Проституција у Чачку током XX века

English title: Prostitution in Čačak during the 20th Century

The article examines prostitution in Čačak during the twentieth century as a phenomenon that accompanied urbanization, the growth of the town, the development of cafés and hotels, the presence of military units and changes in public morality. Prostitution is not treated as an isolated deviation, but as part of the private, hidden and socially sensitive history of a small town.

The first forms of organized prostitution in Čačak were connected with cafés. Cafés were places of entertainment, male sociability, drinking, music and informal sexual services. Their role was especially important at a time when Čačak acquired stronger urban functions and when the presence of the army increased the number of young men in the town.

The article shows that prostitution was connected with gender inequality and the economic vulnerability of women. Society condemned women more harshly than men, while clients usually remained outside moral and legal condemnation. These double standards were an important part of a culture in which prostitution, café life and male entertainment could persist as tacitly tolerated forms of everyday life.

The health aspect had particular importance. Venereal diseases, medical examinations, sanitary booklets, police actions and regulations on brothels show how the state sought to control prostitution primarily as a matter of public health, morality and public order, rather than as a question of women’s position and social inequality.

Prostitution in Čačak changed its forms across different political and social periods: in the Kingdom of Serbia, between the two world wars, during occupation and in socialist Yugoslavia. Its persistence, however, shows that it was a deeper social phenomenon connected with urban life, poverty, wars, migrations, the army, café culture and the control of sexuality.

Through the case of Čačak, the article contributes to the history of local modernity in Serbia. It shows that the modernization of a small town did not involve only institutions, the economy, education and public space, but also hidden zones of everyday life: sexuality, morality, disease, police surveillance, private relations and the boundaries between public and secret life.