Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.17234/RadoviZHP.57.19 555
Andrić and Maja Nižetić-Čulić under the Banner of Yugoslav Nationalist Youth
Jure Trutanić
; Fakultet hrvatskih studija Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
This paper examines the activities of the young writer Ivo Andrić and the schoolteacher Maja Nižetić-Čulić during the critical years marking the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the birth of the first Yugoslav state. It reconstructs their mutual relationship and interprets their affiliation with the movement of Yugoslav nationalist youth. Enthralled by the Kingdom of Serbia, the revolutionary adherents of this movement espoused an integral Yugoslav idea and preached the establishment of a unitary Yugoslav state on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, while also endorsing assassinations of public officials as a legitimate means of political action. Owing to his acquaintance with Vladimir Čerina, Ivo Andrić arrived in Split on the eve of the wave of political arrests in July 1914. There he met Maja Nižetić and her fiancé Jerko Čulić. At that time, Andrić was a student and an up-and-coming poet who was increasingly thinking about a career and ever less about revolution, whereas the schoolteacher Maja Nižetić, contributing to nationalist newspapers, spoke out about women’s rights and paved the way for the feminist movement in Dalmatia. All three were arrested in the first days of the First World War on charges of high treason and spent several months together in the prisons of Split and Maribor. The charges against Andrić were eventually dropped, while Maja Nižetić and Jerko Čulić were sentenced to prison terms. After the end of the war, the paths of Ivo Andrić and Maja Nižetić-Čulić gradually diverged, yet both remained firmly committed to Yugoslavism. Unlike many intellectuals from the ranks of the Yugoslav nationalist youth who, after the transformation of the state framework, remained marginalised figures, Andrić proved more adept at handling the categories of politics and ideology and fully realised his literary talent. By contrast, Maja Nižetić-Čulić appears to have withdrawn from public life relatively early. Consequently, in the scholarly literature she has thus far largely been registered merely as a member of Ivo Andrić’s social circle, with whom she remained in close relations until his death.
Keywords
jugoslavenska nacionalistička omladina; Prvi svjetski rat; Ivo Andrić; Maja Nižetić-Čulić; Jerko Čulić; politički zatvorenici; Split; Maribor; Graz; Narodna ženska zadruga
Hrčak ID:
352387
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2025.
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