Donna impegnata a livello civile e culturale: Dora d’Istria la voce di una intellettuale fuori dal coro

Abstract

Elena Ghika, known by the artistic name of Dora d’Istria, educated and erudite woman, is part of the debate on the female civil and cultural emancipation that took place during the nineteenth century. Ready to defend her rights and those of other women, she proposes as a solution the spread of education.
Dora herself argued that the origin of inequality between men and women was not biological in nature but social in nature. So it depended on a cultural tradition that women did not have to educate themselves. All this had caused exclusion from women’s politics and allowed the emergence of false opinions about their natural inferiority. Such hostile behavior towards women Dora had noted in traditional structures, the real problem was to free society from the ancient stereotypes about female and male roles.
Using historiographical sources, articles and archival documents, the research aims to underline the important role that the Romanian intellectual played in the European scene as a writer and a woman involved in politics. The aim of the work is to reconstruct his thoughts on women through his works and his contacts with intellectuals of the time who appreciated both political and pedagogical thought in her.