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530 ŠTEBI, Alojzija (Lojzka) (1883–1956) Slovenian teacher, journalist, politician and women’s activist; founder (1923) and President (1923–1927) of the Feministična aliansa kraljevine SHS (Feminist Alliance of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), renamed the Aliansa ženskih pokretov Jugoslavije (Women’s Movements Alliance of Yugoslavia) in 1926; editor (1926–1938) of the newspaper Ženski pokret (Women’s movement); participant in many international congresses , including those of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), the International Council of Women (ICW) and the Little Entente of Women (LEW). Alojzija Štebi was born on 24 March 1883 in Ljubljana. Her father Anton Štebi was a haulier. Nothing is known about her mother Marija (born Kunstel). Alojzija Štebi went to a girls’ school and graduated from teacher-training college in Ljubljana in 1903. In that year, she was employed as a supply teacher in Tinje, Carinthia. A year later, she became a regular teacher in Tržič, then in Radovljica, Mavčice and Kokra. Her socialist ideas and activities brought her into constant conflict with the school authorities and on 23 September 1914, she resigned from her teaching position and became the editor of the socialist daily newspaper Zarja (Dawn), for which she had been writing since 1912. From 1912 to 1915, Štebi edited the newspaper Tobačni delavec (Tobacco worker), the gazette of the Slovene members of the Trade Union of the Tobacco Workers of Austria. From May to November 1915, she also edited and published Ženski list (Women’s newspaper), the gazette of Slovene women socialists. Her publishing and editing activities were closely connected to her political work. As a member of the Jugoslovanska socialdemokratska stranka (Social Democrat Party of Yugoslavia), she was an elected member of the Carniolan provincial assembly in 1913. She appeared as a speaker at key social democratic meetings in Ljubljana, Trieste, Trbovlje and Jesenice, and often gave lectures to workers’ societies . From June to November 1917, she was the editor-in-chief of the social democratic daily Naprej (Forward) and from March 1918 to August 1919, the editor-inchief of the gazette Demokracija (Democracy). With a group of young social democratic women she founded the Slovenska socialna matica (Slovene Social Society) in 1917 and supported the establishment of the Yugoslav state. She firmly believed 531 that the new state would solve the Slovene national problem and improve the position of women. The threat of losing even the few rights women had gained in the Habsburg Monarchy spurred Štebi to defend the rights of women and children in the new Yugoslav State. In December 1918, she became superintendent of the Department for Youth Welfare as part of the commission on social welfare of the national government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in Ljubljana. After 1919, Štebi held several government positions in departments dealing with the welfare of young people and children and social policy issues. In 1927, the Ministry of Social Policy pushed successfully for Štebi's retirement for political reasons (namely her radical ideas). She was re-employed in 1933 as an assistant secretary to the Ministry of Social Policy and National Health in Belgrade. Due to illness, she retired again in 1940 and moved to Ljubljana to live with her brother Andrej Štebi, an engineer, and his wife Cirila (born Pleško), a prominent activist in the Slovene women’s movement. From 1941, she collaborated with the Slovene partisan movement, as did her brother and sister-in-law. In June 1942, the Nazis took her brother Anton hostage before shooting him. Her sisterin -law Cirila died in October 1942 in Auschwitz. After World War II, Alojzija Štebi worked for the Department of Education and Improvement of Human Resources at the Ministry of Work of the People's Republic of Slovenia and, in 1947, became head of this department. In October 1948, she was named chief of the administration board for qualified workers at the Ministry of Work. In May 1950, Štebi was transferred to the Department for Vocational Schools at the Ministry of Education, from which position she retired in September 1950. She continued to receive contracted work there until her death on 9 August 1956. A once influential representative of the prewar women’s movement, she was not held in favor by the new communist government. Štebi began writing about ‘the woman question’ in 1911, while politically active among workers as an advocate of Social Democracy. In 1918, she published her most important treatise, Demokratizem in ženstvo (Democracy...

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