Popular (Girl's) Serialized Novel: Gender and Genre

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI2602047M UDC: 821.163.41.09-31"19" Original research paper

Abstract

In the first half of the 20th century, there were two literary phenomena in Croatian and Serbian literature: the historical novels of Marija Jurić Zagorka (1873–1957) and the romance novels of Milica Jakovljević Mir Jam (1887–1952). In addition to the temporal coincidence of their most fruitful creative years (the interwar decade), these two writers have several other similarities: both died at a similar time, both were journalists and editors, both wrote autobiographies, both published under pseudonyms, both were disputed by critics, but widely read, both were professional writers (they wrote for a living), both were the main representatives of popular literature of the first half of the 20th century in Croatian and Serbian literature, and both were followed by similar processes of reception. In addition to all this, the most important parallel for this paper is the fact that their central novels were published in press, in sequels, in the form of feuilletons. Regarding this fact, I will try to answer the question about the conditioning of the author’s instance and the selected periodical form, about the relationship between gender and genre, that is, about the importance of the popular novel in sequels for women’s literature and for women’s authorship. I will try to show how both Zagorka and Mir-Jam, used the main medium of the time (press) for the representation and construction of gender identities, and in what way they used patterns of popular genres, which will point to the cooperation of press and literature as well as, to the connection between popular culture and feminism. Also, it will be illustrated how the dynamics of feuilletons, and afterwards bound editions and “collected works”, influenced the dynamics of reception and the shaping of the figures of female authors.

Keywords: Milica Jakovljević Mir Jam, Marija Jurić Zagorka, feuilleton novel, popular novel, genre and gender