engleski

German titles and authors as reading preferences in the lives of Dragojla Jarnević (1812-1875), Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) and Vilma Vukelić (1880-1956)

In the 19th and the early 20th century, the language of the educated was still primarily German while Croatian was nearly absent from their everyday linguistic practice. This fact was also reflected in their reading habits. For the purpose of this paper, three female readers have been chosen, two belonging to the upper middle families (Dragojla Jarnević, a famous writer from the time of the Croatian National Revival, and Vilma Vukelić, an equally prominent writer and translator of the early 20th century) and one belonging to a noble family (a well-known composer Dora Pejačević). They all shared a great passion for books and reading. Based on the thorough and exhaustive analysis of Dragojla Jarnević’s diary, the memoirs of Vilma Vukelić, and the reading diary of Dora Pejačević, the paper aims to show that all of them made similar reading choices. Having received her education in German language and and having been raised in German speaking families, they all primarily enjoyed German (and Austrian) authors, preferred them to Croatian ones, often reading French, Italian, American, Scandinavian and other literature in German translation. In addition, Jarnević’s and Vukelić’s first literary attempts were in German (Vukelić even translated Croatian authors into German), while Pejačević composed music to verses written by German and Austrian authors. After all, they also wrote their diaries/memoirs in German. In spite of the awakening of national consciousness and national fervour towards the end of the 19th century, which resulted in their reading books in Croatian (Jarnević even translated her original diary entries from German into Croatian), the paper suggests that the German language and culture still played important roles in the lives of cultured people of the time.

Dragojla Jarnević, Dora Pejačević, Vilma Vukelić, reading preferences, German language, history of reading, 19th century, 20th century

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