Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture and History

by Amila Buturovic

  female workers struck, most of whom were Jewish.27 From March until the end

  of May 1911, 400 female workers and 90 male workers went out on strike at the

  Régie tobacco factory. They were joined by male and female workers from other

  tobacco factories such as Hasan kif, Keyazis Emin, and Herzog.28 The workers

  demanded wage increases in accordance with the cost of living index, the hiring

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  of unionized workers, wages that would be paid according to hours worked rather

  than production quotas, and the shortening of the work day to 7–8 hours in the

  winter, and 10–11 hours in the summer:

  The Jewish, Greek, and Turkish workers reorganized and decided on work

  hours. The men would work between 7:30 and 16:30 whereas the girls

  would work between 8:00 and 17:00. The workers would have two fifteen

  minute breaks during the day. There were different meal/rest times for men

  and women; the men would take a break when it suited them, whereas the

  women’s break time was signaled by a bell.29

  One of the main demands during negotiations was that those jobs considered male

  tasks would not be appropriated to female workers, and that male workers would

  not sort tobacco leaves with the young girls. In this way, work would be assured

  for both male and female workers.30 After long negotiations between workers’

  representatives and the employers, the strike ended. The wages of female workers

  were cut, whereas the value of male workers’ wages was safeguarded. When the

  400 female workers realized that their wages had been reduced, they insisted

  on continuing the negotiations by themselves; and when the employers refused

  to speak with them, the young girls called for a strike of their own. The male

  workers who reported to work found the factory gates locked: “The young girls

  are on strike and the men are in a lockout.” As a sign of sympathy with the Régie

  factory, the owners of Hasan kif, Herzog, and Keyazis Emin also closed down

  their factories.31

  The young girls’ struggle for fair wages and working conditions sped up their

  integration into the socialist movement. Female tobacco workers were the first to

  establish a vocational sector of their own within the tobacco workers’ union. This

  sector was established after the young girls proved their determination and their

  independence. Their struggles took place both in the factories and on the street,

  against both their employers and their “brethren” workers who, when it came to

  the issues of wages and “efficiency” lay-offs, did not hesitate to sacrifice their

  female counterparts. Each time the young girls felt that their employers or the

  workers’ committees were treating them underhandedly, they called for a strike

  and took to the streets to demonstrate. Thus, the young girls who worked in the

  tobacco industry of Salonika became active members of the working class; on

  the floors of the tobacco factories they acquired an awareness of their rights as

  workers and, for a limited period of time (that is, until marriage), a new sense of

  self was formed—one that began to demand rights, to take a stand, and to make

  decisions not only on the factory floor but also within workers’ organizations. By

  1912, the factory owners could only dream of employing a young Jewish girl who

  was not a member of the trade union.32

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  Women in the ottoman Balkans

  Changes in Space

  As for the class struggle, its role in the production of space

  is a cardinal one in that this production is performed solely

  by classes, fractions of classes and groups representative of

  classes. Today more than ever, the class struggle is inscribed

  in space.33

  Henri Lefebvre

  Historical sources show that, as in other Jewish communities, the Jewish woman

  of Salonika was not an independent entity but an inseparable part of the family.

  In the patriarchal family and society of Salonika, the life of the family, or, more

  exactly, the life of the women and children, was conducted not in accordance with

  official space and time—whether it be “government time” or “Jewish time”—

  but in terms of more internal, restricted dimensions. Besides the private/public

  dichotomy, other dichotomies existed in the areas of dress, language, and speech

  as well.

  Female workers of the tobacco industry were the first to shatter the separation

  between the public and private spheres. Approximately 4,000 workers participated

  in the May First march of 1911—men, women, children, and their entire families.

  Speeches were delivered in four languages. Ninety-five percent of the participants

  were Jews, the rest being Bulgarians, Greeks, and Turks. Public space was

  converted into a political marketplace.

  The march met with the disapproval of many, not only because of the social

  and political identity of the marchers, but also because for the first time, women

  and children had participated as well.34 The events of May 1911, when thousands

  of male and female tobacco workers, along with their families, occupied and took

  charge of their own space, marked a new starting point.35 Beyond the fact that the

  march was a show of workers’ strength, it was also seen as presenting a threat to

  public order. Whereas female workers demanding equal rights in the factories had

  only presented a problem for their employers, girls and young women marching

  in the streets presented a threat to the traditional order of society and to its

  institutions. As Lefebvre has argued, “The distinction between the within and the

  without is as important to the spatial realm as to that of politics. The critique of

  what happens within has no meaning except by reference to what exists ‘outside’

  as possibility.”36 One could summarize the situation, using an old Jewish adage,

  as: “The King’s daughter has stepped outside!”37

  In April 1913,38 the female tobacco workers once more went on strike, and the

  male workers joined them. Until then, these young girls had had no say in the

  decisions taken by the workers’ committees; now they demanded to participate

  in the decision-making process.39 On 20 February 1914, on the eve of one of the

  largest strikes, five hundred young girls participated in the Convention of Female

  Tobacco Workers, which addressed the issue of the place of women workers

  within trade unions.40

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  The strike of 1913 had apparently settled the matter of gender relations within

  the tobacco workers’ union. The young girls’ participation in the various struggles

  and demonstrations and their demand for inclusion in the decision-making process

  proved “that the girls have the energy and discipline needed to wage battle.”41

  The Class Consciousness of Female Workers

  Once men understood that the social and class struggle would not succeed without

  the participation of female workers, they encouraged them to organize and take

  part in the union’s activities. The young girls internalized the concepts of class

  ideology and social equality both as workers and as women.42 Within the Jewish

 
; community of Salonika, a common expression was: “The most respectable

  woman is she who speaks little.”43 The fact that these young girls were speaking

  out and demanding equality and active participation illustrated a change in their

  consciousness. They now used their voice and participated in discussions that

  were both political and public. The female tobacco workers possessed both

  an ideology, and the words to express it. For example, Orico Baruch, Miriam

  Sasbone, Esterina Kovo, Riketa Filo, Matilda Ashkenazi, Sonhola Algava, and

  others donated money to the strikers’ fund, proclaiming: “Down with scabs!

  Long live the true unionists!”44 Not all the young girls took an active part in the

  political activities of the Socialist-Communist Party45 and in the struggles within

  the factories. They admired the courage of spirit and the actions of those who did

  participate, but shied away from them for fear of losing their jobs.46

  There was a small core of young girls who, with the encouragement of members

  of their families who were themselves active in the Party and the unions, led

  the rest of the girls and urged them to take part in the strikes, demonstrations,

  and assemblies: “There is no shame in coming to the workers’ club. Shame is

  remaining enslaved. … There is no shame in forming a trade union. Shame is

  being without a union and allowing the patrons to suck our blood!”47 “The Union

  is Power.”48

  These young Jewish girls looked toward Europe as their model: “Girls, prepare

  yourselves! Fellow female workers wake up from your deadening slumber;

  prepare yourselves for the new life! Why aren’t we looking towards our sisters in

  Europe? They take part in everything that happens in the workers’ movement and

  even demand their right to be elected as representatives. And we?”49

  In 1913, at an evening organized by the Socialist Party, one of the men read

  a monologue written by the Italian revolutionary author Ida Negri, a socialist

  Jewish woman, and one of the young girls spoke in support of the women taking

  to the streets to fight for their rights, side by side with the men.50

  However, the militant stance of the female tobacco workers remained limited

  to the field of work relations, expressed in the factories and on the streets. The

  female workers of Salonika did not succeed in attaining the same achievements

  as their socialist sisters in western Europe. In particular, they did not succeed in

  implementing the power of women’s solidarity—which they presented toward

  their employers and their fellow male workers—within the house and the family.

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  Women in the ottoman Balkans

  Ethnic Strife within Class Conflict

  In their attempts to break the lines of solidarity of the tobacco workers’ organization,

  and in their endeavors toward decreasing production costs, employers exploited

  the ethnic differences among the workers. After the incorporation of the city into

  Greece in October 1912, the strikes and demonstrations in which workers took

  part had repercussions within spheres beyond those of class and gender. Relations

  between the Jews, Greeks, and Muslims of the city were greatly disturbed. It

  would appear that a number of Muslim factory owners felt the new political

  reality held new possibilities for breaking the tobacco trade union, the majority of

  whose members were Jewish.

  In December 1912, the tobacco company of Hasan kif, under Muslim

  ( Dönme 51) ownership, decided to end the employment of Jewish workers, men

  and young girls alike, and proclaimed that from that day on, the company would

  hire only Greeks.52 This tactic, however, did not succeed, as Greek and Turkish

  workers supported their Jewish counterparts.53 The support of Greek and Turkish

  workers for the class struggle was also expressed in their donations to the strike

  fund of the Socialist Federation. Ambel İsa, a Turkish yoghurt vendor, donated to

  the fund, declaring “To the Class Struggle!”54 Istiryo Nikopoulos, a Greek tobacco

  worker from the Régie factory, made a donation to the fund as well, while Jewish

  workers donated proclaiming “Ethnic propaganda will not succeed.”55

  After the employers’ attempt to replace their male workers with female workers

  failed, and they discovered that the presumably compliant female workers were

  precisely those who were involved in organizing the workers and stood at the

  forefront of the strikes, they tried to replace the Jewish female workers who were

  unionized with Turkish and non-union Jewish female workers. In an attempt to

  by-pass the strikers who had congregated at the gates of the factory in order to

  deny entrance to non-union Jewish female workers, the employers disguised

  these latter in Turkish garb ( ferâce), complete with veils covering their faces.56

  This attempt failed, however, as the striking Jewish girls revealed the true identity

  of the disguised workers and formed committees to consolidate the loyalty of all

  female workers. During the Great Tobacco Strike of 1914, the Jewish girls once

  again uncovered the faces of the strikebreakers. Only this time they discovered

  that behind the veils were not disguised Jewish girls but Muslim girls who had

  come to Salonika from villages where the tobacco was grown. They were not

  organized in a union, did the men’s work of sorting, and worked for a pittance

  and a loaf of bread.57 In the heat of defending their place of work, their wages,

  the very sustenance of their families, and their hopes for the future, the Jewish

  female tobacco workers ripped the veils off the faces of the Muslim girls. Nine

  Jewish girls were arrested by the police for the crime of offending the religious

  sensitivities of the Muslim workers.58 In response to these events and to an article

  in the Turkish newspaper Yeni Asır [New Age], which was published in Salonika,

  Chief Rabbi Meir summoned representatives of the employers and of the Socialist

  Federation and implored them to calm the situation. At the same time, Rabbi Meir

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  wrote an article for the newspapers in which he denounced the actions of the

  young Jewish girls.

  The conflict that arose between the Jewish and Greek workers organized in their

  separate unions on the one hand, and the hungry Muslim female workers on the

  other, acquired a religious and national character. The strikes and demonstrations

  that took place in the midst of the crisis of the First World War deeply disturbed

  the relations between the Jews, Muslims, and Greeks of the city. The positive

  relationship between the Jewish and Muslim communities, who had shared a

  sense of being “the outsider” and of alienation as a result of the annexation of

  their birthplace by Greece, was now damaged, while a spirit of patriotism surged

  among the Greek population. The strike hurt the principal export of Macedonia—

  tobacco—and consequently the income of the Greek government. The Greek

  newspapers Nea Alithya [ Νέα Αλήθεια, “The New Truth”] and Macedonia

  [ Μακεδονία], referred to the striking Greek workers as “Greek patriots.” However,

  the Jewish workers, who protested in the streets carrying red flags and wearing
r />   the fez59 associated with Ottoman rule, were accused of attempting to incite the

  workers of the city in an effort to sabotage Greece’s endeavor to gain the approval

  of the League of Nations for the annexation of Salonika.60

  A Socialist Popular Culture

  Collective cognitive maps are inter-subjective in the sense

  that members of the same cultural, economic, ethnic …

  group, or people living in the same neighborhood, share

  similar cognitive maps.61

  Juval Portugali

  The need for cultural expressions separate from those of the Jewish, Greek, and

  Turkish bourgeoisie can be seen by inspection of the social meeting places of the

  working class. Throughout the period discussed in this article, the promenade along

  the beach and the coffeehouses near the White Tower were the locales of choice

  for the leisure of the Jewish, Greek, and Turkish middle-classes. Attending to the

  many who came to enjoy the breeze off the sea, the magnificent sunsets, and the

  “Parisian” atmosphere were coffeehouses with names bearing ethnic associations

  such as Nea Hellas [ Νέα Έλλάς, The New Greece], Eptanisus [ Επτάνησος, The

  Seven Islands],62 Olympos [Όλυμπος, Olympus], Anadolu [Anatolia], La Turquie

  [Turkey], and others.63 Though it might be argued that the patrons of coffeehouses

  did not necessarily place any importance on the names of these establishments,

  we see that socialists preferred to sit at the café El Amaneser [in Ladino, The

  Dawn], El Muevo Mundo [in Ladino, The New World], Café International, and

  Café Cristal,64 situated in the northwest of the city near Yeni Kapı [in Turkish, The

  New Gate], adjacent to their neighborhoods and the tobacco factories. In short,

  the names and locations of the coffeehouses suggest that different groups lived

  in the same territory and shared the same space, but at the same time operated in

  different cognitive environments.

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  Women in the ottoman Balkans

  The class consciousness of the young girls was formulated on the floors of

  the production halls and then strengthened in the neighborhood. Most of the

  workers lived in close proximity to the factories near the Vardar Gate and in

  the neighborhoods of Baron Hirsch and Régie Vardar (so named because of its

  proximity to the Régie tobacco factories). The family was an inseparable part of