Paper short abstract:

Based on the archival accounts from the 1930s on instances of physical abuse of women and children in many families at the time, this paper argues for cultural, historical and political conditioning of individual emotions.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyses historical accounts of domestic violence which were documented by medical nurses who were doing house calls in Zagreb suburban areas during the 1930s. Instigated by their own horror over the common and horrific physical abuse of women and children in many families, the nurses were noting down the physical wounds but also the tolerated pains and the ignored sorrows which were too common in everyday family life of the time. Based on those accounts, this paper argues for cultural, historical and political conditioning of individual emotions and asks whether and in which way the similar instances of ignored individual suffering are (re)created in today's world.