The Balkan Women Archive · Vol. I · MMXXVI

Balkan Women History

Recovering the record, one life at a time
Queen Teuta of Illyria · c. 230 BC
From the archive — featured life

The Queen Rome Could Not Ignore

From a fortress on the Adriatic, Teuta of the Ardiaei commanded fleets that carried Illyrian power up the coast — until an insult to her court drew the Republic into its first war east of the sea.

Continue reading →
❧ ❧ ❧

Recently Recovered

New entries from across the centuries
Antiquity · Illyria

Queen Teuta

The pirate-queen whose navy unsettled Rome itself.

Medieval · Serbia

Jefimija the Nun

The first woman of Serbian letters, who wrote her grief in gold thread.

1946 · Albania

Musine Kokalari

Albania's first great woman writer, silenced by a regime but not erased.

WWI · Serbia

Milunka Savić

She marched in her brother's place and came home the most decorated of all.

20th c. · N. Macedonia

Mother Teresa

Born in Skopje; a Nobel laureate who became the most famous Balkan-born figure of all.

1976 · Romania

Nadia Comăneci

The fourteen-year-old who scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history.

For students & teachers

A Classroom in the Archive

Each recovered life comes with its place on the timeline, a map of the Balkans as it was, and primary sources for students and teachers to read for themselves.

Enter the reading room