Real inspiration behind "Grička vještica"

In the previous post I was writing about rock-musical based on a popular pulp fiction novel and now I would like to focus on the novel itself.

"Grička vještica" (The Witch from Grič) is a curious phenomenon, often described as "housewife's literature" that somehow survives decades and is constantly in print for almost a century now in spite of official opinion that Croatia produced many far more serious writers with more academic credibility. Yes, it is true, we have several serious authors worth mentioning but looking back at that past, one notice that all those writers were men. So one of the main reasons why poor Zagorka was always criticized was actually chauvinism she had to face as the only popular female author of her time. There was also another interesting lady born into aristocracy and her name was Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić but she never worked for living and her talent was confined in the accepted frame of children storytelling (and she suffered terribly because of all this, eventually dying in sanatorium probably suicide). On the other hand Marija Jurić "Zagorka" was not an aristocrat and had to support herself with journalism, unattractive little chubby lady who lived alone in a small apartment looking at the main food market of the city.

The fact that "Grička vještica" was initially printed in newspapers (around 1912) is actually not so surprising - many of famous novels by Charles Dickens and Eugène Sue were sensation because of this kind of presentation and this is how wide audience got to know them first. And just like people on the streets of Paris talked about new details in "Les Mystères de Paris" , Zagreb buzzed about new adventures of brave captain Siniša and beautiful countess Nera who got herself in a trouble with a which hunters. In fact, "Grička vještica" reminds me on another historical novel, a famous french saga "Angélique" by Anne Golon - just like Golon made a point in researching french history, Zagorka knew the history very well and she used real court cases as inspiration for her story. Very belatedly and reluctantly it was noted that she actually did serious research in city archives (and people who wrote about this sounded surprised because her novels were so criticized) going so far to actually use real names in her novel.

Now we are coming to the most interesting part of real inspiration of "Grička vještica" - even if the main characters of Siniša and Nera were fictionalized, many other small players in the story were actually real people whose names were remembered in documents about witch hunt in Zagreb around 1780. Contrary to critics who claimed that Zagorka just made it all up and Zagreb never had witch hunting cases, archives talk about pretty widow Barica Cindek who was main focus of not one but two famous court cases. Lot of people around her ended up in a novel and while she herself was just supporting character (Zagorka obviously thought that countess Nera would make better choice for adventurous female lead) in a real life Cindek was a true heroine. A victim of greed (because her beauty attracted far more customers in the shop) and lust (of certain city official Smole) she ended up imprisoned for witchcraft, released on bail in 1743 and than just three months later she was the one who went to a court pointing at Smole who used his power to later search her body for "devil's mark".Frustrated that he couldn't get her in prison, Smole obviously abused his position again just to see her naked and he didn't count on the idea that the brave little lady will put him in a court,it was really act of bravery because she was unprotected bakery owner going head on against city official. This very unusual real-life story was the basis of what would later became one of the best-known historical novels by Zagorka.

I am not here to really protect Zagorka from every criticism - though she appears to have been very lovable and likable (lonely little lady fighting windmills in her time) her historical novels read like movie scripts - exciting dialogues and not much of anything else. She was to busy with exciting story to pay attention to description of places or explaining motives of her characters (everybody is black-or-white, good or bad) and this makes her more of a theatre or movie script writer than real novelist who knows how to build atmosphere around the story.It is exactly this quality that always made her very appealing to "housewives" audience or teenagers who always adored her books but looking from a distance now, though I still have soft spot for her novels (I read them all in childhood) I must admit that today I clearly understand what were her weak points. However, Zagorka is important for creating audience who started love for reading trough her books. She is our national treasure and I remember affectionately lighting a candle on her grave during annual visits to cemetery on All Soul's Day.