ABSTRACT
As we have seen, supporting education, vocational training and caring for the poor were the fundamental markers by which activists measured the success of their organization; any increase in the number of beds in a student dorm, of women enrolled in handiwork courses, or in scholarships granted to students in need were meticulously reported in associational journals and were the primary symbol of pride for activists throughout Yugoslavia. However, these activities, though they were the most direct manifestations of the voluntary association’s statutes, formed only a fraction of its undertakings. As a matter of fact, activists spent a great deal of energy organizing different leisure activities for recreation and sociability for their targeted population, including concerts, collective prayer, picnics and parties. Though researchers have generally played down the importance of voluntary associations’ event-planning functions, generally considering these activities to be of secondary importance, the capacity to provide a rich array and a wellregarded set of socializing activities was an important criterion in sanctioning the success of an association and its effective role in the public space. As remarked by Mikhail Bakhtin, every celebration or party, be it public or private, is a political one. 1 This chapter proposes a gendered analysis of the festive culture that the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina were involved in in the interwar years, through the prism of the associational network.
