Contested Meanings of Volunteering: Socialist Self- Management and Volunteer Fire Departments in Slovenian Municipalities

his article uses a longue-durée approach to discuss volunteering as a practice in Slovenia sincethe mid-nineteenth century. It uses an example of volunteer fire departments, one of the old-est voluntary organizations in the country and asks what firefighters in Slovenia recognized asvoluntary work during the imperial, interwar, and socialist periods? The article looks at wom-en’s participation in fire departments to investigate whether the gradual inclusion of womenchanged perception regarding volunteer work? In particular, the article focuses on the periodof socialist self-management, during which the idea of volunteering was based on the partici-pation of people in voluntary actions to improve community life with a loose understanding ofindividual gains. The chapter argues that while volunteer fire departments notably diversifiedtheir membership, the meaning of volunteering remained linked to a national tradition rootedin an earlier era when departments consisted exclusively of men who viewed their participationas unpaid and honorable work.