Literary Heroine

One of Croatia’s most-read authors, Marija Jurić Zagorka spent her life in defiance of convention.

Maša Grdešić | Published in History Today Volume 73 Issue 3 March 2023

Marija Jurić Zagorka, mid-20th century. Courtesy Memorial Apartment of Marija Jurić Zagorka/Center for Women’s Studies.

Marija Jurić Zagorka has always had plenty of readers, both during her lifetime and now, 150 years after her birth. However, in the last 15 years, thanks largely to the growing influence of feminist theory in Croatian literary criticism, Zagorka has become a central figure of Croatian literary history and one of Croatia’s most popular writers.