Dimitrana Ivanova

Dimitrana Ivanova, née Petrova (1881-1960), was a Bulgarian reform pedagogue, suffragist and women's rights activist. She was chairperson of the Bulgarian Women's Union from 1926 to 1944.

She was the daughter of a trader in Rousse. She was educated in the local girl school and high school for girls. In Bulgaria, women had been allowed to be present as auditors during the lectures at the University of Sofia in 1896, but they were not allowed to study as regular students until 1901, and even after that, it was very difficult, as high school for girls only had six levels, while seven was required to be admitted to university. Dimitrana Ivanova was denied to study law in Sofia because of this, but she became the first female to study pedagogy and philosophy in the University of Zürich. When she returned to Bulgaria in 1900, she was employed as a teacher, which was at the time practically the only profession open to women (though until 1904, banned for married women). In 1914, she married the teacher Donchu Ivanov, but continued her professional life (the ban against married women teachers having been abolished in 1904). In 1921, she applied to study at the Faculty of Law at the University of Sofia: after a long struggle, she was finally allowed to do so, and could graduate in 1927.

In 1926, she succeeded Iulia Malinova as chairperson of the leading women's rights organization on Bulgiaria: Bulgarian Women's Union, which had been founded in 1901. In 1935-1940, she was a member of the board of the International Alliance of Women. She became a well known controversial figure of public debate in Bulgaria and was frequently caricatured in the press. During her tenure as chairperson, two issues was given much attention: the permission for women to practice law, which was seen as an important symbolic question, symbolizing the right for women to enter other professions of the same kind; and the right for women suffrage. In 1937, Bulgarian women was given conditional suffrage: if widowed, married or divorced, though they could not stand for election themselves.

Ivanova was arrested after the communistic take over of Bulgaria in 1944, when all civic "bourgeoisie" organizations was abolished. She was released on intervention of one of her contacts in the communist movement in 1945.

References

• http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09612020400200384
• Francisca de Haan, Krasimira Daskalova & Anna Loutfi: Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms in Central, Easterna and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th centuries Central European University Press, 2006
• Blanca Rodriguez Ruiz & Ruth Rubio-Marín: The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe: Voting to Become Citizens 2012