FAMOUS CROATS 2011 - JAGODA TRUHELKA

JAGODA TRUHELKA (1864 – 1957) Two great women writers marked the first half of the 20th century in Croatia: Ivana Brlić Mažuranić and Jagoda Truhelka. Jagoda Truhelka, however, living almost hundred years and thirty years longer than Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, managed to publish even as early as in the 19th century, and also in the second half of the 20th century. She was born on 5th February 1864 in Osijek, and died on 17th December 1957 in Zagreb. Her father was Czech and mother Hungarian German. In her family the atmosphere was intellectual and the children–Jagoda and two brothers – were encouraged in their educational and spiritual development. Jagoda’s brother Ćiro was a famous archaeologist, with great merits for the history and culture of Croatia and especially of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Father’s early death particularly stuck Jagoda, who got sick of sorrow. Like her father, she dedicated herself very successfully to educational work, changing places of work – Osijek, Zagreb, Gospić, Banja Luka, Sarajevo, again Zagreb… Her work was noted and awarded by a successful career. She was an educator at the edge of time and considered educating a compassionate, solidarity showing heart a key for all life achievements and to achieve that purpose concentrated on language, literature, but also on music and figurative art. In her opinion basic condition for good results in education is self-control of the educator; the example of conquering one’s own self she appreciated more than any other didactic means or methods. Her focus was on direct, human relationship between pupil and teacher and that is the reason why in this aspect she was often compared to Maria Montessori, who at that time revolutionised European educational system. Fully dedicated to her work, she did not have a family of her own. So, she included that first family from her childhood into the imaginary of her generation and of the generation of Croatian readers (not only of child age). Parallelly with her educational work she was also interested in literature. She published her stories in periodicals Nada, Sarajevo and in Vijenac, Zagreb; here, she reconsiders psychology and the position of woman in Croatian society in a new way. She who chose an independent life and loneliness in her novel Plein air and in her historic novel Vojača showed her deep knowledge of man-woman relations. Apart from the two mentioned novels, as most important in her rich bibliography are considered her following works: Tugomila, U carstvu duše (In the Realm of Soul) and the trilogy aimed at children, Zlatni danci (Golden Days) Gospine trešnje (Our Lady’s Cherries) and Crni i bijeli dani (Dark and Bright Days). Jagoda Truhelka and Ivana Brlić Mažuranić have not been mentioned together by chance in the beginning of this text. Their parallel analyses, their comparisons remain among the most interesting topics for the history of Croatian literature. On this occasion it is hardly possible even to mention a series of similarities and differences that make theses two creative beings an exemplary and complementary binomial. While Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, finds her expression on the shortcuts to highest ethic levels and through high stylisations which we could associate with the refined aesthetics of art déco, Jagoda Truhelka finds her expression in realism which notices the value of tiny motifs and creates a micro-mosaic image of the world. Her realism is poetic and impressive and its evocational and documentary value is just invaluable. In the herbarium of Truhelka’s soul there endures a small civic Croatia that hardly from any other point shines that way and the compassion - without any pathetics and even with humour and ease, it can provoke (let us just remember the story about Anica’s piano from Zlatn danci - Golden Days) that also in grown-up readers arouses that psychological effect which was also her option in education. Coherent in all aspects of her life and work, without the dramatics of the life and death of Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, Truhelka has also left behind great literature, always more prominent for a contemporary eye. And she has also left behind a quite but decisive step toward affirmation of women’s rights as human rights. Željka Čorak