Draga Gavrilović (1854-1917), the First Serbian Female Novelist.doc

Draga Gavrilovi (1854-1917), the First Serbian Female Novelist: the Old and New Interpretations Svetlana Tomi (University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia)To Vladimir Milankov and Milorad Antoni

Despite the fact that Draga Gavrilovi was the first Serbian female fiction writer who contributed to Serbian literature, her work has been almost forgotten, and when discussed it was continually misinterpreted and misjudged. Gavrilovis experiences as one of the first female students in the new public schools for young girls, and later on, one of the first female teachers and feminists, made her critique of womens restricted positions in a patriarchal society bold and uncompromising. This essential context of Draga Gavrilovi's life and work further explicates what other interpretations omit to present, and explains what it meant to be a female writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions were and still are patriarchal. For Draga Gavrilovi, to be a female writer in a patriarchal society, meant to confront the patriarchal stance which excluded or diminished values of female characters, or with its strict roles of female identity which were limited only to women's physical life of childbearing, caregiving and domestic work. She was the first Serbian author who created intelligent female personalities, in the range of very young daughters, sisters, friends, colleagues, female students or teachers, an actress, and female writers. For Gavrilovi, to be a female writer meant to support, in many different ways, the new authority of an emerging social category, which she named the women who think. For a patriarchal society, the category of the women who think or exactly, female writers or intellectuals, was not an acceptible form of female identity. Therefore, the patriarchal society exerted many kinds of pressures, and at the end, labeled Gavrilovi a mad woman, causing her to abandon from literary work. In this article I clarify and provide the history of academic misjudgements about Gavrilovic's works and explain how they affected contemporary research. The main part stresses the complexity of her inherently gendered experiences - of a female student, a female teacher, and a female writer. The conclusion, except for reading Draga Gavrilovi's withdrowal from literary work in a new light, underlines misoginy as the core of patriarchal politics toward women. Despite Gavrilovi's hard existential circumstances and public resistance, she succeeded in making a progress in perceiving, understanding, originally creating and publicly encouraging women's prominent intellectual roles in a society, thus preparing the ground for her female peers. From the late 1970s to the present, in the West as well as elsewhere, feminist researchers have been continually trying to prove a hypothesis that the absence of female writers from the literary canon was constituted by male authority over Knowledge, which presents and protects patriarchal norms, values, judgments and laws. For that reason female artists are marginalized and are more likely to disappear than appear in a cultural canon, which does not respect and value them in the same manner as it does male artists. On the one hand, struggling with the male tendency to diminish the significance of female artists work, of devaluing and ignoring the meaning even of female characters, and of misinterpreting power relations in a society, feminist scholars discovered many female authors whose work proves their cultural importance and aesthetic distinction. On the other hand, such research underlines the tendency of male centered interpretations which are lacking in objectivity and therefore in plausibility, validity and responsibility.

The same problem is apparent in the relationship between Serbian literary history, criticism and methodology and the first Serbian female fiction writers. When in the last two decades of the 19th century a number of female fiction writers emerged in Serbia, such as Draga Gavrilovi (1854-1917), Milka Grgurova (1840-1924), Mileva Simi (1858-1954), Jelena Dimitrijevi (1862-1945), Kosara Cvetkovi (1868 - 1953) and Danica Bandi (1871-1950) , they had two things in common which make a literary and social phenomenon worth researching. Except for Jelena Dimitrijevi and Milka Grgurova, all of them were the first generation of women who graduated from Serbias first public high schools for girls and all of them focused on perspectives of female literary characters. Since at that time educated women in Serbia could only work in the public sphere as teachers, most of these writers in fact worked as (Serbias first) teachers, which granted them financial independence and consequently a status of independent women.

They appeared as first female writers of original narratives and naturally tried to achieve public acceptance of their emerging cultural authority through many forms of art. Some like Kosara Cvetkovi and Milka Grgurova were translators of Russian and French literary works of that time. Others excelled in theater, as actresses or dramatists. Milka Grgurova became one of the first reputable Serbian female actors, whose talent was widely acknowledged in the former Yugoslav region.Mileva Simi and Danica Bandi received national prizes for their dramas. However, none of these women were acknowledged as writers. During the 20th century Serbian literary historians and university professors, such as Jovan Skerli, Jovan Dereti, and Duan Ivani, selectively wrote about one or two of them (Draga Gavrilovi and Jelena Dimitrijevi), merely mentioning them as first female fiction writers, without focusing on their work or assessing it along with the work of contemporary male authors who alone constitute the Serbian literary canon.

The problem of objectively evaluating the work of female authors in Serbia is connected with academic resistance to the incorporation of feminist and gender theories into the program of literary studies, particularly at the main state university in Belgrade which is the center of cultural and educational development in Serbia. For that reason one is faced with the paradox of Serbian female researchers striving to interpret feminist scope in literary work without having basic knowledge of feminist and gender theories. In some recently published studies, one finds arguments stressing the patriarchal way of thinking - that the weak point of a female writers work is her focus on women, or even contradicting claims - that in a female writers work feminist ideas are not part of a gendered identity and difference. Not surprisingly then, a wrongly reasoned deduction is still prevalent, claiming that Serbian female writers from the late 19th century have no literary or cultural values to offer, that the Serbian tradition of female authors was established only in the beginning of 20th century and that Isidora Sekuli (1877-1958) was the first Serbian female writer who inherited the modern, complex and sophisticated ideas of Western culture. This paper seeks to prove that such claims do not take into account the importance of the first generation of female writers, which emerged in late 19th century Serbia, spearheaded by a woman whose work, ideas and identity make her Serbias first modern female writer and an unavoidable figure in the countrys literary canon. This woman is Draga Gavrilovi. Her work moreover laid the ground for others women artists like Milka Grgurova, Mileva Simi, Jelena Dimitrijevi, Kosara Cvetkovi and Danica Bandi, who continued to develop this different sociocultural perspective of female thinking about life. In presenting the work of this female writer and explaining its importance, this research also answers the question of why Draga Gavrilovi was overlooked by literary authorities and that until now her work has not been acknowledged. In order to further explain representative interpretations, I will focus on three literary historians and academics, who are responsible for a deep-rooted belief, that female authors do not have to offer any kind of literary and cultural values. Consequently, this attitude is connected not only with their ignoring of female writers but female characters as well, and specifically male characters who represent oppressive and key figures of patriarchal society.In Jovan Skerli's Serbian literary history Istorija nove srpske knjievnosti [History of New Serbian Literature] the name of Draga Gavrilovi cannot be found. Two other literary historians Jovan Dereti and Duan Ivani mention her novel Devojaki roman [A Novel of a Young Girl], published in 1889, because it was our [Serbian] earliest attempt at writing a female novel, and because of literary and historical reasons. Besides these statements there are no further explanations of what is considered to be a female novel, nor relevant details which would precisely establish the relation between literary and historical reasons. Dereti did state the important fact that Draga Gavrilovi was the first Serbian female writer of short stories, but did not clarify how her stories narrative was related to her novels narrative. Neither did Dereti take into the accaunt the fact that Draga Gavrilovi published many short stories in her time, as well as some polemics, or that one of her stories was translated and published in a German newspaper (in Hazfelder Zeitung, in 1891). Not a word is written on the fact that she was a popular author in her time. This information can be found in another study, entitled Draga Gavrilovi ivot i delo [Life and Work of Draga Gavrilovi], by Vladimir Milankov. That work deals, however, more with facts about the place where Draga Gavrilovi was born and lived (Srpska Crnja) than about her life and work, thus failing to fulfill its biographical purpose. When the same author a year later (in 1990) edited Gavrilovi's collected works, he again failed to give an assessment of the importance of her work, focusing instead in the preface more on the literary and scientific work of her professors and schoolmates.Despite Milankov's efforts to present Draga Gavrilovi as an important Serbian literary figure by publishing her collected works poems, short stories, a novel, and translations Serbian academic scholars showed little interest in investigating its significance. A book review about Gavrilovi's collected works, written by Duan Ivani - an academic professor, critic and historian and published in 1991, illustrates how evaluation of literary work is inseparable from the power of institutional positions which filtrate and control knowledge. Several false statements are found in Ivani's review which seem to want to discard or trivialize the importance and originality of Gavrilovi's work. Firstly, Ivani argues that Gavrilovi did not happen to publish her books even though Milankov had earlier proved that she had been struggling to publish her work as a serial in a newspaper but could not overcome the publishers' resistance. Ivani does not state or make clear that it was not Draga Gavrilovi's fault but of the strong patriarchal system which values women and their work less than these of men. Second, Ivani states that Gavrilovi's works do not make the Serbian realism any richer and that she is a writer of marginal value only. This however seems to be in contradiction to his claim that her contribution to Serbian fiction lies in jounalistic straightforwardness, lively and concrete speeches of literary characters [and] dynamic conversation. Afterward, Ivani admitted Gavrilovi's work to have value but only if it is considered together with the work of other female writers of that time.Being a part of the academic and cultural male establishment, Ivani's manipulation of Knowledge and Judgments are compatible with patriarchal beliefs that women intellectuals are a kind of oximoron, that their public, literary work cannot have values and therefore cannot be important. Let us compare frequent gaps between Ivani's claims and facts of Gavrilovi's works. Ivani introduces Gavrilovi's ideas of women's emancipation as interesting but, for her perception of Serbian literature and culture in general, these ideas were substantial. More over, she was the first Serbian writer to incorporate these ideas in fiction so firmly and uncompromisingly, with a clear criticism of Serbian culture, literature and society. As a historian, Ivani does not care to consider the context in which Gavrilovi wrote and to analyze the reasons for which she persistently incorporates a feminist political identity into her work and to asses the importance of that. For these reasons, readers cannot understand why she wrote about female teachers, which Ivani stresses as the one of the main themes of Serbian fiction of that time. So, at the end of this book review, Ivani's seemingly generous starting point, about such a rare example of having the collected works of a female author, is revealed as a false, echoing a big irony, because in his conclusion Ivani judged Draga Gavrilovi as a writer of marginal value only. Therefore, his initial statements that ecriture feminine of Serbian literature has got an unexpected newborn and that her hardly reachable fiction, now becomes part of a living literary tradition do not announce the birth of the literary work and its female author as it might at first appear; rather, Ivani proclaimes their death. The crucial element of Ivani's interpretation of Gavrilovi's oeuvre is his inherent refusal to consider her work as part of the Serbian literary canon. In claming that her opus has value only if considered in a history of Serbian female authors' fiction, Ivani firmly divides social values of two genders. The fact that at that time, in 1991, there was no history of Serbian fiction of female authors does not prove that Ivani's claim shows certain respect for the future of an unknown subject, but instead reveals a perception of a history of Serbian fiction of female authors as a utopian doubt. In the academic studies, which Ivani published many years after this review, no women writers are included despite the growing number of well argued researches on the topic of literary value of female authors' work. By claiming the acceptance of women only inside women's culture, one recognizes the old but prevalent patriarchal prejudice which protects the idea that women's intelect is weak and insignificant, at the same time stressing sexual difference as essential. It makes acceptance of female writers false because with no serious examination and evaluation of their work, the latter is ignored in the literary canon. Consequently, only male authors are permitted into Serbia's 19th century literary hall of fame. As a result, readers and Serbian culture as a whole get multiple clouding and misinterpreting - of Gavrilovi's feminist efforts in her writing, of the importance and value of her work, and last but not least, of Ivani's own authority which in this case scholarly research of the text does not prove as objective. It is not suprising then that other essays about Gavrilovi's fiction, published after Ivani's judgment, follow his authority, accepting and confirming his statements and repeating his judgment. Such examples can be found in an essay by Nada Mirkov (1999) and in Jasmina Ahmetagi's preface of Gavrilovi's selected works (2007). Mirkov cannot explain the fundamental paradox that while Gavrilovi publicly gained certain importance, her work was never honored with truly scholarly interest and appropriate research methods. Mirkov admires and praises Ivani's role, citing his judgments about Gavrilovi's work from his study published in 1988, which he repeated in the above mentioned book review. She stressed for the first time the fact that Gavrilovi was the first female fiction writer in the Serbian patriarchal society. However, neither Mirkov nor Ahmetagi considered a crucial point regarding this authors literary achievements and that is what it meant to be a female writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions were and still are patriarchal. Mirkov, however, pointed out the complexity of Dragas narrative and her continuous efforts to be well informed about womens emancipation in Europe at the end of 19th century.

The editor of a recently published Selected works of Draga Gavrilovi, Jasmina Ahmetagi, incorrectly presents and inadequately states facts. In a note about Draga Gavrilovi, Ahmetagi wrongly attributes the work U meuprostoru to Draga Gavrilovi, although that work was written by another female author, who was born in 1954 in aak and had a similar first name (Draginja) and the same surname (Gavrilovi). Furthermore, in preparing a new edition of Draga Gavrilovi's selected works, Ahmetagi omits stating the criteria for selecting the works and the years when Gavrilovi's narratives were originally published. Moreover, Ahmetagi's preface Vrlinska bia Drage Gavrilovi [The persons of Virtue of Draga Gavrilovi's] does not offer the sociopolitical context of the realist epoch in which the author wrote, or any kind of connection between the work of male realist writers and Gavrilovi's fiction, or the link between Gavrilovi and a newly established tradition of female fiction writers. Ahmetagi's study had started up from a contradictory hypothesis that in Gavrilovi's work feminist ideas are not part of her gendered identity and difference, which lead her interpretation to the marginal problems in Draga Gavrilovi's works, as of Gavrilovi's own textual and Biblical quotations. As Nada Mirkov had done, Ahmetagi incorporated Ivani's judgments, repeating his interpretation of Gavrilovi's female characters as persons of virtue, which is her main focal point.

From the very beginning of her literary work, Draga Gavrilovi had developed an awareness of the need for strong resistance to the patriarchal culture and literature of Serbian realism. Compared to the advocacy for female rights as it was voiced by two important Serbian literary and political figures from 18th and 19th century, who were considered to be supporters of womens rights Dositej Obradovi (1744-1811) and Svetozar Markovi (1846-1875), Gavrilovi called for more intellectual women who are supposed to be aware of their subjugated position in order to change it. As noted by a lucid critic, Milan Bogdanovi, both of these above mentioned cultural figures described the ideal woman in almost with identical words, purity and sainthood, thus projecting the idealized image of their mothers. This fixation of female identity to the role of mother, which also means a married woman who is subjugated to the limited space of domesticity, Draga Gavrilovi perceived as problematic. From her early childhood she was asking why a single woman is not respected in the same manner as married women and how can a woman live as an honorable person if she does not want to marry. Unlike many other young girls growing up at the time, Gavrilovi had the opportunity to be educated. As a female student, she experienced some frustration with the school system and mentality of the teachers of the time. Once she herself became a teacher, she was determined to do more for society in general. She was willing to pass on another kind of specific and gendered knowledge. This determination sums up her struggle for asserting a new female identity that of women thinkers, creators, and artists. As an intellectual, Draga Gavrilovi could not accept the fact that Serbian society allowed educated women to work in public only as teachers. She thought that this rule needed to be changed since it harshly restricts womans intellectual abilities and strictly keeps limits of womens possibility to gain public respect. She wrote how women in some European countries and it the USA became doctors, lawyers, and writers. Therefore, she decided to work as a female writer. In contrast to her female literary predecessors, Gavrilovi does not use pseudonyms or initials. She neither hides nor feels frightened by public judgment. She does not show any signs of anxiety of authorships, so typical for the literary beginnings of female writers. Gavrilovi decided to use her pen for fearless and uncompromising critical energy against societys habits and prejudices, which she defined as powerful enemies of progress and truth. She holds the Western society as a model, and dedicates herself to strengthening womens cultural authority. To do so, she chooses to write about completely new female characters and personalities - of intelligent young girls, sisters, daughters, female friends, female students, female teachers, an actress, and women writers, whose characters did not exist in a Serbian fiction.Serbian male realist authors, who published their work before Draga Gavrilovi, such as Milovan Glii (1847-1908), and Simo Matavulj (1852-1908), or after her, such as Janko Veselinovi (1862-1905), Stevan Sremac (1855-1906), Svetolik Rankovi (1863-1899), Lazar Komari (1839-1909) and Dragutin Ili (1858-1926) constructed female characters mainly as fairies and dolls. Draga Gavrilovi did not accept that limiting and simplistic reduction of female reality which saw only mothers who sacrified their lives, and who were also wives who suffered in their marriages. For her, these female literary characters were all constructions of idealized emptiness, or abstract and distant mysteries. Most importantly, Draga seems to be the first author who in a overtly feminist way criticized the Serbian realist narration for its representation of male rotten taste, hypocrisy and selfishness which poison women through its ideological perception, refusing to give credit to other female identities, which existed but were not accepted and therefore not described either. Many other feminists used the same arguments in their scientific research almost a hundred years later. Draga Gavrilovi decided to present a different reality, constructing for the first time literary characters who are intelligent and courageous young women, educated and rebellious, and who critically perceive family, education, culture and society in general. These young women she identifies as mislee enskinje which means women who think or thinking women simultaneously specifying one of the key theme in her work.No one in Serbian 19th century literature had ever before her introduced characters of Serbian female writers, or the emancipated characters of American female writers, which further implies the promotion of American freedom and democracy. By multiplying the characters of female writers and by resolving all of their conflicts in their own favor, Draga Gavrilovi reinforced the cultural authority of Serbian female writers. And this was not as usual as one may think. In a recently published history of American female authors, Elaine Showalter stresses that Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), one of the well known American female writer, omitted authorship in her work although it is constantly implied.

The main character of Gavrilovis story San [A Dream] (Novi Sad: Javor, 1889) is an unnamed American female author who speaks boldly, argues persuasively and immediately attracts the audiences attention by confronting a Serbian male writer in front of an international literary audience of all religions and nations. In another story, the heroine is a young American female writer of Serbian origin, whose family immigrated to the USA. This female writer is Jovanka Zamislieva, and she succeeded in debating with a man that everything depends on character - Ona je srce mu kae [She is the One His Heart Tells Him] (Kikinda: Sadanjost, 1890). As in other of Gavrilovi's fiction, the naming of characters makes readers think about these new personalities in 19th-century Serbian narration. Zamislieva is Jovanka's second name, and its meaning is multiple. This word can be literaly translated as a female person who is capable to penetrate into imagination, but it is associated with many other words as well, such as meditating, thinking, delineating, or rendering. All of the suggested associations situate the heroine, the writer, her literary work and her readers into a transcendental sphere of imaginative power, which Gavrilovi links up with the politics of 19th century Serbian reality. All of these American women, their independent lives, and richer professional options stand as political facts in her fiction and serve to advocate for political changes in Serbia.Another story is a vigorous support expressed by an unnamed Serbian female teacher and a writer to an unnamed Serbian actress who despite her great talent is not yet publicly acknowledged - Misli u pozoritu, Jednoj srpskoj glumici [Some Contemplations in a Theater: To a Serbian Actress] (Kikinda: Sadanjost,1884). While watching a theatrical performance featuring the actress, the teacher experiences another and specific drama taking place in the audience as many mock and scoff at the actress, regardless of her talent or performance. The teacher in question later writes to the actress praising her talent and encouraging her work while criticizing societys prejudices regarding new female professions and arguing against nonprofessional criticism. The story achieves its climax in a complex paradox: If men are better in everything, and if they understand our feelings better than we do, why do they not replace us [women] in everything! Here, a point is made about defending female artists, their right to create and gain authority. While Nada Mirkov asserts that Draga Gavrilovi is writing to an imaginary Serbian actress, it could be argued that Gavrilovi could have had Milka Grgurova in mind, whose fame was at its peak at that time.

For the main female character of her novel Devojaki roman [A Novel of a Young Girl] (Novi Sad: Javor, 1889) Gavrilovi chose an intellectually and ethically powerful young woman, Darinka, who knows how to act in front of double-faced parents, pseudo intellectuals, a sly owner of a large estate, or a sugarcoated but Machiavellian fianc whom Darinka rejected as a mean person. None of these men know how to talk to Darinka, and none are able to find counter-arguments for her rhetoric, which dazzles them as a manifestation of free and critical thinking. The crucial part of this truly feminist novel is Darinkas fights and debates with her father. This father-daughter plot reflects struggle between two opposite, patriarchal and emancipated principals of a womans life. Darinkas critiques of social traditions (literary, cultural, and educational) are a starting point for her self-justification.

Particularly because of Darinkas strong personality, the ending of novel seems to have quite the opposite meaning from the interpretation of a happy marriage clich, which Ivani firstly concluded and which Mirkov and Ahmetagi lately confirmed. At the end of the story, Darinka meets and marries Neznanko Neznankovi [Mr. Unknown Unknowingly] but some textual facts, excluded from mentioned interpretations, reveal this ending to be far from a standard clich, a happy end, or a marriage. For example, it might be argued that Draga named Darinkas new fianc as Neznanko Neznankovi [Mr. Unknown Unknowingly] in order to stress his doubtful sociocultural and political identity. Furthermore, his relationship with Darinka hardly exists since readers do not get details about the two of them acting as a future married couple, which Gavrilovi usually does when introducing important male characters in the story. Additionally, a newly married couple moves into a place named in a Utopian manner Srenice [Lucky Women], whereby the writer states her belief that lucky women hardly can be found in real life, or alternatively that their lives do not turn out to be realistic. Or, precisely, that an educated and emancipated fianc exists as Mr. Unknown Unknowingly, which is an idea compatible with the utilized formal solutions in shaping this kind of male character. Rather he represents an ironic image of a double reality. Mr. Unknown is more desire than reality, more deus ex machina than a literary personality. Otherwise, Gavrilovi would not have written an ending by praising Darinka's deceased aunt, but by lauding the married couple and the power of their bond in the future. If the writer's real concern was a happy marriage of her heroine, she would probably have chosen a rather different title for her novel. Gavrilovi had changed it from Devojaki san [A Dream of a Young Girl] to Devojaki roman [A Novel of a Young Girl]. In searching for the proper words, she chose to insist on a girl's standpoints, which focuses her gendered location and its opressed position. While obcuring this dreaming and desiring incentives, for which Gavrilovi feels a need, she forces and at the same time advocates the new politics of the life of a single young Serbian woman in a specific time and place that of the second half of 19th century, in unnamed place with Serb inhabitants. Therefore, the transition from the original novel's title A Dream of a Young Girl to the newly chosen A Novel of a Young Girl suggests the encourment of young girls' emancipation and their own lives' choices. What Ivani stated about Gavrilovis novelistic main theme, that it is about the awakening of a young being is not compatible with the character of the heroine nor with the theme of the novel, which is all about Darinkas uncorrupted intelligence and her bold critical thinking.In her longest story Iz uiteljikog ivota [From a Female Teachers Life] (Novi Sad: Javor, 1884), Gavrilovi created quite an unusual male character. Kosta is a husband on whose perception of womens emancipation his wifes intellectual female friends made a strong impact. He came to share their views and became convinced that women need mens support for emancipation, honestly stressing the need of mens rejection of their pseudo intellectualism, which encourages intelligent women in theory but in practice disputes, refuses and sabotages them. Ten years after this story, Draga Gavrilovi elaborated the idea that womens rights cannot be gained without support of truly emancipated men. In a polemic Pismo pobratimu [A Letter to a Blood Brother] (Kikinda: Sadanjost, 1894) she writes that the battle for respect of women intellectuals authority must begin with the emancipation and education of men, since they held and controlled powerful positions in a society. For Gavrilovi, womens emancipation and education comes after reaching a society peopled by new and liberated men.The reason why Draga Gavrilovis representation of womens condition is so much more convicing than that of her contemporary male authors lies in the fact that her own experience was the basis for the situations she portrayed and for the issues she treated in her work. Having been a female student in one of the first public high schools for young women, the first female teacher in her native Srpska Crnja, an unmarried woman, and the first female fiction writer, Gavrilovi had plenty of material for exploring the novelty of the female position and female identity in a patriarchal society. Thus, her first-hand knowledge is the result of her gendered experiences and this epistemic privilege, which is complexly incorporated into her narrative. Consequently, this explains why other stories dealing with Serbias female teachers and written by male authors could not reach the profound scope of Draga Gavrilovis narrative. This holds true for work by male authors published before her fiction, for example stories kolska ikona by Lazar Lazarevi and Uiteljica by Stevan B. Popovi, both published in 1880, as well as those published after her work, such as Bela vrana, a story by Janko Veselinovi from 1890, or Seoska uiteljica, a novel by Svetolik Rankovi from 1899.The other crucial part of Gavrilovis narrative is presenting the essential messages through young womens confessions. This is not only a distinctively formal sign of her fiction, but the center of important political messages for they stress social conflicts of gender differences. In her first published work From a Female Teachers Life [Iz uiteljikog ivota] (1884) and in her novel A Novel of a Young Girl [Devojaki roman] (1889), Gavrilovi underlines the most dramatic part of a female students confession which is that male professors at her high school uproot the wheat instead of the chaff, marking them not as sophisticated but as non-intellectual educators. Gavrilovi gives many examples of how professors punish and humiliate critical thinkers among female students, while toadies will get jobs quickly and easily, in big cities, where they will have better living conditions and higher salaries. Thinkers will be degraded by being left behind in the job market, to wait some years before getting a job, usually in remote villages, where they will be estranged and isolated from cultural progress. Soon, they will have to decide whether to live a poor life as a single woman or to get married, most likely to an uneducated or not so well-bred man, sacrificing their intellectual development to a family and a domestic life. In the confessions of her heroines about the teacher-student relationship, the fundamental problem revealed is the issue of guilt. The heroines do not feel guilty for finding and saying the truth, but for having to live the truth which is inseparable from their sex and gender identity. That truth brings to light the problematic role of male professors who, as authorities of educational institutions, did not reject misogyny. Gavrilovi underlies that in the beginning of higher education of female students, professors did not respect young women but humiliated and punished them because these women asserted their ability of critical thinking. This problem can be further investigated in relation to todays theories of identity economics, particularly as elaborated by George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton, who use norms, ideals and identity utilities to show how individual motivations vary with social context. In Gavrilovis fiction, the education of girls and young women is contextualized from within the societys rigidly gendered norms. Female teachers often fail to make any further personal or collective progress. After years of trying to combat villagers prejudices and resistance, these teachers are discouraged or left to vegetate in a devastated life. Judging from how she treats in her work the issue of sexual harassment, it is evident that Draga Gavrilovi had a sophisticated perception of reality compared to the narratives of Veselinovi and Rankovi. The female protagonist in Gavrilovis novel, Darinka, together with her female peers, refuses to take part in sexual manipulations between professors and female students. In contrast to these female students, Darinka is capable of perceiving mutual sexual harassments as a dual form of manipulation. While professors manipulated their institutional power, some of their female students manipulated their sexual identity. In Veselinovis story Bela vrana and Rankovis novel Seoska uiteljica focus is on men who use their political power in the village to engage in sexually abusive behaviour. Both of these authors chose not to present the feelings of female teachers, specially Veselinovi who makes her a humilated woman and a degraded teacher. Gavrilovi gives many details in describing poor economic conditions which are reflected particular in the living conditions of single female teachers but which also slow down general social progress. It is therefore not surprising that most female teachers give up on their personal intellectual and general sociocultural struggle, to continue to live as married housewives or peasants. Readers especially female readers of the story From a Female Teachers Life, which is about three young female teachers (Lenka, Milica and Darinka) may be disappointed or even shocked upon learning how Lenka, one of the smart female students, rejected her job as a teacher to become a married housewife who works on her husbands farm, milking the cow at dawn and raising a child. Her friend, Milica, will chose to marry merely because of her partners high social status and salary. Only Darinka will choose to struggle for different norms. Only she will continue to teach female children because they need to be educated. For Darinka, this need itself is a value: she is aware of very young girls education needs and appreciates the struggle to achieve it. This is also the description of her identity model, which she defended in the past, being a clever and critical but also unwelcome and unaccepted female student. At the same time, Darinkas resistance reveals the identity model of her professors and her school. She must fight for her new identity of an educated young woman, who is allowed to work in public as a teacher, or whose profession alone is a confirmation of her intelligence. Her professors and her school do their best to sabotage their role as educators and as an institution beneficial and essential to societys progress. They appear as the very enemies of the idea of educated women. As institutions with social goals, schools of this kind did not impart skills or ethic values. Instead they reveled the great tension between their purposes (to educate female students) on the one hand, and their prejudices (identifying the female gender as inferior to male) on the other. The act of educating girls split societys reality in two incomparable acts, functionalizing the biggest irony: professors and school are fighting not for the societys progress but for its regress. As educators, they teach female students that they cannot be valued because they have the identity of the other gender. Despite them, Darinka sustains her teaching norms. Her thoughts reflect the words of another identically named female teacher: A teachers real merit shows (only) in the virtues of those he or she had once taught.

After fourteen years of literary work, Draga Gavrilovi decided to abandon it. She wrote her last work, and that was Pismo uredniku jednog srpskog lista [The Letter to an Editor of a Serbian Magazine] (Kikinda, Sadanjost, 1900). Milankov assumes that she had had an editor of Sadanjost in her mind (Ivan Veselinovi) because she signed the letter as the faithful female contributor to your magazine. In this letter, she provides, in a very confessional way, the answer what it meant to be a female writer in a patriarchal society. For Gavrilovi, to be a female writer meant not only to fight with prejudices and societys strict gender norms, but to sacrifice one of the outstanding personalities. She admits that she accepted living an isolated life because of hostile pressure, which was hard to bear. What exactly were the words Draga Gavrilovi may have heard and what precisely were the actions she may have endured, at the time as the the first female teacher and the first female fiction writer, often struggling with her illness, in a poor Austro-Hungarian village with Serb inhabitants, remains unknown. One detail, however, testifies to the degradation one of the women who think.

At the end of the first part of her letter, Draga Gavrilovi complains that my way of writing brings alone to me many bitter hours and for that reason I withdraw myself from literary work almost comletely, hoping that public pressure will relent. Nevertheless, the pressure of some people continues to grow when convincing other people that she becomes a senile female writer[ishlapela knjievnica]. For that reason, she wants to assure everyone that she has not become a senile, and that her withdrawal was of her own free will[svojevoljno]. To mark a womans bold intellect as a mad one is a typical patriarchal strategy of using its power in all sorts of violent actions. Talking about Gavrilovi as a mad woman was not only a rhetorical violence, but a judgment which, by identifying women who think as mad, demonstrates away of sustaining male supremacy and power in a patriarchal society .

Another drama needs to be recognized within this confession. First, Gavrilovi writes about pressure, saying that it made her withdraw. Later on, she wants readers to accept her own free will, as an essence of her decision. By converting the attribution of power, from the aggressive and primitive patriarchal society to her own free will, she changes again the perspective of valuing power itself. Therefore, she asks readers not to accept the resistance of the patriarchal society regarding a female writer but her own free will as the most important part of this confessional message.

Fortunately, this withdrawal was not a break with her literature, since she wrote that she decided to withdraw herself of literary work almost completely, nor was it a renouncement from it since at the end of her life she herself wrote The Listing of My Literary Work. Perhaps, she believed that, as heroines frequently state in her fiction, people would value the work of the women who think. In her time, at the end of 19th century, this was not possible. Nor was it the case during the 20th century. It is more likely that will happen in the times yet to come.In conclusion, it becomes clear that neither Gavrilovi's short stories nor her novel can be defined as an attempt at literary work. That claim was merely a strategy for discrediting the work of female writers, in Dereti's and Ivani's interpretations. As the first female fiction writer, Draga Gavrilovi appears well-prepared in formal and intellectual aspects of narration. She writes interestingly and composes craftly. The structure of her novel is more complex that any of her contemporaries. It does not have a compact organisation of narrative as Rankovi's Gorski car (1897), but offers a complicated arrangment of narrative parts, as of a retrospective introduction, developed conversations, different kind of letters and confessions. Some of Gavrilovi's stories seem to reqiure more elaboration, for example, Razume se, onu lepu 1886, Blagosloveno ricin-ulje, 1890, specifically because of their inconvincing resolutions, which shed light on the undeveloped characters and their unreasonably supported motivation. Compared to Gavrilovi's work, the perception of female characters and gender issues in the literature of Glii, Matavulj, Veselinovi, Sremac and Rankovi appears as retrograde. Even after Gavrilovi's work, if female characters were given the roles of protagonists, they remained empty and almost meaningles female identities. As a case in point one can cite Matavulj's collections of short stories Iz raznijeh krajeva 1893, Beogradske prie published from 1891 to 1908, Stevan Sremac Zona Zamfirova 1906, Dragutin Ili Gospoa Marija, 1917 and so on. In rejecting and changing the repression of Serbian culture to women, Draga Gavrilovi made a progressive step toward modern woman identity. She suceeded in what no male Serbian writer could have done. Instead of incorporating Gavrilovi's work, Serbian literary history and criticism rejected to accept the modernism of this new female culture, which was, paradoxically, supported by some Serbian male intellectuals in one part of Austro-Hungary, today's Vojvodina, in the last few decades of the 19th century. Rather than appreciating Gavrilovi's works, Serbian literary historians and critics chose to labeled it as an enemy, erasing the importance of her contributions. By excomunicating her work from the literary tradition, she was sentenced to the same destiny as her heroines: Draga Gavrilovi was guilty for revealing the mysogyny of writers, literature and society of her time. Her literary work was punished since the authorities of Serbian educational and cultural institutions did not grow out of their misogynic attitudes. Even today, literary historians, university professors and academic critics fail to appreciate Gavrilovis ability to critically think and create as a writer. She herself was also one of the women who think and consequently not compatible with the politics of a patriarchal and cultural canon. Therefore, neither Gavrilovi nor her contemporary female literary successors were and are not yet welcome in histories of Serbian literature. Two other examples confirm, in another way, that culture does find a way to resist the rigid norms, refusing to perceive itself as an ideologically fixed and closed space. On the one side, the academic misinterpretations of this artist's work make a negative impact on the Serbian culture. On the other side, by publishing Gavrilovi's collected and selected works, Serbian culture demonstartes efforts to re-evaluate the importance of her work. What would have happened if, twenty years ago Vladimir Milankov had not made possible the appearance of Draga Gavrilovis collected works? And, what if intuition had not attracted a male journalist, Milorad Antoni, to further explore the work of Gavrilovi and to publish that authors selected works in 2007? Both writers believed her talent to have been significant for Serbian literary tradition and culture. Besides offering some new insights by this author, this work acknowledges their efforts to find and reveal the value in Gavrilovis work and establish her place of importance in Serbias literary tradition. The author greatly appreciates the generosity and intelligence of Dr.Ljubica D. Popovich, Professor Emerita at Vanderbilt University, Dr.Lilien Filipovitch-Robinson at George Washington University, and Ms. Iva Frki. Their excellent, incisive language suggestions and invaluable critical comments helped this text to grow out of first few drafts.

For a well documented account of long and hard struggle for female education in Serbia, see Ljubinka Trgovevi, ene kao deo elite u Srbiji u 19. veku. Otvaranje pitanja (p. 251-268); HYPERLINK "http://www.cpi.hr/download/links/hr/7077.pdf" http://www.cpi.hr/download/links/hr/7077.pdf. More political details can be found in Latinka Perovi Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima XIX i XX veka in ene i deca. Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. veka (Beograd: Helsinki odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, 2006), p. 7 32. Perovi's work is also presented on the Internet: http://www.helsinki.org.rs/serbian/doc/sveske23.pdf

For example, among her many translated works, Kosara Cvetkovi was a translator of a Fydor Dostoyevsky's novel The Devils (published in two volumes, in Belgrade, 1922, 1959, 1964) and of the collected works of collected Anton P. Checkov, published in six volumes, in Belgrade, in 1939. According to Julija Bokovi, Kosara Cvetkovi is also known as an ilustrator and caricaturist. See, Leksikon pisaca Jugoslavije I, A-D, (Novi Sad: Matica srpska 1972), p. 407.

On Milka Grgurova's acting roles and importance in Serbian theatre, see Borivoje S. Stojkovi Velikani srpskog pozorita, Milka Grgurova (Beograd - Valjevo: SKZ - GIRO Milan Raki, 1983), p. 11 - 25.

5Little is known about Simi's dramas. For Bandi's praised drama Emancipovana [The Emancipated Woman] see Biljana ljivi-imi Women in Life and Fiction at the Turn of the Century (1884-1914) in Serbian Studies, Vol. 7, Fall 1993, No. 2, p. 106 - 123.

Vesna Matovi about Jelena Dimitrijevis work: Vesna Matovi enska knjievnost i srpski modernizam: saglasja i raskoli(278-293) in Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. veka, knj.2,Poloaj ene kao merilo modernizacije, ed. by Latinka Perovi (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 1998), p. 280.

Jasmina Ahmetagi about Draga Gavrilovi's work: Predgovor:Vrlinska bia Drage Gavrilovi(vii-xvi) in Draga Gavrilovi Izabrana proza (Beograd: Multinacionalni fond kulture-Kongras, 2007), x.

Skerli's interpretation of a very important novel (Jakov Ignajtovi's Vasa Repekt, published in 1875) shows that he omitted the fact that the hero's father was abusive and responsible for determing the tragic fate of his son. Not only did Ignja Ognjan beat his only child Vasa (sometime for no particular reason), but he also acted as a badmouth, gossiping about his own son, spreading his own false understanding to people who could help Vasa but instead adopted the father's point of view, resulting in a collective misunderstanding of the son. Furthermore, Skerli failed to find a relationship between the two main story lines in the novel that of Vasa and of his female cousin, Emilija because he ignored all female characters. It is this specific linkage which stresses the parents' guilt for their children's misfortune. Jovan Skerli Predgovor, Jakov Ignjatovi Vasa Repekt (Beograd: SKZ, 1913), v. The same circulus viciosus is found in Jovan Dereti's Istorija srpske knjievnosti [History of Serbian literature] (Beograd: Prosveta, 2002) and Duan Ivanis Srpski realizam[ Serbian Realism] (Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 1996).

na najraniji pokuaj enskog romana: Jovan Dereti, Istorija srpske knjievnosti (Beograd: Prosveta, 2002), p. 850.

iz knjievnoistorijskih razloga: Duan Ivani, Srpski realizam (Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 1996), p. 121. Ivani repeated the same words in Ka poetici srpskog realizma (Beograd: Zavod za udbenike i nastavna sredststva, 2007), p. 209.

prva ena pripoveda: J.Dereti Istorija, p.850.

Vladimir Milankov, Draga Gavrilovi ivot i delo (Kikinda: Knjievna zajednica Kikinde, 1989).

About institutional control see Pjer Burdije Pravila umetnosti: Geneza i struktura polja knjievnosti (Novi Sad: Svetovi, 2003): Osnovi nauke o delu, p. 253 - 403.

nije stigla da objavi knjigu svojih tekstova: Duan Ivani Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, Letopis Matice srpske, Novi Sad, Vol. 447, 1991, p.158.

Vladimir Milankov Draga Gavrilovi ivot i delo (Kikinda: Knjievna zajednica Kikinde, 1989), p. 111. and 119.

ne bogate lik srpske knjievnosti epohe realizma: D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p. 158.

pisac marginalne vrednosti, D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p. 159.

urnalistikoj izriitosti, ivoj konkretizaciji govornih slika junaka, dinamici konverzacije: D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p. 159.

jedna od glavnih tematskih kompleksa srpske proze, D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p. 159.

pisca marginalne vrijednosti D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p. 159.

ensko pismo srpske knjievnosti dobilo neoekivanu prinovu, D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p.157.

jedva pristupana proza Drage Gavrilovi postaje sada dio ive knjievne tradicije, D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p.158.

u istoriji srpske enske knjievnosti, D. Ivani, Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, p.158.

The first history of Serbian and Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature written by female authors was published nine years after Ivani's review: Celia Hawkesworth Voices in the Shadows: Women and Verbal art in Serbia and Bosnia (Budapest: CEU Press, 2000). In Hawkesworth's history there is no mention of Draga Gavrilovi. Since Hawkesworth relies on the weak arguments of Predrag Palavestra and Zdenko Lei, with no interpretations of her own, it seems that the work of Draga's female peers need to be (re-)evaluated.

For example, there are two important researches about Jelena Dimitrijevis work Pisma iz Nia. O haremima, which is the second novel written by a female author in Serbia and published in 1897. See, Slobodanka Pekovi Jelenina pisma Jelena Dimitrijevi Pisma iz Nia. O haremima, Beograd: Narodna biblioteka Srbije, 1986; Svetlana Slapak Haremi, nomadi: Jelena Dimitrijevi in ene, slike, izmiljaji, ed. Branka Arsi (Beograd: Centar za enske studije, 2000).

Nada Mirkov Draga Gavrilovi, ProFemina (Belgrade: 1999), Vol. 17-19, p. 137 - 140.

Duan Ivani Zabavno-pouna periodika srpskog realizma: Javor i Strailovo (Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 1988), p. 227.

The maiden name of this contemporary author was Balti. See the biographical notes on a book cover of Draginja Gavrilovi's collection of stories: U meuprostoru (Vrac: KOV, 2004) and compare with Beleka o piscu Jasmina Ahmetagi, in Draga Gavrilovi Izabrana proza, 2007, p. 373.

Milan Bogdanovi Milica Ninkovi in Stari i novi, IV (Beograd: Prosveta, 1952), p. 49.

Draga Gavrilovi herself wrote the listings of her published fiction entitled Spisak mojih knjievnih radova [The Listing of My Literary Works] which Vladimir Milankov found in the Archive of manuscripts of Matica srpska, in Novi Sad, No. M 1608 and presented in Draga Gavrilovi ivot i delo [Draga Gavrilovi's life and work], p. 119. and p. 121.

Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000): Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety od Autorship, p. 45-93

vile i lutke: Draga Gavrilovi Izabrana proza, Devojaki roman [A Novel of a Young Woman], (Beograd: Multinacionalni fond kulture - Kongras, 2007), p. 91.

nego nas tim vaim trulim ukusom trujete i u knjievnosti, u spisima vaim. Belo lice, rubin-usne, vrane obrve, viti stas, i to sve u najjaoj nijansi, to su maije koje zanose i vezju nae junake. Ba kao i u ivotu... Pa je li onda udo to enskinja pada u tu pogreku?Draga Gavrilovi Izabrana proza, Devojaki roman, p. 91.

Since it is impossible to name all of them, the author will mention the few, fundamental studies and texts: Mary Ellman Thinking About Women (New York : Harcourt, 1968), Adrienne Rich When We Dead Awaken: Writing Re-Vision, College English 34 (1972), Judith Fetterley The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), Annete Kolodny A Map for Rereading. Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts, The New Feminist Criticism, Esseys on Women, Literature Theory, ed. by Elaine Showalter, (New York : Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 46-62, Patrocinio P.Schweickart Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading, Modern Criticism and Theory, A Reader, ed.by David Lodge and Nigel Wood, (New York: Longman, 2008), p. 485-505.

When introducing into her narrative the literary personality of young women in the USA, Gavrilovi does not give geographic details, that could be an indication not of her practically lived but transcendentally gained expirience, by reading about contemporary political changes in European countries and the States. She herself could have been easily related to many of the stories which village folk brought back as USA immigrants into her native Srpska Crnja.For further details see V. Milankov Draga Gavrilovi ivot i delo, Iseljavanje u Ameriku (do 1919), p. 18-19 .

Elaine Showalter A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), p. 169.

Kad su muki u svaem napredniji, pa i oseaje nae bolje razumu od nas samih, zato nas bar svuda i ne zamenjuju!: Draga Gavrilovi Sabrana dela (Kikinda: Knjievna zajednica Kikinde, 1990), Vol. 2, p.59.

N.Mirkov, Draga Gavrilovi, p. 139.

During 1884, Grgurova played the main role in a drama Adriana Lecouvreur, written by E. Scribe and E. Legouve, which successfully marked a repertoire of the main Serbian national theater in Belgrade. In Gavrilovis story, the teacher states that she could hardly wait for a school year to end, so that she could head for your capital to a theater. In contrast to Draga Gavrilovi, who lived in a poor village in Austro-Hungary, or todays Vojvodina, Milka lived in Belgrade, where she could have succeeded in pursuing her career not only as a translator and an actress but also as a story writer. Together with one of the first Serbian feminists and poets, Draga Dejanovi (1840-1871), Grgurova could have attended the first meetings of a newly established Serbian literary society at that time and, after a long and persistent struggle, to publish her book Pripovetke Milke Aleksi-Grgurove. Prva sveska. Vera. erdan od bisera. (Beograd: Dravna tamparija Kraljevine Srbije, 1897) . The author owes a deep thanks to a dramatrug, Ms. Irina Stojkovi-Kiki of the library of The Museum of Serbian Theater for sending a part of the monograph of Milka Grgurova written by Vera Crvenanin Svitanja i suton Milke Grgurove (Beograd: Muzej pozorine umetnosti Srbije, 2003) and to a theatre expert , Mr. Zoran T. Jovanovi, for having the opportunity to read his Bibliography of Milka Grgurova's work, which is a part of a new monograph about Milka Grgurova, currently in print, written by Duan Mihailovi.

Free and critical thinking are also crucial motives of Gavrilovis earlier poem Za slobodu[For Freedoom], published in the reputable Serbian cultural magazine Javor (Novi Sad), in 1879.

For further discussion of the daughter-father plot in feminist novels see Barbara H. Sheldon Daughters and Fathers in Feminist Novels (Frankfurt aim Main: Peter Lang, 1997).

Duan Ivani Srpski realizam, p. 121; Duan Ivani Ka poetici srpskog realizma, p. 209; Nada Mirkov, Draga Gavrilovi, p.140; Jasmina Ahmetagi Predgovor: Vrlinska bia Drage Gavrilovi(vii-xvi) in Draga Gavrilovi Izabrana proza, xi.

buenje mladog bia: Duan Ivani Srpski realizam, p. 121. The same statements can be found in Duan Ivani Ka poetici srpskog realizma, p. 209.

upaju mesto kukolja ito, Draga Gavrilovi, Devojaki roman, p. 137.

George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton, Identity and the Economics of Education (61-83) and Gender and work (83-97) in Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, And Well-Being (New Jersey: Princeton Univeristy Press, 2010).

When describing her teacher's duties, Darinka mentions only female students even though she has previously stated that her school has four grades and more than a hundred pupils. According to educational laws of that time, female teachers were supposed to teach only female students in the first four grades of elementary school. For further details about Serbian female teachers see Neda Boinovi ensko pitanje u Srbiji u XIX i XX veku (Beograd: devedestetvrta: ene u crnom, 1996), p. 80.

Uiteljeva prava zasluga opaa (se) tek u vrlinama ljudi koji nekad behu uenici njegovi:Devojaki roman(Draga Gavrilovi Izabrana proza, 2007), p. 151.

V.Milankov, Draga Gavrilovi, p. 130.

I moj nain pisanja donosio mi je dosta gorkih asova. I ja sam se povukla sa knjievnog polja skoro sasvim Sabrana dela Drage Gavrilovi, knjiga 2, (ed.) Vladimir Milankov (Kikinda: Knjievna zajednica Kikinde, 1990), p. 98.

For further details about the patriarchal types of violences, see The Violence of Rhetoric in Teresa de Lauretis Technologies of Gender, Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 31-50.

The editor of a reputable cultural magazine Javor/Javor (Novi Sad), Ilija Ognjanovi, frequently placed one of the earliest published Draga Gavrilovi's stories on the first page, obviously considering her work as serious and important, at the same time giving the primary attention to her new narrative. Another editor of Sadanjost/The Present Time (Kikinda), a teacher, Mihajlo Kosti, encouraged Draga Gavrilovi to publish her novel as a book. Both of these facts are presented in Vladimir Milankov, Draga Gavrilovi, ivot i delo, p. 111. and 119.

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