Marija Jurić Zagorka

For all those who enjoy her novels and who appreciate her work

Marija Jurić Zagorka (Negovec near Vrbovec, 1 January 1873 - Zagreb, 30 November 1957), Croatian writer and journalist.

Marija Jurić, known under the pseudonym Zagorka, was a woman ahead of her time. It was only after her death, in the second half of the 20th century, that the importance of her literary works and journalistic work gradually became more widely recognized, and she gradually took a prominent place in Croatian culture. She enriched our heritage with her work, and her literary work was closely connected with the social one, so that her works expressed political and feminist activism. Starting from the assumption that the past is always repeated, her numerous novels have thematized political circumstances and society in the past alluding to the present. In others, female characters were the bearers of ethical, political and feminist ideas - Gordana, Jadranka, Countess Nero.

Much is doubtful about the life of Marija Jurić Zagorka. Even the date of birth. However, it is most often mentioned on January 1, 1873. She was born in the village of Negovec near Vrbovec in a wealthy family of the manager of a large estate, Baron Rauch. Although in good financial condition, the family, which had four children, lived, as Zagorka herself testified, rather unhappily. Marija Jurić Zagorka grew up in the countryside and spent her childhood in that Zagorje-lordly environment. She attended elementary school in Varaždin and Zagreb, where she excelled in intelligence and talent. At the age of fifteen, just before graduation, she leaves school due to unsettled family relationships and since then her school will be her life. However, she wanted to achieve a vocation and her great desire has been to become a postman ever since. After six years of schooling in the Zagreb Monastery of Mercy, Zagorka leaves Zagreb. She will finally return only after seven years, to live to a ripe old age and die on November 30, 1957.

Her novels were published as feuilletons in newspapers and magazines, for example in Mali novine, Jutarnji list, Obzor, Ženski list, Hrvatski dnevnik and Hrvatica, and readers expected a new sequel every day. Thus, her third novel in a row, and the first Croatian crime novel, Kneginja iz Petrinjska ulica, was published in a total of 147 sequels in Hrvatske novosti in 1910, and later in Ženski list.

The novel The Secret of the Bloody Bridge is the first of seven novels from the series The Witch of Grič. It was first published in 1912 in Mali novine in sequels, and the original method of publication is evident in more recent editions due to the structure of the novel itself. The very form of the novel is directly related to the journalistic profession, which Zagorka resolutely pursued despite the amount of misunderstanding and belittling with which she was greeted because of the content of her literary works.

The time of the plot can be placed in the 18th century, given the mention of the current reign of the Croatian-Hungarian queen and Roman German Empress Maria Theresa, and the key locations of the novel include Zagreb, Hrvatsko Zagorje and Varaždin.

This versatile woman and visionary, with her comprehensive influence on the society of that time, laid a solid foundation for a better future. No obstacles stopped her. She herself was the change she wanted to see in the world. Although she was belittled and ridiculed, she tirelessly advocated for the correction of social injustice and the emancipation of women. In addition, although born into a Hungarian family, she was an advocate of the idea of ​​Croatian national liberation.

Today, at Dolac 8 in Zagreb, where Zagorka lived from the mid-1930s until her death, there is a memorial apartment dedicated to her life.

The apartment was bought by the City of Zagreb at the end of 2008, and since 2009 it has been managed by the Center for Women's Studies.