Meet Croatia’s first female journalist

The “Days of Marija Jurić Zagorka” event, which will take place on the 25th and the 26th of November, is an ideal opportunity to get to know the life and work of the best-known Croatian female author, the first Croatian female journalist and a fervent women’s rights activist. This event also provides a unique opportunity to familiarize oneself with the story of Zagreb’s literary history.

One of the most charismatic female authors in Croatian history, Marija Jurić Zagorka (1873–1957), has been attracting numerous fans to Zagreb for the fifth consecutive year. The 5th “Days of Marija Jurić Zagorka” are dedicated to the author and, on the 25th and the 26th of November, numerous lectures on her life, work and legacy will be taking place. The event also features a large scientific gathering with a special review on the problem of geographical boundaries – in other words, the cities about which she wrote and in which she lived – where, even back then, there was a strong feminist current (to which she herself belonged). 

Feminism is a term often associated with her name because, had she not possessed such a strong will to succeed in typically male-dominated fields (for example, in journalism), her works would probably not have been so monumental. This aforementioned cultural and scientific event therefore intentionally revalorizes the work of this renowned Croatian female journalist, publicist, and women’s / workers’ rights activist. However, to really get to know the atmosphere in which she worked and created, it is best to visit her apartment, which was first opened to the public last year. Her apartment is located in the heart of Zagreb, on Dolac Market at number 8, and all items it contains within are original pieces that date from the time when she lived and worked there. 

The space, which nowadays serves as a museum, covers 120 square meters and is dominated by a large library with over three thousand books by Croatian, as well as foreign, authors; the library also comprises a large number of magazines dedicated to female topics and gender equality. Besides the large library, the apartment also features a fully-preserved large desk and an old-fashioned typewriter, on which she wrote her greatest works: “The Witch of Grič”, “The Knight of the Slavonian Plein”, “Daughter of the Lotrščak”, as well as many other books and newspaper articles. Her opus is truly great, and her apartment-cum-museum consists of pieces ranging from cheap, small formats to luxurious editions that depict how her social status evolved over the decades. 

The apartment museum reflects the spirit of literary Zagreb and it would truly be a shame not to see the place where this literary legend once created her works. A visit to the apartment does not mean mere viewing; as visitors are allowed to flip through magazines and books, as well as learn numerous details that marked her life, and an often non-collegial struggle in the once typically male-dominated world of literary creativity. Fortunately, her will was very strong and it enabled her to achieve her current status as one of the most interesting and widely-read Croatian authors – even nowadays, in the world of complete freedom of expression her stories have not diminished in popularity even fifty years after her death. 

She was the first Croatian female journalist, the founder of the first journalistic society, and a woman who, despite the great resistance of the public at the time, managed to create a charismatic and very successful career. Standing witness to that is not only the verbal evidence of her popularity, but also numerous sashes and letters of thanks, which adorn the walls of her apartment to this day. 

The “Days of Marija Jurić Zagorka” event is organized in cooperation with the Centre for Female Studies (with its headquarters in her museum-apartment on Dolac), and the Section for Comparative Literature of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.