While most of New Zealand concentrates on Gallipoli and the Western Front in commemorating World War 1, there are other stories, including women's stories, that have never been told. Charmian Smith reports on a new theatre piece premiering at the Dunedin Arts Festival.
An international collaboration between Dunedin's Ake Ake Theatre and Hleb Teatar, a newly formed company in Serbia, brings to light two of many long-forgotten stories about women in World War 1.
They are of a New Zealand woman doctor who served in Serbia, and a Serbian woman soldier who served in the preceding Balkan wars as well as World War 1. They are told in Sisters in Arms, which has its New Zealand premiere in Arts Festival Dunedin next month.
The project is one of only three international collaborations to receive funding from Creative New Zealand's First World War Centenary (WW100) Co-commissioning Fund.
Jessica Latton, of Ake Ake Theatre, first met Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic when she was with Dah Teatar, a Serbian women's theatre company at an international festival of women's theatre in Wellington in 1999. She thought their show, The Helen Keller Case, based on the Helen Keller story as a metaphor for ''how can we live through this madness'', was extraordinary.
The Serbians were woken up in New Zealand the following morning by journalists wanting to interview them about Nato's bombing of Belgrade, which had started that night.
''Their children, their husbands and everybody they'd left behind were in Belgrade,'' Latton said.
Tasic commented: ''All at once the world changed. The beautiful colours of New Zealand became dim. The smiles and hugs of our wonderful hosts became unwanted. We longed to go home to our families, if needed to die with them. There we were, a theatre group that prided itself for our anti-war performance, all those years of being the window to the world to our colleagues, friends, families, being activists and fighters for truth and reconciliation, and feeling stranded so far away, while our country, children, city was being punished for a bloody war that was fought in our name.''
Five years later, when Latton was doing her master's in theatre direction at Toi Whakare, she chose to work with Tasic in Belgrade. Dah Teatar focused on helping women tell their stories from the Yugoslavian civil wars of the 1990s, which they had all lived through. It was a healing process, she said.
When Creative New Zealand announced its WW100 co-commissioning funding, Jessica and Rhys Latton, of Ake Ake, jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with Tasic in a show.
''Sanja had just made a solo show, Tales of Bread and Blood, about Sofija Jovanovic, her great-grandmother who was a woman sergeant in the Serbian army, one of the few women to fight. She apparently lost half a foot but after the war she still wore high heels and went dancing!'' Jessica said.
She also discovered that New Zealander Dr Jessie Ann Scott, of Canterbury, who had trained in Edinburgh, served in Serbia during World War 1, and their Sisters in Arms collaboration tells both the women's stories.
Neither the New Zealand nor the British army would accept women doctors at the time although they were told they could go as nurses, so a Scottish woman doctor, Dr Elsie Inglis, established the Scottish Women's Hospitals to serve at the front line in Europe. They were totally staffed by women and funded by the suffrage movement (in Britain women still did not have the vote). It was extraordinary at the time, Latton said.
Dr Scott, who had come home to New Zealand after working in Edinburgh and London, returned to Europe in 1915 to join the hospital unit serving in Serbia. She refused to leave her wounded patients to the German and Austrian invaders and was taken prisoner with other members of her unit. They were released in Switzerland and allowed to return to England but the brave women did not stay there long. They were sent to the Russian front, attached to a Serbian division and had to retreat under difficult conditions. Dr Scott continued as a medical officer with the Serbian army until 1918. In 1919 she was attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps in Salonika, and also served in France. For her work with the Serbian army she was awarded the Order of St Sava, third class, by the Serbian Government.
New Zealanders know little about Serbia in World War 1, although the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, in Sarajevo sparked the war. Gavrilo Pincip, the assassin, is still regarded as a hero by some Serbians and a villain by others, Latton said.
In the early 20th century the Serbians had recently freed themselves from the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913. Following the archduke's assassination on June 28, 1914, Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia and the dispute escalated into what is known as World War 1, involving Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
The Lattons joined Hleb Teatar in Serbia at the end of August to work with Tasic and premiere Sisters in Arms before returning to present the New Zealand premiere at Arts Festival Dunedin and then at the Nelson Arts Festival.
It will be performed by Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic, her daughter Anastasia Tasic, Jugoslav Hadzic, Jessica Latton and Rhys Latton.
THE PLAY: Sisters in Arms is at the Fortune Theatre from October 10-13 at 8pm, as part of Arts Festival Dunedin. Anastasia Tasic and Jugoslav Hadzic will be joined by other musicians to present Balkan Sounds with a Twist on October 14 in St Paul's at One.
