Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2026, 27 (1): 102-125 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2026.003

Nation, Gender, and Memory Politics: Women’s Forgotten Contribution to Kosovar Nation-Building

Lea Hensch ORCID...
European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Women have long been central to independence struggles, yet their contributions are routinely erased. Kosovo is no exception. This article shows that the exclusion of Kosovo- Albanian women from the national master narrative is not incidental but a structured effect of the nexus between nation‑building, militarisation, and gendered memory politics. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Prishtina and feminist theories of nationalism and memory, the following paper demonstrates how post‑war commemorative culture elevates the militarised male ‘freedom fighter’ while confining women to two permissible positions: revered mothers of the nation or passive victims whose suffering is recast as sacrifice for the nation. These binary constructions, sustained by political elites and dominant narratives, consolidate male privilege in nation‑building and reproduce patriarchal order. The study advances an interdisciplinary framework for analysing how gender regulates admission into collective memory, opening avenues for further research at the intersection of nationalism, militarism, and feminist memory studies.

Keywords: resistance movements, state-building gendered memory politics

Received: October 6, 2025; Revised: June 18, 2026; Accepted: June 25, 2026; Prepublished online: September 8, 2026; Published: September 9, 2026  Show citation

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Hensch, Lea. 2026. "Nation, Gender, and Memory Politics: Women’s Forgotten Contribution to Kosovar Nation-Building." Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 27(1):102-125.
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