DORA D’ISTRIA AND WOMEN: A DISTINGUISHED INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTION TO GENDER EQUALITY

The writings of Dora d’Istria constitute a particularly significant field of scholarly inquiry, especially in relation to the position of women and their role within society. She is the author of two major encyclopedic works on gender-related issues, namely Des femmes par une femme (“On Women by a Woman,” 1865) and Les femmes d’Orient (“Women of the East,” 1859). The former presents a comprehensive and analytically structured examination of the status of women in Western Europe, which d’Istria categorizes into two distinct socio-cultural spheres: Germanic and Latin societies. Within this comparative framework, she advances a notably liberal perspective on women’s rights, advocating for their entitlement to property ownership, the right to divorce, and the equitable distribution of property—positions that were exceptionally progressive within the socio-legal context of nineteenth-century Europe. This study, however, concentrates on Les femmes d’Orient, particularly the sections devoted to Southeastern Europe, extending geographically to Athens and Istanbul. Composed in an epistolary form, the work documents d’Istria’s encounters with women during her travels across Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Greece. Through these narratives, she constructs a nuanced regional “cartography” of women’s social conditions, situating their lived experiences within broader processes of national awakening, political transformation, and identity formation.