Jelica Belović-Bernadzikowska war eine der bedeutendsten Osijeker kulturellen Arbeiterinnen des Anfangs des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Obwohl sie in wissenschaftlichen Kreisen, vor allem als Ethnologin, bekannt ist, war sie auch als Pädagogin, Literaturkritikerin, Schriftstellerin und Journalistin tätig. Diese Arbeit untersucht Belovićs journalistische Tätigkeit im Osijeker deutschsprachigen Zeitungswesen. In der Arbeit werden ihre Beiträge aus Osijeker Zeitungen Die Drau und Slavonische Presse aus dem Zeitraum zwischen 1910 und 1916 analysiert. Die Arbeit fokussiert sich auf die Artikel aus diesem Zeitraum, weil gerade zu dieser Zeit Belović in Osijeker Zeitungen am aktivsten war, wenn man die Anzahl und die thematische Vielfalt ihrer journalistischen Beiträge in Betracht nimmt. Die Artikel wurden nach folgenden Themenbereichen untersucht: Belovićs öffentliche und private pädagogische Erfahrungen, ihre literarische, literaturkritische, wissenschaftliche und emanzipatorische Wirkung und ihr Erlebnis des Ersten Weltkrieges. Der Untersuchungskorpus wurde in Bezug auf die Theorien des kulturellen Gedächtnisses Jan und Aleida Assmanns und der dreifachen Mimesis Paul Ricoeurs analysiert. Die Analyse Belovićs Beiträge zeigt, dass ihr Schreiben von der Idee der Emanzipation südslawischer Völker innerhalb der Habsburger Monarchie geprägt ist. Bei der Analyse sind die Beiträge auch in den gesellschaftlich-kulturellen Kontext jener Zeit gestellt. Im Vergleich zum Schreiben anderer zeitgenössischer kultureller Arbeiter jener Zeit, im Sinne der befürworteten Theorien und Strukturen aus der Sphäre Pädagogie, Feminismus, Literatur, Wissenschaft und Politik, ist es zu beschließen, das Belovićs Tätigkeit nicht im Einklang mit den damals vorwiegenden Ideen, sondern innovativ war.

Jelica Belović-Bernadzikowska is one of the most prolific cultural figures of Osijek from the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. She is the author of an extraordinary number of works and articles on various subjects. Although she is best known for her ethnographic works, she was also active in other cultural and social fields such as pedagogy, literature, theatre, and social criticism. She was particularly distinguished for her feminist work. This paper presents the author’s journalistic contribution in the most important German newspapers in Osijek: Die Drau and the Slavonische Presse. The analysis includes all articles published by Belović between 1910 and 1916, the period in which most of her articles appeared, which is why this period was chosen for this paper. Moreover, her articles from this period show a great thematic diversity. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether Belović’s social and cultural work was innovative or in line with the main ideas and trends of the time. The dissertation also offers a synthesis of the values and structures Belović focused on and advocated in her work. Paul Ricoeur’s theory of triple mimesis and Jan and Aleida Assmann’s theory of cultural memory proved to be an appropriate theoretical background for this research, given their topicality as well as the profile of the research corpus. The author’s texts are grouped and analysed according to the following themes: Experiences from the pedagogical and educational field, her literary, critical, scientific, and feminist work, and the experience of the First World War. All of Belović’s journalistic work in Osijek’s newspapers from the above period is placed in the context of the prevailing social, cultural and political patterns and ideas of the time. The paper also draws a parallel between Belović’s journalistic work and the articles of some other journalists published in Die Drau and Slavonische Presse at the beginning of the twentieth century. The analysis of Belović’s articles shows that they represent a significant change compared to the prevailing trends of the time. In her public pedagogical work, Belović focuses on criticising the outdated bureaucratic apparatus whose influence manifests itself in almost all areas of society, including the school system. At the same time, the author points out human weaknesses and flaws that can also be found in today’s society. For example, one of the main problems Belović points out is the fact that the system favours the protégé over personal competences. Therefore, already the first group of Belović’s articles serves as evidence that her texts are examples of both communicative and cultural memory. Unlike the articles in the previous group, elements of cultural memory predominate in Belović’s texts from the sphere of her private pedagogical activity, as these texts contain numerous motifs from South Slavic mythology as well as traditional expressions that, according to Belović, play an important role in raising a child. The articles about her private educational experiences reveal a significant discrepancy between the author’s attitude toward child rearing and the prevailing pedagogical norms of the time. As can be seen from the numerous documentary sources such as Vilma Vukelić’s or Stefan Zweig’s memoirs, contemporary pedagogical principles were based on the classification of the child into the sphere of otherness. Therefore, the individuality of the child in its formative years was not taken into account. Personal desires and preferences, as well as the expression of opinions, could not be asserted by a young person until he or she reached adulthood. Apart from this, it was common in the higher social classes to employ a governess whose task was to educate children and young people. In her articles, Belović offers a new portrayal of the relationship between mother and child, influenced by the Jugendstil which focused its interest precisely on youth. As she admits in her articles, she raises her child alone, without the help of a governess. She allows him to have a free psychological development, which is not affected by the constraints of the prevailing educational theories of the time. The next thematic category is represented by the literary work of Jelica Belović. Comparing it with the short stories of other authors at Die Drau and Slavonische Presse, there is no discernible thematic and motivic progress as in her other articles. The main theme of her stories is romance. They are also overly sentimental, just like some other mass-produced romance novels of the time. However, unlike the other authors whose short stories are compared to Belović’s in this paper, she incorporates motifs from South Slavic mythology into her works and sets the plot in the local milieu. It can be concluded that this group of articles contains palpable elements of both tradition and innovation (Paul Ricoeur). One of Ricoeur’s theses is also applicable to Belović’s critiques. Namely, her literary and theatrical critiques are examples of the infinity of the prenarrative, narrative, and reception circle. In other words, on the basis of a certain prior knowledge, the author creates a new narrative, which is completed only through its reception. The author’s articles from the field of criticism testify to an excellent familiarity with the Croatian literary and theatrical scene. Her literary critiques are comparable in quality to those of the leading contemporary Croatian literary critics. Thus, Belović points out the same problems that A. G. Matoš recognises in his critiques, such as the mass production of lowquality literary works. Moreover, they praise the same authors, such as Joza Ivakić and Josip Kosor, for their authenticity and use of local themes and motifs. It is also important to note that Belović was the only woman whose literary and theatrical reviews were published in Die Drau and Slavonische Presse between 1910 and 1916. Most of Belović’s articles, however, deal with her scientific work, which was completely innovative compared to the prevailing attitude towards tradition in Croatia. Belović was, in fact, the first contributor to the two aforementioned newspapers to emphasise, through her writing, the importance of preserving the material and immaterial folk tradition. Due to her excellent knowledge of current developments in international ethnological scientific circles, Belović recognised very early, even before the foundation of the first ethnographic museum in Zagreb, the necessity of establishing institutions for the protection of ethnographic treasures. As mentioned in her biography, Belović wanted to donate her house and her collection of traditional treasures to the city of Osijek in order to establish an ethnographic museum there. Unfortunately, her idea was rejected by city officials. In this group of articles, the elements of cultural memory predominate. Through Belović’s writing, the non-material traditional treasures such as rituals, beliefs, and folk songs are preserved in the realm of memory storage. Belović’s articles dealing with the scientific sphere of ethnography were written under the influence of the South Slavic idea, which she, as a student of Josip Juraj Strossmayer, also represents in most of her other articles. Thus, her feminist work focuses on the position of South Slavic women in patriarchal society. Although the author’s feminism is moderate in character, it offers a significant shift in terms of prevailing views on women’s emancipation. The goal of female emancipation that Belović advocates is the improvement of women’s socioeconomic status. At the same time, she accepts the differences between men and women, guided by the motto “different, but equal”. According to Belović, the only way to emancipate women is through education. Inspired by the feminist events abroad, which she also knows very well, she proposes the unification of women in the sense of the establishment of South Slavic women’s organisations. Although from the writings of Jelica Belović one could get the impression that at the beginning of the twentieth century in this area there were numerous events that were of great importance for the emancipation of Croatian women, the truth was quite different. Few Osijek authors have taken up this then very controversial issue, let alone written about it in such a revolutionary way, as Belović. Except for the union, the author sees an opportunity for the realisation of women’s financial and social independence at the beginning of the First World War. As the majority of the male labour force was drafted into the war, a large number of women took over the jobs and businesses of their spouses, fathers and brothers. This way, woman could get a taste of their financial freedom, at least for a brief moment. With her articles advocating war as the engine of female emancipation (B. Biron), Belović anticipated the motif that would lead women through a second wave of emancipation and help them achieve their own socioeconomic independence after the end of the Second World War. The author’s feminist texts confirm Ricoeur’s thesis that the narrative can only be completed through reception. Indeed, according to Belović’s texts, an uninformed reader might get the impression that Croatia was a place of significant events in terms of women’s emancipation, but this is far from the truth. Apart from her feminist aspirations, Belović’s journalistic contribution is also characterised by an emphasis on patriotism, which in her case has a fourfold character. An unusual paradox can be observed in her work. For although she passionately advocates the idea of unification of the South Slavs, the author at the same time expresses her devotion to the Crown, which is particularly evident in her wartime articles. It can be concluded that Belović, through her cultural work, promotes the idea of emancipation of the South Slavic people under the auspices of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Moreover, the author describes herself as a Croatian and, above all, as a citizen of Osijek. She devoted a large part of her articles to her hometown Osijek, its people, and their peculiarities. These articles testify to the peaceful coexistence between people of different ethnicities living in Osijek at the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as to the hybrid identities of Osijek’s citizens. By placing the author’s writings in the socio-cultural context of the time, one can conclude that the attitudes Belović advocated were extremely progressive and in some ways even revolutionary. The analysis confirms that Jelica Belović’s texts are examples of both communicative and cultural memory. The degree of presence of these forms of memory depends on the topic the author addresses. For example, while the elements of communicative memory predominate in her articles from the field of her public pedagogical work, her ethnological texts show the predominance of cultural memory. The synthesis of motives and values represented in her articles makes it clear that Belović was not a journalist following established rules and prevailing ideas, but a versatile intellectual familiar with contemporary international events in cultural, political, and scientific fields.