Категорије

Dragomir Bondžić, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

Ivana Pantelić, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

THE SERBIAN PUBLIC IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY ON MARIE CURIE AND HER DISCOVERIES

God. XLIV, 2/2026, str. 293–318
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2026.2.bon.293-318

 

APSTRAKT/REZIME:

This article examines the reception of Marie Curie and her scientific work in Serbian-language periodicals from the early twentieth century to the late 1930s. It traces how knowledge about radioactivity, radium, and the Curies’ discoveries was disseminated in the Serbian public sphere through translations, popular science texts, and articles by university professors and public intellectuals. The study shows that Marie Curie was consistently represented as a pioneering scientist, with particular emphasis on her Nobel Prizes, her experimental work, and the perceived transformative impact of radioactivity on modern physics and chemistry. At the same time, her public image was shaped by intersecting discourses of gender, nationality, and scientific authority, in which she was alternately framed as a “Slavic” figure, a model of female achievement, and an exceptional case within a male-dominated scientific world. The article further analyses the absence of systematic misogynistic reinterpretations of her work in Serbian sources, contrasting this with broader European patterns such as the Matilda effect. It argues that Serbian periodical discourse functioned as a space in which scientific knowledge and gendered meanings were jointly constructed, negotiated, and transformed.

 

KLJUČNE REČI: Marie Curie, radioactivity, radium, history of science, gender and science, Matilda effect, periodicals, feminism and science, interwar Yugoslavia, popular science literature

 

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