Women warriors

The outbreak of World War II in Poland and the subsequent formation of the underground state saw women’s massive involvement in the war effort. Women engaged in the resistance movement not only as civilians providing help to soldiers, but many also entered the Home Army and performed the tasks of nurses, couriers, intelligence agents and even saboteurs and minelayers. Eventually, women’s service was legally acknowledged as military service equal to that of men. Despite women’s vast participation in the Warsaw Uprising, works on the event written after the war did not integrate them into the historical record. Women insurgents are entirely absent from history textbooks and rarely mentioned in renowned monographs of the uprising. If they appear in these works, they are usually cast as background characters and very often lack necessary biographical information. Several efforts to write women back into the history of the uprising were undertaken by female combatants themselves, who sought to document women’s participation and commemorate various “women worthies.”Recently, a growing interest in female insurgents can be observed, albeit mostly in the field of public history and not in academia.
While the aforementioned efforts certainly made female insurgents visible, they were not informed by a gender perspective and sought to merely add women to the official narrative of the past. By introducing gender as a category of analysis, this book seeks to transform the narrative itself. The main aim of this book is to analyze the gender politics of the Warsaw Uprising: the way specific notions of femininity and masculinity were used by the military to mobilize men and women for the war effort and at the same time sustain the masculine character of the army. Drawing on both biographical materials (interviews and written testimonies of former insurgents) and archival research (military document sand daily press issued during the uprising), the book exposes the various militarized roles women were encouraged to play in the uprising: as patriotic mothers, embodiments of national identity, auxiliaries and soldiers. By analyzing military gender-specific policies as well as representations of female and male service in public discourse, it also sheds light on women’s limited inclusion into the ranks and their subordinate position in relation to male soldiers. It argues that while the army made extensive use of women’s work, their participation failed to challenge the gender order, since their tasks were described as feminine and endowed with lower prestige than male combat roles. While looking at the dominant discourse on the Warsaw Uprising through feminist lens, this book also seeks to suggest ways in which the memory of the insurgency could be reframed in order to include women and their experiences.

The intersection between gender and age makes girls associated with armed forces and armed groups look inadequately protected by IHL. Despite latest regulatory and jurisprudential developments, the legal framework on the recruitment and participation of children in armed conflicts remains fragmentary and lacking a gender perspective. In this study the existing shortcomings in the protection of girls associated with armed groups are analysed, both if they meet combat functions or if they carry out another type of function, involving or not, active participation in hostilities. RESUMEN: La intersección entre género y edad hace que las niñas asociadas con fuerzas armadas o grupos armados no se encuentren adecuadamente protegidas por el DIH. Pese a los desarrollos normativos y jurisprudenciales más recientes, la regulación del reclutamiento y participación de niños en conflictos armados sigue siendo fragmentaria y carente de perspectiva de género. En este estudio se abordan las lagunas y deficiencias en la protección jurídica de estas niñas, tanto si cumplen funciones de combate como si tienen asignadas otras funciones dentro del grupo, supongan o no participación activa en las hostilidades.

For the individuals who wants a practical guide on how to reconstruct Ancient Greek fighting men. Useful to the enthusiast, the film and show maker or the student of the experimental archaeology. Written by a scholar with practical experience on the subject in a simple way to be understood by everyone.

This article explores how women fighters tell their stories in relation to the dominant state narratives about a partisan war. In addition to engaging their individual stories, it explores how they speak, write and act as memory entrepreneurs, creating collective memory about a past that they have experienced instead of allowing others to select actors and events for historical narratives. It argues that memory regimes and gender cultures are intertwined, and that gender cultures are essential in understanding the cultural choices made by memory entrepreneurs in memory making. The article analyses the oral testimonies and written memoirs of two women, Rakhel’ Margolis and Aldona Vilutienė (neé Sabaitytė), who were partisans in Lithuania during the Second World War (Margolis) and its aftermath (Sabaitytė) and created the first museums dealing with the Second World War and its legacy in post-Soviet Lithuania. Read as stories about what it was like to be a woman during a partisan war, the narratives include some common themes: widespread betrayal, the difficult physical conditions that they had to endure as women and the vulnerability that came with these experiences. Read as stories told by memory entrepreneurs, the narratives reveal that the two women acted as mnemonic warriors fighting for competing memory regimes built on opposing gender ideologies.

The study of gender in archaeology has become a prominent aspect of archaeological theory and the contributions of women in ancient societies are an every growing topic. This paper addresses one such category within this topic, warrior women of the archaeological record. Assumed standard divisions of labor between women and men across cultures that oversimplify the manifestations of gender and sex and ignore variation within these roles have been shown to be outdated androcentric approaches to archaeology. The importance of reexaminations of gender roles in ancient history is that they have helped to shed light upon the significant variation in the previously overlooked or distorted contributions of women to history. Research into the many representations of the warrior woman in different cultures and time periods offers new opportunities into a better understanding of manifestations of gender and power. An understanding of the concepts of gender and the warrior in archaeological contexts, along with the various female warrior manifestations, are the two key components needed to thoroughly examine archaeological evidence for the presence of warrior women. With these components in hand archaeologists can begin to more effectively identify not only warrior women, but also the presence of individual agency in action, and the amount of flexibility and variation within the social roles of a culture.

Le Amazzoni vivono fra mito, leggenda e storia: sono topos, luogo comune, e tropos, figura retorica. Donne violente e terrificanti, contrapposte all’ordine sociale, talvolta private di caratteri sessuali e propense a considerare il maschio mero strumento riproduttivo, le Amazzoni sono oggetto di disprezzo, paura e desiderio. Apparse nell’Iliade come esponenti di una femminilità barbarica, Erodoto le inserisce nella tradizione dei cavalieri delle steppe. Sono regine, guerriere ed eroine tragiche come Ippolita, Antiope e Pentesilea: sono simbolo delle ribelli alla legge della polis, metafora delle orde selvagge di periferie desolate, minaccia scongiurata dal kosmos ordinatore ellenico, simbolo della ferinità che si sposta ai margini del mondo. L’Amazzone greca evolve in personaggi come Camilla, Giovanna d’Arco, Clorinda: accanto a tali epifanie di classico respiro, nei pantheon celto-germanici emergono dee di morte e d’amore, Valchirie e skjaldmær. Dal XVI secolo, il Rio delle Amazzoni è una delle grandi frontiere degli esploratori europei. “Altre” Amazzoni si manifestano nell’Islam, con sovrane e profetesse, e in Oriente, con Hua Mulan, onna-bugeisha e kunoichi. Ogni donna-guerriera cavalca tra fascino e paura della diversità: il suo valore porta con sé privazioni ed emarginazione. Oggi l’Amazzone esiste ancora: trasformata in prodotto, incarna la duplice natura di oggetto del desiderio e di manifestazione di aspirazioni sociali. Dal fumetto al cinema, l’Amazzone vive in Wonder Woman, Lady Oscar, Xena, Lagertha di Vikings. Sia pure trivializzata, essa conserva il fascino di un mito multiforme: sulle sue origini si può ancora riflettere, alzando i veli di stereotipi e clichés letterari.

A commentary volume to my bilingual edition of the Hervarar saga. It contains five separate studies into various aspects of the saga with the aim to bring to the reader as much as possible from the scholarly literature and discussions that has been published until then. The chapters are:
1) "Riddles, Runes and the Secret Language of the Skalds" where the the genre of riddles is explored in the context of medieval Europe, followed by the exploration of the role of metaphor in riddling, but also in skaldic kennings. Then the riddling contest from the saga is explored and connected to its parallels in Old Norse literature;
2) "Narrative Structure of Hervarar saga", here the structure of the saga is thoroughly explored and analyzed building on the impressive work of Torfi Tulinius and adding to it,
3) "The Maiden and the Sword of Destiny", in this chapter the motif of the warrior maidens and shieldmaidens as well as the meykóngr phenomenon is analyzed and connected to the patriarchal idea of virginity as "noncastrated" state equalling to masculinity; also the role of the ancestral sword is explored in the context of the saga genre
4) "Gudmund, Mound-Flame and the Otherworld", here the whole concept of the journeys to the Otherworld is systematically introduced and various forms of Otherness and borders of the Otherworld is explored
5) "The Fratricidal Battle, Odin and Eschatology", here the historical roots of the final battle (The Battle of the Goths and Huns) is presented as well as the mythological motifs appearing in connection with the battle (i.e. Ódin's role as the originator of the strife)

[For those who don't read Czech. but would like to use the text, I recommend using DeepL for translating the whole text to English]

At the time of the Lebanese civil war the role of women in society was clearly determined by house work and family duties. Although women had obtained civic and political rights, the sphere of politics belonged to men. Women were legal citizens and still they were ruled by the family and the pressure of society, where the good tone forbad women to participate in politics. During the civil war, however, some women joint political parties and provided assistance in nursing, cooking and other caring jobs. Other women went further in their political activism by taking up arms and even joining the armed militia. Various motivations and circumstances influenced Lebanese women in that decision. This research examines the participation of women in the Lebanese civil war, and focuses on those who participated actively and took up arms.With this research I intend to explore the impacts the Lebanese civil war and taking up arms had on women.
The main research questions focus on how do women reflect on their experiences and memories during the Lebanese civil war? What was the women’s motivation to take up arms? How do they look back today on the war and on their experiences?

Greek myths about Amazons were influenced in part by real women of warlike nomads of the steppes. Greeks were not the only ancient people to tell stories about Amazon-like heroines. Warrior women were featured in ancient Egyptian, Persian, and Chinese narratives.

The ancient Amazons, the equals of men, were among the fiercest opponents faced by the ancient Greek heroes Achilles, Heracles, and Theseus. But were they heroes themselves?  As the objects of Greek male anxiety, the Amazons were understood to be a threat to Greek civilization, in part due to their refusal to be subjected to the chief institution of patriarchy: marriage. In the Progressive era of the early 20th century, authors repurposed the myths in order to unlock their feminist potential. William Moulton Marston, the inventor of Wonder Woman, used the Amazons in his comics to illustrate his theories of female superiority. Women were more loving than men, Marston argued, and would ultimately therefore make better rulers. While Marston’s feminism was sometimes questioned due to his portrayal of themes of bondage and domination in the Wonder Woman comics, it must be viewed within his larger platform. Marston brought a feminist message to the masses through his deployment of the Amazons to illustrate the potential of women ruling the world through loving dominance. Marston’s star Amazon, Wonder Woman, became the symbol that motivated the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, a vehicle for later authors such as Perez to bring forward third wave feminist messaging to the
masses, and, ultimately, became the heroic protagonist of the 2017 film, Wonder Woman. While her revealing costume has been controversial over the years, and Wonder Woman has been subjected to the male gaze, the film, like the comics before them, utilized a female perspective to question the stranglehold that patriarchy has held over the population.

Öz: İskit/Saka-Türk yaşam tarzı ve dil birliğini kanıtlayan deliller ışığında iz sürüldüğünde, Türk kadının Avrasya bozkırlarından Anadolu'ya, yaşamı ve toplumsal konumu nasıl bir dönüşüm sergiler? Çalışmamızda bu sorunun cevabını bulmaya çalışırken, öncelikle arkeolojik ve yazılı kaynaklara dayanarak İskitler ve diğer Türk topluluklarındaki konargöçer kadınların ortak konumunu ele alacağız. Eş zamanlı olarak, Türk soylu kadınların yüksek konumunun Eski Yunan ve diğer halkları nasıl etkilediğini irdeleyeceğiz. Ardından, Türklerin Anadolu'da yerleşik hayata geçmeden hemen önceki fetih ve gaza dönemlerinde destanlara ve tarihlere yansıyan Türk kadının profiline bakacağız. Ve nihayet, yerleşik hayata geçmelerine paralel olarak şehirlerde mukim olan kadınların önceki atlı-arabalı, gerektiğinde savaşçı yaşam tarzlarının nasıl bir dönüşüme uğradığını ve bu bağlamda Bâcıyân-ı Rûm'un olası niteliklerini değerlendirmeye çalışacağız. Anahtar kelimeler: İskitler, Türkler, Amazonlar, Türk kadını, Bâcıyân-ı Rûm. The Evolving Life Style of Turkish Women: From the Scythians to the Bâciyân-ı Rûm Abstact: Given the anthropological and linguistic evidence that points to the Turkish origin of Scythian/Saka culture a question this paper addresses relates to the evolution of Turkish women's lifestyle and social position from the Eurasian steppes to the Anatolian plateau. To answer this question, we will primarily utilize archaeological and written sources to examine the common position of nomadic women in Scythians and other Turkish societies. Subsequently, we will examine the impact of the high position of ethnically turkish women upon Greeks and other societies. Then, we will look at the profile of Turkish women in Turkish legends and histories produced during the conquest of Anatolia and before the Turks became sedentary. Finally, we will attempt to reconstruct the possible features of Bâcıyân-ı Rûm by looking into the transformation in the lifestyle of women from a nomadic life as occasional mounted warriors to the life of sedentary Turkish women in Anatolian cities.

Although the Viking Age (ca. 750-1050 CE) is often characterized as a time of violence, significant questions remain regarding how conflict was conducted during the period. For example, there have been few attempts to understand the cultural norms, attitudes, and practices that drove individuals to participate in warfare. This article reports the results of a study that sought to shed light on this issue by considering the process of enculturation during Viking Age childhood. This was achieved by exploring how the influences of militarism and hegemonic masculinity conditioned those living within Scandinavian societies to participate in conflict from a young age. Through examining the archaeological and literary evidence for childhood pastimes, the study found that everyday aspects of Viking Age society reinforced militaristic, hegemonic hierarchies of masculinity. This can be seen, for example, in the form of toy weapons that were modeled on full-sized, functional weapons; strategic board games that conveyed messages regarding the ideological power of kingship; and physical games that provided opportunities for successful individuals to enhance their social status. The evidence therefore suggests that Viking Age societies perpetuated a series of selfreinforcing cultural norms that encouraged participation in martial activities.

ABSTRACT
Amazons, due to their women-warrior identities, have been a subject of an unceasing interest since Antiquity. In previous studies, representation of Amazons in Greek art and mythology have been examined from an iconographic perspective, and evaluated through the purview of what Amazons symbolized for the Greeks. Little has been done in regards to their historicity. This study aimed to understand how the Greeks viewed the Amazons in Antiquity through reviewing ancient sources, Amazon depictions in Greek art and myths, and compare these findings with historical data to determine the periods they may have lived. The data gathered from the excavations in the North Black Sea and Caucasus were evaluated from an archaeological perspective with the help of finds in museums. 
The relation between Greek cities in Anatolia and the Amazons, the way this relation influenced Greek depiction of Amazons in their art was somewhat clarified with Blok’s interpretation of the foundation myth of Kyme; the story of how Pelops first founded the city, but then captured by the Amazon Queen Kyme and renamed is interpreted as a foundation myth serving to acknowledge the presence of a local population. The fact that the city can be associated with Amazon women, one that is told in Homer’s Epics shows that both the local people and the Greeks could be represented under such feminine culture. 
It’s indicated that the cities with an Amazon founder spreaded throughout West Anatolia from Sinope to Troy, including Aeolia. According to this, historicity of Amazons is not as relevant as the role they played in symbolizing local identity and feminine belief. However, theories on how regional spread of the cities thought to have been founded by the Amazons influenced a inter-cultural mingling fall short. Considering the archaeological data gathered from both North Anatolia and Ural Region, it can be concluded that nomadic warrior women cults and cultures existed, and what the Greeks referred to as “Amazons” may not just be a symbol for an Anatolian local culture, but it may have existed. 
In summary, most studies done on Amazons until now have viewed the topic from a limited perspective, and ignored the question of historicity. Yet, Priamos in Homeros’ Illiad tells us that the Amazons came into Anatolia with the Cimmerian influx during the 8th century. These women serving in the Cimmerian army must have attracted Greek attention, and caused excitement. Greeks have not only depicted the Cimmerian warriors, but they also recorded the warriors’ names on vases. It indicates that the Greeks witnessed the Cimmerian invasion. After the Cimmerians, Scythians migrated to North Anatolia and the Black Sea, and created close ties with the Greeks there. It is highly probable that Greeks had the chance of meeting women warriors in Scythian ranks. All historians that came after this date, including Herodotus, claim a Scythian and Amazonian kinship. It is understood that the women warriors Herodotus mention may have been Sarmatian women, who were serving under the Scythians. According to Diodorus, Scythian women had equal footing to men in the army. On top of that, the graves from the 4th and 5th centuries BC excavated between Eurasia and the Azov Sea in Caucasus prove the existence of Amazons. Similar evidence is provided from the excavations conducted in Central Asia near Afghanistan and Tajikistan where the 4th century BC graves belonging to warrior and/or priestess women were unearthed. Although Thermedon is perhaps the most important part of documentation from ancient writers, there is very little quantifiable evidence from the site to support it. Finds belonging to warrior nomadic tribes from the 4th and 6th centuries BC, and the Cybele Temple do match with Amazons, and their belief systems as described in ancient texts. As Donmez emphasizes in his work, it is crucial that archaeological surveys in the Central Black Sea Region should be increased and attention should be paid when evaluating archaeological finds.

Deutsche Afghanistan-Soldaten sahen sich während der ISAF-Mission wie ihre alliierten Verbündeten neben offenen Angriffen durch Aufständische auch den Gefahren sogenannter Insider bzw. Innentäter ausgesetzt. 
Im Beitrag wird am Beispiel des Zwischenfalls am OP North nach Ursachen von Innentäter-Angriffen gefragt und nach Möglichkeiten gesucht, die Risiken zu mindern.

Begleitend zum Beitrag ist ein Vortrag bei YouTube hinterlegt:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DUnM_d7eUE

Questo studio fa parte di una più ampia ricerca sull'intertestualità nel Furioso, centrata in particolare su testi epico-cavallereschi a cavallo tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Sono grata agli organizzatori e ai partecipanti del convegno «Boiardo, Ariosto e i libri di battaglia» per avermi offerto l'occasione di presentare e discutere il mio lavoro.

This study examines in detail the biographical entry of an Ilkhanid (the Mongol state centred in Iran) princess, El Qutlugh Khatun daughter of Abagha Ilkhan (r. 1265–82), in the biographical dictionaries of the Mamluk author Khalil b. Aybeg al-Safadi (d. 1363). Al-Safadi's biography of the lady provides a rare glance into the life of women of the Mongol royal household during the transitional period which followed the Ilkhanid conversion to Islam. It sheds light on issues such as the relations between the Mamluks and the Ilkhans in light of the latter’s conversion to Islam and the influence of the process of Islamization on traditional Mongolian gender related practices. This paper also discusses the motivation of the Mamluk author in including El Qutlugh’s unusual story in his biographical dictionaries showing
how his choices might have been influenced not only by his own interests but also by what appealed to his readers.

This is an original translation of the coming-of-age section of the Sirat al-Amira Dhat al-Himma / Epic of the Commander Dhat al-Himma. It includes a scholarly introduction, English translation, and facing Arabic text. It is ideal for undergraduate classrooms, but will also be of interest to academics and general audiences who read sources relating to medieval history, oral literature, pre-modern Arabic literature, and women warriors.

All of the essays in this special issue place women at the centre of explorations on war, revolution, and independence struggles in Asia. Instead of treating them as anomalous, ambiguous, and unnatural women, the authors show that since the earliest times to the contemporary period, women in Asia existed alongside men as they embraced roles as warriors and combatants. But by using the analytical lens of gender, the essays here show that these women's experiences should be distinguished from men, and that these women warriors should be given their unique treatment and recognition in historical accounts and memory. c o n t i n u e d f r o m p a g e 1 > The Philippines Free Press declares, "Leonora Hipas, a former pistol-packing Amazon, is shown as she and her new husband surrendered to the government. With the Huks she dressed like a man. Like all girls, she wanted a wedding gown for her marriage." Courtesy Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University. T H E M E W o m e n W a r r i o r s I I A S N E W S L E T T E R # 4 8 S u m m e r 0 0 8

Wier Dissertation Abstract

Seventeenth-century Venetian operatic divas pioneered a new social identity for women both onstage, as virtuosic opera singers, and as independent professionals in the Venetian cityscape. They accomplished this partly in prototypical commercial opera houses. From such spaces the sound of their voices, and the memory of their performances in cross-dressed and warrior woman roles spilled out on the cutting edge of performance to spread the novel form across early modern Europe. The performance of cross-dressed and warrior woman roles transgressed normative gender codes and is one way early modern divas overcame misogynist perceptions. In fact, by occupying “the norm in myriad ways,” these women exceeded and reworked accepted norms performatively while modelling independent agency and pioneering a new profession for women (Judith Butler, Undoing 217).
For my project, I trace the reception of the early modern diva’s “sonic performances of gender” (Andrew Dell’Antonio) and the movement of her resonant body from opera stage to city-street. To do this, I apply J. L. Austin’s analytic lens of performativity as employed in gender studies and performance studies scholarship to analyze the social impact of the early modern operatic diva’s performance of self. My interdisciplinary methodology interlaces material historical data, close textual and musical readings, with performance theory. Specifically, I examine the music and texts of five performance scores to understand how composer Francesco Cavalli (1602 - 1676) and his librettist collaborators tailored warrior woman roles to fit the voices of lead singers like Anna Renzi (c.1620 - c.1661). To provide the socio-material context outside of score and text, I focus on Renzi’s career and the reception of her performances in La finta pazza (1641) and La Deidamia (1645) along with perceptions of her in everyday life. With theoretical approaches centered on performativity, gender, reception, and celebrity status, I work to wrest out remnant traces of ephemeral “presence and its reception through embodied understanding” of performance embedded in scores, letters, and performance accounts (Diane Taylor, The Archive 292).

Recent excavation at Sanauli, Uttar Pradesh, India in 2018 is significant as it provided new and important evidences of Chariots for the first time in Indian Subcontinent dated to 2000BCE. What is more interesting is that they were placed next to 'legged coffins', decorated with copper inlays, also reported for the first time in Indian Subcontinent.

In myth, Amazons were archenemies of Greek heroes such as Heracles and Achilles, but Greek and Roman historians also described historical, legendary, and contemporary warrior women of Eurasia with lives and exploits like those of Amazons. Greeks were not the only ancient culture to tell stories about warlike women and thrill to accounts of legendary and historical female warriors. The ancient Medes and Persians fought Scythians from the north and Saka tribes on the eastern frontiers of their empires. Beyond the Greek-influenced world, one can find intrepid horsewomen-archers in oral traditions, art, and literature of Egypt, Arabia, Persia, the Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, and India.

Vojna istorija antike po pravilu se bavi herojskim podvizima ratnika, presudnim bitkama i umećem legendarnih vojskovođa. Ženama u njoj gotovo da neme mesta, osim kada se tek usput pominju kao neizbežne žrtve. Nametnuta podela na ratište kao isključivo muški i kućište kao ženski zabran u antici ipak nije bila tako isključiva. Rat je menjao sva ustaljena pravila, pa je ova podela bledela i nestajala povlačeći se pred nužnom potrebom da se zaštiti i odbrani grad ili država. Kada je pošast rata došla do kućnog praga, žene antike su znale i umele da odbrane sebe i svoje najbliže. Mnogima od njih usud je podario da učine herojska dela jednaka onima koja se pripisuju legendarnim herojima antike, ali je Suđajama za njih ostalo tek malo pređe da od nje načine kratku, ali bleštavu nit koja i danas sija kroz vekove.
-
As a rule, the military history of antiquity deals with the heroic deeds of male warriors, decisive battles and the mastery of legendary military leaders. There is almost no place for women in it, except when they are mentioned as inevitable victims. However, the imposed division into a battleground as exclusively male, and a home ground as a female space, in antiquity was not as exclusive. The war changed all the established rules, so this division faded and disappeared, retreating before the necessity of protecting and defending of the city or state. When the plague of war reached the doorstep, the women of antiquity were able and new how to defend themselves and their loved ones. Many of them were destined to do heroic deeds equal to those attributed to the legendary heroes of antiquity, but the Moirae had little yarn left to make a short, but shiny thread for them that still shines through the centuries.

Partant d'un légendaire présentant la shieldmaiden comme mythe du troisième genre inévitablement voué à une «féminisation», nous étudierons comment Lagertha se renouvelle de manière problématique dans la série télévisée; d'une part, le personnage éclate le parcours identitaire préétabli par les textes sources et incarne un modèle «féministe» acclamé à la fois par les personnages de la diégèse et par le public, et d'une autre, propose une héroïne s'inscrivant dans un horizon de guerrières filmiques parcourues de stéréotypes féminins, et donc peut-être pas aussi progressiste qu'il ne le laisse entendre.

Seventeenth-century Venetian operatic divas pioneered a new social identity for women both onstage, as virtuosic opera singers, and as independent professionals in Venice. They accomplished this partly in prototypical commercial opera houses. From such spaces, the sounds of their voices and the memory of their performances in cross-dressed, madwomen, and warrior woman roles spilled out on the cutting edge of performance to spread the novel form across Europe. Their performance transgressed normative gender codes and is one way early modern divas overcame misogynist perceptions. They exceeded and reworked accepted norms performatively while modelling independent agency to pioneer a new profession for women. In this project, I trace the reception of the early modern diva’s sonic transmissions and her transition across the stage, out the door of the theatre’s sounding architectural space, and into the city. I apply the analytic lens of performativity as employed in gender and performance studies scholarship to analyze the social impact of the early operatic diva’s performance of self. This interdisciplinary approach knits together material historical data, formal text, and music readings, with performance theory. In this, I examine the music and texts of five performance scores to understand how composer Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) and his librettist collaborators tailored iconic warrior woman roles to fit the voices of lead women singers. To comprehend the reception of the diva, I examine the career of Anna Renzi (c.1620- c.1661) and her riveting performances in La finta pazza (1641) and La Deidamia (1644) contextualized in Venetian cultural history and the performance events in Teatro Novissimo. I place Renzi’s work into a performance genealogy from commedia dell’Arte to the dramma per musica. Finally, I theorize how Renzi’s sonic emissions and vibrant performances resonated socially as an energetic electric force transgressing the librettist’s texts and the composer’s musical composition to effect society and the status of women in it. With theoretical approaches centered on embodiment, gender, reception, celebrity status, and sound, I work to discover remnant traces of ephemeral presence.

The present paper challenges the previously held view, that warfare is the domain of men. Looking at funerary inventories of the earlier Bronze Age of the Eastern Carpathian Basin of anthropologically identified women interments, the regional embodiments of a female personhood are sought. Jewellery, pottery sets or their lack, weapons/tools of the deceased and the variety of their materials all play a role in negotiating identities of the living. Moreover, the funerary context engages the individuals in a constant re-remembering, hence actively re-negotiating social standing, meaning of embodiments and ultimately identities. Social-ranking based on funerary inventories and the recognition of embodiments of a female engendered warriorhood allows for the reinterpretation of warfare in practice. As bellicose women are recognised the constitution of society from the misty southeastern Europe is further elucidated.

The story of Camilla, the legendary warrior woman of Virgil's Aeneid, raises intriguing questions. Why did Virgil include an Amazon-like woman in his epic poem about the founding of Rome? Was Camilla Virgil's invention? Or was her story based on a lost Italian legend?

Some information has been found in the ancient sources concerning some noble women called Rhodogune from the Persian royal family. The most important ones among these sources are Aiskhines, Appianos, Dion Khrysostomos, Hieronymus, Iustinus, Philostratos, Plutarkhos, Suda and Valerius Maximus. This article aims to compare the information on Rhodogune mostly given by Anonymus Mulieribus and Polyainos with that of other authors and thus to interpret the place of this warrior queen within the historical context. In this regard, a new perspective will be suggested by analyzing the very limited information on Rhodogune. At this point one should question whether a trauma that the Persians had suffered before could have affected and shaped the history of Rhodogune or not. On the other hand the question about who Rhodogune is remains unanswered for now. Because there is no guiding information about the time she lived, her place and position in the Persian palace, her personal relationships, family life, relatives, about other events that she was involved in, or about any other talents or activities of her. Yet Rhodogune is seen as a rather strong woman with self-confidence about her gender in the patriarchal Persian society. Rhodogune is in complete contradiction to Atossa, another Persian queen, because of this profile.

Boccaccio mediatore: narrazioni amazzoniche tra cantare e poema Il contributo offre alcune prime osservazioni sul ruolo del Teseida e del De claris mulieribus nella formazione del poema cavalleresco. In particolare si esplora il ruolo di Boccaccio nel fornire temi e narrazioni di tipo amazzonico, rielaborati a vari livelli dai cantari fino all'Orlando furioso.

Northern societies of the pre-Christian period have left us plentiful images of women as warriors in surviving legends. It has nonetheless been difficult for scholars to believe that the images are founded on social fact or reflective in any way of actual past experience. The heroic contexts of women warrior stories lead many to subscribe to psychological explanations for the popularity of the story type. Clearly, the idea of the woman warrior does not conform with the Western Christian worldview. However, it originates in a culture considerably earlier than that of the medieval writers of Christian Europe who would find the idea fantastic. Recently, some archaeologists and historians have begun arguing for the possibility of women in early societies occasionally fulfilling social roles perceived by us as “male.” Archaeologically, skeletal remains from graves containing weapons have in a few instances been found, after expert osteological analysis, to appear in all likelihood to be biologically female. This paper will explore the existing evidence for the reality of the “warrior,” or weapon-bearing, female primarily in Anglo-Saxon and Viking cultures. Special attention will be paid to archaeological data. The social meaning of bearing weapons in these pagan societies will also be examined through literary sources and cultural analogy, and the logical possibilities for women to participate in “warrior culture” will be considered.

Heracles’ ninth Labor, set by King Eurystheus and Princess Admete of Tiryns, was to obtain the war belt of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons dwelling in Pontus on the Black Sea. Artistic and literary evidence suggests that his mission began peacefully but turned violent thanks to Heracles’ nemesis, the goddess Hera. The encounter between Heracles and his companions against the Amazons was one of the most popular subjects in ancient Greek vase painting and sculpture, second only to the Nemean Lion, with the earliest depiction on a terracotta shield of about 700 BC, found at Tiryns. The artistic and literary depictions reveal that Hippolyte and the Amazons were considered the equals of Greek males in courage and combat skills, although they were ultimately defeated and the Amazon queen’s precious war belt was won by Heracles.

En la Antigüedad, las representaciones de amazonas fueron numerosas y relativamente variadas, gracias a los diversos mitos que de ellas existían A lo largo de este trabajo intentaré elaborar una relación de los motivos y los paralelismos, tanto temáticos como artísticos, que aparecen en el mundo griego a lo largo de los periodos Arcaico y Clásico. En este sentido, destaca el análisis de las escenas recogidas en numerosos vasos, ya que se trata del soporte mayoritario en que este mito fue utilizado como elemento decorativo; no obstante, su aparición en otro tipo de obras, como esculturas, pinturas o relieves, será igualmente tratada con el fin de intentar establecer pautas y “modas” tanto en los elementos como en las temáticas, buscando desentrañar la finalidad que este tipo de obras suscitó en el ámbito griego y en aquellos pueblos con los que éste tuvo contacto a través del comercio.

In this paper I present the case of the warrior woman and Muslim convert Efromiya in the fourteenth century Turkish epic romance Danişmendname in order to demonstrate two major points: Firstly, because warrior women violated gender norms — even when fighting for the spread of Islam — they posed a potential threat to their own (adopted) community; and, secondly, female converts are only accepted as full members of the community as long as they are legitimized by a Muslim husband or protector. That is, the loyalty of the female convert to the faith or the cause is predominantly defined through her lawful attachment to male muslims.
Within early Anatolian Turkish epic literature Greek born Efromiya is certainly the most important and most prominent warrior woman figure. The woman warriors of this genre are almost exclusively Christian born converts, just as their counterparts in contemporary Italian epic romances are Saracen (Muslim) born converts. Therefore I challenge the comparison of this warrior woman type in early Anatolian conversion narratives to the ‘pre-Islamic Turkish warrior woman,’ as often seen in modern studies of literature. Efromiya is also the only heroine who retains her pre-conversion name. That means, the audience of the epic narrative was continously reminded of her otherness not only by her prowess in martial arts, but also by her foreign name. Nonetheless Efromiya is celebrated for her strength throughout major parts of the epic. She often appears commanding the Muslim troops together with the eponymous hero Melik Danişmend and her husband Artuhi, a new convert like herself.
When first her military leader and then her husband die towards the end of the narrative, Efromiya is now perceived as a threat to the Muslim community because of her extraordinary strength. Without much elaboration she is poisoned by her own eunuch slave whose motivation is to prevent her from apostasizing and becoming a Christian again. Although it is a common epic theme that the hero is poisoned by a base and treacherous slave in the end, Efromiya’s case is different because the action of the slave is not condemned. In a later reworking of the Danişmendname from the sixteenth century the slave is even praised for his sincere loyalty. After losing the protection of her leader Melik Danişmend and her husband Artuhi warrior woman Efromiya’s conversion no longer suffices to make her a trusted member of the community.

In Greek myth, Amazons were fierce women of exotic lands who gloried in hunting and war. The greatest Greek heroes, Heracles and Achilles, proved their valor by killing Amazon queens. But were Amazons mere fantasy? Thanks to archaeology, we now know they were modeled on real steppe nomads of Eurasia. The Greeks were not the only ones to describe warlike females. Amazons appear in other ancient cultures, but with a twist. Non-Greeks desired the warrior women as allies and companions. This paper describes the archaeology of warrior women and recounts Amazon tales of the Caucasian steppes, Greece, Persia, Egypt, the Caucasus, and Central Asia featuring Penthesilea, Tirgatao, Tomyris, Sparethra, Amage, Zarina, Valdusa, Blue Lotus, Saikal, and Gulaim.

Rođena sam kao žena, ali sam delima dokazala da nisam nimalo slabija od najboljih među muškarcima. (Polijen, Stratageme, VIII, 26)

Oduvek su muškarci odlučivali o ratu, miru i odbrani zajednice. Pokušaji žena da zađu u taj isključivo muški zabran smatrani su uvredom muškosti. Ovom knjigom je autor, pišući o ženama koje su se istakle u ratnom zanatu, ukazao na brojne onovremene i savremene predrasude.
Pored slavnih vladarki i predvodnica vojski − Budike, Kleopatre, Teute ili Zenobije u knjizi ćete pronaći i manje poznate, danas bezimene heroine, koje su pokazale hrabrost i odlučnost na različite načine aktivno učestvujući u mnogim ratovima.
Knjiga vas nenametljivo vodi od mitološkog sveta neustrašivih Amazonki do Mavije, poslednje velike ratnice koja je živela u epohi smiraja sveta antičkog Mediterana. Sve one bile su potpuna suprotnost uobičajenoj predstavi o ženi stvorenoj isključivo za kućevne poslove jer su bez zazora učestvovale u javnim i državnim, muškim poslovima. One su u mnogo čemu bile jednake, ako ne i bolje od muškarca sa kojima i protiv kojih su se borile. Nalik grčkoj boginji Atini Promahos postale su ideal koga su se muškarci istovremeno plašili i divili mu se.

Se examina la naturaleza de la guerra de guerrillas desde
una perspectiva de género y con una especial consideración de su impacto en los diversos escenarios iberoamericanos en los que se libró o se libran luchas armadas con la intervención de grupos guerrilleros. Igualmente, se tomará en consideración la incorporación de las mujeres a la guerrilla y los papeles que éstas han desarrollado en los mismos.