example of Girls with Mental Disorders from rural areas of Continental Croatia”. The article was published in journal “Prilozi”.

About the journal:

“Prilozi” is a scientific journal of the Institute for History, University of Sarajevo, which has been continuously published since 1965. The journal is indexed in several international databases.

Link to the article: http://iis.unsa.ba/prilozi-br-48-2019/

About the article:

Ths paper discusses some aspects of the growing up of girls with mental disorders in rural area of continental Croatia in the first decade after the end of the First World War. This includes girls in the middle and late adolescent phase treated at the Stenjevec Psychiatric Hospital, now Vrapče University Psychiatric Hospital. The paper analyzes their individual experiences of unfulfilled love with men in relation to traditional expectations of (non)acceptable femininity from the cultural anthropological perspective. In addition, this paper looks at the hospital’s everyday life of girls with mental disorders in the context of their activities organized under work therapy. According to the current research, signs of emotional instability and (auto)destructive behavior of the examined population are assumed to be due to their ignorance of the process of sexual maturation and the consequences of unrealistic and unattainable love relationships. The work is based on the analysis of the girls’ psychiatric files and medical certificates dating from 1919 to 1929 stored in the Archives of the University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče.