The Importance of the Novel Preteča by Ljubica Velimirović Popadić

Abstract

This research was produced under the influence of New Historicism with the purpose of completing the knowledge on the Serbian interwar epistolary literature and to shed light on the contribution of a lesser-known woman author to the Serbian writing culture. Despite the new, mainly feminist oriented critics, women writers from the past still remain insufficiently researched; mostly the knowledge and reception of a small group of women writers (J. Dimitrijević, M. Janković, D. Marković), who had already been presented by the official historians of Serbian literature authors, has been intensified and strengthened. In this paper I use a comparative method to analyze an early epistolary novel by Ljubica Velimirović Popadić (Preteča: Pisma jedne palančanke / Forerunner: Letters from a small-town woman, 1929) in order to present the development of other examples of interwar epistolary literature: M. Janković “Kaluđer iz Rusije“,1919; D. Pijade Strast, 1921; J. Hlapec Đorđević Jedno dopisivanje, 1932. I draw attention to the little known and neglected interpretations of these literary pieces, and more precisely define their value. The novel Strast is not only the first Serbian epistolary novel, but also the novel about friendship open to lesbian reading; its feminine eroticism is further developed by Hlapec Đorđević in Jedno dopisivanje. Contrary to Pijade, the women authors insist on the intellectual portrait of female heroes. “Kaluđer iz Rusije“ announced the intellectual capacities of a young woman, Preteča enlarged it and made it more complex, while Jedno dopisivanje transformed it into a radically superior woman. This study critically examines previous research of Preteča and differently interprets the usage of women’s autobiographical elements. Local historian Gojko Antić was the first to point out the scope, diversity and importance of the literary work of the female descendants of the Velimirović family, including Ljubica Velimirović Popadić. The novel Preteča is evaluated as valuable because of its literary and documentary elements. Although it represents an early example of the epsitolary genre, the author managed to masterfully structure its complexity as a self-reflexive and a biographical fiction, and successfully describe a new type of hero, a woman philosopher. The novel also has documentary value because it provides valuable information about the life of the author’s older sister, the famous translator Zorka Velimirović. It helps to better understand the position of women in the Serbian patriarchal society at the turn of the 20th century.