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updated: august 2005
The question of higher education for women in Croatia was finally resolved at the end of the nineteenth century and in the very beginning of the twentieth century. Untill 1895 the highest education that girl could have got in Croatia was in secondary schools for girls which existed in few places in the country. The female liceum in Zagreb which was founded in 1892. University of Zagreb was still the male privilege.
The first step in the direction of enabling high education for girls was made in 1895 when Faculty of Arts admitted women teachers of female liceum, at their request, but only as iregular students who could attend the lectures but the question of degrees for them remained unresloved. However, it was a progress. If we look at newspaper articles of that time, dealing with that problem, we can find very few opinions that considered girlsí request for better education as reasonable. Still, it should be mentioned that even in those articles which encouraged that idea existed limits. For example: higher education was recomanded only to the girls who were coming from higher layers of society, and were not willing to get married. The main part of public opinion was not very thrilled about the idea of high education for women in general. In spite of all social changes that had happened in the society at the second part of the nineteenth century, the conservative opinion was still pointing out that the main roll that woman should play was in the house by her husband and children.
However, when at the end of August 1901, Royal mandate that proclaimed that women have to be admitted as regular students on the Faculty of Arts at the University of Zagreb came to the Croatian Government, Department of Education immediately issued an order. (The other faculties of University of Zagreb did not open their doors to female students untill 1919). This order was the greatest success in the field of women higher education. Women were finally equalized in degrees and in all other rights and obligations at the university with their male colleagues.
Here it has to be mentioned that it did not happened much later than in other European countries. For example, University of Vienna was opened to women in 1897.
The first girls who entered the Faculty of Arts as regular students were Milica Bogdanovi, student of history and geography, Milka Maravi and Vjera Tkali, students of sciences in the school year of 1901/1902. Milica Bogdanovi was also the first woman who graduated from the University of Zagreb and got the tittle Doctor of philosophy in 1906. Her thesis was tittled ìThe King Julian Apostat towards Christianityî. On two occasions she had been rewarded during her studying for successfull work in the history seminarium. Later she made a career as a teacher and a scholar. She taught in several high schools for girls, but she also wrote a dozen of articles and books dealing with history and literature.
Untill 1914, 158 women entered the Faculty of Arts in Zagreb. 86 of them were regular students, and 72 attended lectures as inregular students. In that period the maximum share of women in whole studentís population at the university was 14 percent in the school year of 1913/1914.
According to the statistic analysis, the majority of female students came from Zagreb and Zagreb county, although a great number of women students originated from many other parts of Austro-Hungary. It has to be stressed that this number included foreign students as well, especially those coming from Bulgaria, who attended Zagrebís university for several semesters. The data about their national and religious structure, point on the fact that the Catholics were the most numerous (77%), but the great part in the female students population of that time (without Bulgarian) were Eastern Orthodox (16%). The majority of them were Croatians, but among our first students it can be found Serbs, Bulgarian, Germans etc.
A very interesting fact, however, is connected with their social structure. Although the general opinion considered only girls from upper social classes as predestined for university education, analysis show that girls who studied on that time in Faculty of Arts, came from all layers of the society, not only from the upper ones. Another thing which does not fit in usual standards considering female education, is their choice of major subjects. Although the major part of them had chosen liberal arts (65%), many of them had chosen sciences for their study (35%). It was very surprising for the time when sciences were still treated as the predominantly male field.
Finally, it has to be stressed that only 21 women student of 158 graduated the Faculty of Arts untill 1914. Speaking of this fact it should be noted that only few of them attended university to get a degree, and to find a proper job in order to get financial independence. At that time the greatest number of them attended lectures only to complete their knowledge of general culture, which was very useful for a girl from better family.
However, those women students, who graduated at the university, continued to share their knowledge with the younger generations, because almost all of them could be found in sources as working at the girlsí high schools.
Zagreb, le
02.VII.2001
(990 words)
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