Ksenija Atanasijević je bila filozofkinja i prva žena koja je stekla titulu doktora nauka na Beogradskom univerzitetu. Nakon studija filozofije koje završava u Beogradu, odlazi u Švajcarsku i Francusku na usavršavanje, a 1922. sa samo 28 godina, u Beogradu brani doktorsku disertaciju o filozofiji Đordana Bruna. Disertaciju objavljuje i na francuskom i na engleskom jeziku. Ksenija je objavljivala brojne radove iz oblasti filozofije, književnosti i feminizma, i prevodila dela nekih od najznačajnijih filozofa na srpski (između ostalih Platona, Aristotela, Spinozu).
Ksenijin filozofski rad je bio priznat u svetu, između ostalih primera, enciklopedija Britanika je njenu disertaciju uvrstila u spisak relevantne literature o Đordanu Brunu. Međutim, njen rad ne nailazi na isto odobravanje među srpskom intelektualnom elitom, a ona je na svom matičnom fakultetu u Beogradu bila suočena sa oštrom mizoginijom tokom gotovo celokupne karijere. Seksizam profesora fakulteta je išao do te mere da joj je na odbrani doktorske disertacije bio zadat poseban zadatak iz oblasti više matematike. Nakon što ga je Ksenija tačno rešila, svoje zaprepašćenje nisu mogli da sakriju članovi komisije (među kojima je bio i naš čuveni naučnik Milutin Milanković), te je jedan od njih naglas upitao kolegu da li veruje da je sve u redu sa hormonima Ksenije Atanasijević.
Čitava akademska karijera Ksenije je konstantno bila na tankom ledu zbog toga što je žena, a pritisak nije dolazio samo njenih kolega, nego i od beogradske javnosti. Između ostalog, njen izbor za vanrednog profesora je bio osporavan zbog, nikada potvrđenih, optužbi za plagijat. Iako se stoički dugo borila protiv onih koji su želeli da ospore njen kredibilitet u svakom smislu, na kraju Ksenija sama odustaje od dalje borbe sa fakultetom i povlači se sa njega.
1941. godine Ksenija je odbila da potpiše Apel srpskom narodu, naručen od strane Nemaca, koji je za cilj imao stvaranje slike da je intelektualna elita Srbije protiv partizanskog otpora i za saradnju sa okupatorom. Iako se nije deklarisala kao komunistkinja, Ksenija je ovo odbijanje objasnila pozivajući se na princip ljudskosti, a godinu dana kasnije Gestapo je hapsi kako zbog ovoga, tako i zbog njenih opšte poznatih antinacističkih svetonazora. I nakon Drugog svetskog rata, 1946. Ksenija biva uhapšena jer se nije deklarisala kao komunistkinja, i njene knjige dobijaju status zabranjenih. Tek nakon nekoliko godina uspeva da povrati pravo da ponovo radi i izdejstvovala je skidanje zabrane sa svojih autorskih dela. U narednom periodu nastavlja da prevodi i piše.
Ksenija je bila velika feministkinja, jedno vreme potpredsednica Ženskog pokreta, ali i članica par internacionalnih feminističkih organizacija. Ipak, važno je spomenuti da se predstavnice feminističkih pokreta (predsednica Udruženja univerzitetski obrazovanih žena i, ironično, jedna od predstavnica Ženskog pokreta) nisu priklonile Kseniji u najtežim momentima borbe za akademsku karijeru.
// Ksenija Atanasijević was a philosopher and the first woman to receive a PhD at the University of Belgrade. After her studies in Belgrade, she continued her education in Switzerland and France, and at the age of 28 (in 1922) she defended her dissertation on philosophy of Giordano Bruno. Ksenija’s dissertation was published in English and French, too . Ksenija wrote and published numerous articles on philosophy, literature and feminism, and translated the works of some of the most relevant philosophers to Serbian (such as Plato, Aristotle and Spinoza).
Ksenija’s philosophical work was internationally acknowledged, e.g. The Encyclopædia Britannica listed her work on Giordano Bruno as relevant literature on this philosopher. However, Ksenija’s work wasn’t really accepted amongst Serbia’s intellectual elite, and Ksenija faced harsh misogyny almost throughout her whole career. Her professors’ sexism was so prevailing that while defending her dissertation, she was assigned to resolve a problem in further mathematics. After she did this successfully and with ease, professors couldn’t hide their shock and one of them asked the other one out loud: “Do you believe that everything is okay with our student’s hormones?!”. Among those professors was also Milutin Milanković, one of the Serbia’s most prominent scientists.
Only because she was a woman was the whole of Ksenija’s career precarious. For example, she was prevented from becoming an associate professor for alleged plagiarism – which had never been proved. Although she tirelessly fought against such accusations for years, she eventually gave up and resigned from the faculty.
Even though she never declared herself as a communist, Ksenija refused to sign “A call to Serbian people” in 1941, aimed against partisan resistance to the German occupation forces. The Gestapo arrested her because of this and her well known antinazi standpoint. She was also arrested after the WWII, by the Yugoslavian government in 1946, for not declaring as a communist, and her books were prohibited. Only after a few years she managed to get the permission to work again and her books were not forbidden anymore. After this she continued to write and translate.
Ksenija was an important feminist in Serbian history, a member and vice president of Women’s movement in Serbia, as well as a member of few international feminist organisations. Nevertheless, one of the representatives of the Women’s movement did not support Ksenija in her most difficult moments in fighting for her career against male intellectuals at the faculty, leading to the general lack of the support from prominent feminists from that period.