Women in left-wing resistance movements in occupied France, Italy and Greece: between resistance, gender, and memory (1940-1945)

Chatzitheodorou, Christina (2025) Women in left-wing resistance movements in occupied France, Italy and Greece: between resistance, gender, and memory (1940-1945). PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the participation of women in left-wing resistance movements during the Second World War in France, Greece, and Italy. Arguing that gender was essential in anti-Fascist resistance(s), the study explores how women’s activities and the symbolics of feminine played critical roles in both the development and patterns of mobilisation of resistance movements on several levels. Their gender was central in the representations, modes of operation, discourses, experiences, and post-war memories of resistance. This thesis does not only examine women’s resistance(s) as a Second World War event. Rather, it also focuses on the gendered memories of resistance in each country, the afterlives of the resistance, examining the resistance as lieu de memoire, revealing patterns and national specificities in the relationship between gender and resistance, and gender and memory. While women became involved in the resistance in similar ways under the common determinator of their gender in all three cases, their role in the resistance and the legacy that accompanied it after the war differed in each country due to the different political futures that awaited each country. The politics of memory in each country influenced how women framed and narrated their involvement in the resistance.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History; D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D731 World War II; D History General and Old World > DC France; D History General and Old World > DF Greece; D History General and Old World > DG Italy; H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
• Supervisor's Name: Bracke, Professor Maud, Ugolini, Professor Wendy and Marshall, Dr. Alex
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85449
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 16 Sep 2025 13:16
• Last Modified: 16 Sep 2025 13:40
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85449
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85449