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Forging Habsburg Muslim girls: gender, education and empire in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878–1918)

2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 44; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Croata

10.1080/0046760x.2014.1002016

1464-5130

Fabio Giomi,

Philippine History and Culture

AbstractThis article explores the entanglement of gender, education and empire in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Habsburg period throughout the analysis of a unique institution: Sarajevo's Muslim Female School. Established at the very end of the nineteenth century, this pedagogical institution was the only school in Austria-Hungary specifically devoted to Muslim girls. The article begins by presenting the development of the Habsburg Empire's educational policy in Bosnia after 1878 and demonstrates that it was deeply bound with its imperial 'civilising mission'. Through an analysis of the programmes taught at Sarajevo's Muslim Female School, the article detects the model of 'Hapsburg Muslim femininity' promoted by this institution. By investigating the reports the teachers sent to the authorities, it explores how this school was perceived by the Muslim population. The last section is devoted to the schoolgirls' experience of this school, and especially to their access to the written word.Keywords: Bosnia and HerzegovinaAustria-HungaryMuslim girlscivilising missionschooling Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 Hereafter, 'Bosnia and Herzegovina' will be referred to as 'Bosnia'.2 The article, dating from October 3, 1895, is quoted by Robert J. Donia Islam Under the Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1878–1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 14.3 Clemens Ruthner, 'Habsburg's Little Orient: A post-Colonial Reading of Austrian and German Cultural Narratives on Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1878–1918', http://www.kakanien.ac.at/beitr/fallstudie/CRuthner5.pdf (accessed February 3, 2015). On Western perception of the Balkans, see Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Larry Wolf, Inventing Eastern Europe : The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford Universiy Press, 1994).4 Peter Stachel, 'Der koloniale Blick auf Bosnien-Herzegowina in der ethnographischen Populärliteratur der habsburger Monarchie', in Habsburg Postcolonial: Machtstrukturen und kollektives Gedächtnis, ed. Johannes Feichtinger et al. (Innsbruck: Studienverlag 2003), 259–88; Stijn Vervaet, '"Naš car ima za svašta zakon": kolonijalna modernost i nacionalni identitet u bosanskohercegovackoj književnosti austrougarskog razdoblja', Slavistična revija 57 (2009): 467–81; Stijn Vervaet, '"Na granicama civilizovane Evrope": Austrougarska tekstualna kolonizacija Bosne i Hercegovine (1878–1918)', Sveske Zadužbine Ive Andrica 24 (2007): 90–126. On the same topic, see also Robert Donia, 'The Proximate Colony. Bosnia-Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian Rule', http://www.kakanien.ac.at/beitr/fallstudie/RDonia1.pdf (accessed February 3, 2015).5 Robin Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism: The Habsburg 'Civilizing Mission' in Bosnia, 1878–1914 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).6 For an overview of education in Habsburg Bosnia, see Vojslav Bogićević, Istorija razvitka osnovnih škola u Bosni i Hercegovini u doba turske i austrougarske uprave (1463–1918) (Sarajevo: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika, 1965); Hajrudin Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini do 1918. godine (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1983); Đorđe Pejanović, Srednje i stručne škole u Bosni i Hercegovini (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1953); Mitar Papić, Školstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini za vrijeme austrougarske okupacije (1878–1918) (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1972).7 Because its structure changed over time, this school was referred to in the documents and newspapers in different ways, e.g. hormanova ruždija, 'the school of Madame Hörman', muslimanka djevojačka škola, 'Muslim Girls' school', etc. For the sake of consistency, the school will be referred to as 'Sarajevo's Muslim Female School' throughout this article.8 Julia Clancy Smith, 'L'école Rue du Pacha, Tunis: l'enseignement de la femme arabe et "La Plus Grande France" (1900–1914)', Clio 12 (2000), http://clio.revues.org/186 (accessed February 3, 2015); Rebecca Rogers, A Frenchwoman's Imperial Story: Madame Luce in Nineteenth-Century Algeria (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013).9 See Jovanka Kecman, Žene Jugoslavije u radničkom pokretu i ženskim organizacijama 1918–1941 (Belgrade: Institut za Savremenu Istoriju, 1978); Senija Penava, 'Izvori i literature o problemima emancipacije muslimanske žene u Bosni i Hercegovini', Prilozi 18 (1981): 273–84. For the official Socialist narrative on Bosnian women's 'liberation', see also Jasmina Musabegović, Žene Bosne i Hercegovine u narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1977) and Mahmud Konjhodžić, Mostarke (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1981). Interestingly, Francisca de Haan, Krassimira Daskalova and Anna Loutfi, eds., A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe: 19th and 20th Centuries (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2006) does not include any entry regarding Bosnian Muslim women for the period before 1945. Recently a new book shed new light on women's and gender history in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Jasmina Čaušević, ed., Zabilježene. Žene i javni život Bosne i Hercegovine u 20. vijeku (Sarajevo: Sarajevski otvoreni centar and Fondacija CURE, 2014).10 Mustafa Imamović, Pravni položaj i unutrašnjo-politički razvitak Bosne i Hercegovine od 1878 do 1914 (Sarajevo: Magistrat, 2007).11 Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism, 26–34.12 Imamović, Pravni položaj, 41–58.13 Husnija Kamberović, Begovski zemljišni posjedi u Bosni i Hercegovini od 1878. do 1918. godine (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2003); Tomislav Kraljačić, Kalajev režim u Bosni i Hercegovini 1882–1903 (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1987). On the post-Ottoman experience of the Muslims of Bosnia, see in particular Alexandre Popovic, L'Islam balkanique: les musulmans du sud-est européen dans la période post-ottomane (Berlin and Wiesbaden: Osteuropa-Institut an der freien Universität Berlin, 1986).14 Ligia-Maria Fodor, 'The Girls' High School in Cernăuţi, the First Secondary School for Girls in the Habsburg Bucovina (1898–1918)', Valahian Journal of Historical Studies 15 (2011): 137–60; Dinko Župan, 'Viša djevojačka škola u Osijeku (1882–1900)', Scrinia Slavonica 5 (2005): 366–83; Dinko Župan, 'Više djevojačke škole u Požegi, Đakovu i Osjeku (1876–1900)', Anali za povijest odgoja 7 (2008): 123–42. On Habsburg education in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle-class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996).15 After the female secondary school in Sarajevo (1883), other institutions of this kind were established in Mostar (1893), Banja Luka (1898) and Derventa during the First World War, see Papić, Školstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini, 143.16 On the biographies of these intellectuals, see Esad Zgodić, Bosanska politička misao. Austro-ugarsko doba (Sarajevo: DES, 2003), M. E. Dizdar, 'H. Hasan ef. Spaho', Kalendar Narodne Uzdanice no. 8 (1940): 243–6.17 Hamdija Karamehmedović, 'Neobrazba našeg ženskinja', Musavat (11 February 1911): 3.18 On Behar, Biser and Gajret, see Muhzin Rizvić, Behar – Književnoistorijska monografija (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1971); Emina Memija and Lamija Hadžiosmanović, Biser, književno-historijska monografija i bibliografija (Sarajevo: Nacionalna i univerzitetska biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine, 1998); Ibrahim Kemura, Uloga Gajreta u društvenom životu Muslimana Bosne i Hercegovine 1903–1941 (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1986).19 Vojslav Bogićević, Pismenost u Bosni i Hercegovini (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša 1975), 284.20 Fikret Karčić, Društveno-pravni aspekt islamskog reformizma (Sarajevo: Islamski Teološki Fakultet, 1990); Enes Karić, Prilozi za povijest islamskog mišljenja u Bosni i Hercegovini 20. stoljeća (Sarajevo: el-Kalem, 2004).21 Arhiv Bosne i Hercegovine (hereafter, ABH) – Zemaljska Vlada Sarajevo (hereafter, ZVS), 52/211/2, Olga Hörmann to ZVS (1894).22 Mina Kujović, 'Muslimanska osnova i viša djevojačka škola sa produženim tečajem (1894–1925)', Novi Mualim 41 (2010): 72–9.23 ABH – ZVS, 57/49/4, Štefanija Franković to ZVS (1903).24 Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo, 202–3.25 Istorijski Arhiv Sarajevo (hereafter, IAS) – 34 Muslimanska Ženska Osnova Škola (hereafter, 34 MŽOŠ), School register 1911–1912.26 IAS – 34 MŽOŠ, School registers 1901–1902, 1903–1904, 1911–1912 and 1913–1914.27 The four schoolgirls were Hasnija Berberović, Vasvija Čajo, Nafija Karić and Munira Muftić: see IAS – 34 MŽOŠ, School register 1908–1909.28 IAS – 34 MŽOŠ, School registers 1914–1915, 1915–1916 and 1916–1917.29 Kujović, 'Muslimanska osnovna i viša djevojačka škola', 78.30 'Sa ženske ruždije', Bošnjak, May 28, 1909, 3.31 'Prve muslimanke – učiteljice', Sarajevski List, April 14, 1915, 3. Given the novelty of this fact, the news circulated also outside the Bosnian frontiers, i.e. in Croatia, as shown by the article 'Prve muslimanke – učiteljice', Jutarnji List, April 18, 1915, 4.32 Papić, Školstvo u Bosni, 248; Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo, 112. On Hasnija Berberović, see Mina Kujović, 'Jedna zaboravljena učiteljica – Hasnija Berberović', Građa Arhiva Bosne i Hercegovine 1 (2009): 179–86.33 Zurmuta Azabagić, daughter of Mehmed Teufik efendi Azabagić, reis-ul ulema from 1893 to 1909, was enrolled at the Muslim Female School in 1903/1904. See IAS – 34 MŽOŠ, School register 1903–1904.34 On the domestication of Central European forms of sociability by the Bosnian urban population in the Habsburg period, see Risto Besarović, Iz kulturnog života u Sarajevu pod austrougarskom upravom (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1974) and Todor Kruševac, Sarajevo pod austro-ugarskom upravom 1878–1918 (Sarajevo: Muzej Grada Sarajeva, 1960).35 Fata Košarić, 'Moje školovanje', Preporod, September 15, 1976, 16–17.36 On Muslim female economic activities in Habsburg Sarajevo, see Ljiljana Beljkašić-Hadžidedić, 'Učešće muslimanskih žena u tradicijonalnim privrednim djelatnostima u Sarajevu krajem 19. i poćetkom 20. Stoljeća', in Prilozi historiji Sarajeva. Radovi sa znanstvenog simpozija pola milenija Sarajeva, ed. Dževad Juzbašić (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju et al., 1997), 301–14.37 ABH, ZVS, 57/49/4, Štefanija Franković to ZVS (1903).38 Hasan Rebac, 'Naša muslimanka', Ženski pokret 8 (1920): 15.39 Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo, 34–80.40 ABH, ZVS, 57/49/4, Štefanija Franković to ZVS (1903).41 Meghan Hays, 'Valjane majke i blage kćeri. Odgoj i izobrazba žena u nacionalnom duhu u Hrvatskoj 19 stoljeća', Otium 4 (1996): 85–95.42 Dinko Župan, 'Dobre kućanice. Obrazovanje djevojaka u Slavoniji tijekom druge polovice 19. stoljeća', Scrinia Slavonica 9 (2009): 232–56.43 Ibid., 235.44 Ibid., 236–7. On the same subject see also Dinko Župan 'Uzor djevojke: obrazovanje žena u Banskoj Hrvatskoj tijekom druge polovine 19 st.', Časopis za savremenu povijest 33 (2001): 435–52.45 Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo, 249.46 Muhamed Hamdi, 'Evolucija našeg ženskinja', Gajret 7–8 (1910): 110.47 ABH, ZVS, 57/281/2, Marija Kulijer to ZVS (1903).48 Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo, 192.49 Safijje-hanum, Pisma u obranu muslimanskog ženskinja (Sarajevo: Izdanje uredništva 'Muallima', 1911). Interestingly, the pamphlet was originally written by a Christian-Orthodox woman writing under a Muslim pseudonym, Sofija Pletikosić, and was appropriated by the Islamic Teachers' Association. For more information on the 1911 polemic on Muslim women's education, see Fabio Giomi, 'Tra genere, classe, confessione e nazione. La "Questione femminile musulmana" e l'associazionismo musulmano in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1903–1941' (PhD diss., University of Bologna/EHESS, 2011), 28–63.50 Safijje-hanum, Pisma u obranu, 1.51 Ibid., 18.52 Mina Kujović, 'Ko su bile prve nastavnice u Muslimanskoj osnovnoj i višoj djevojačkoj narodnoj školi u Sarajevu (1894–1918)', Muallim, 19 Safer 1426 /March 29, 2005, 48–55.53 ABH, ZVS, 84/150/39, Edhem Mulabdić to ZVS (1917).54 ABH, ZVS, 57/49/7, Štefanija Franković a ZVS (1903).55 The only exception was marriage with another teacher, but this option was rarely available in practice. Mitar Papić, Školstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini.56 Claudia Huerkamp, 'La maestra', in L'uomo dell'Ottocento, ed. Ute Frevert and Heinz-Grhard Haupt (Bari: Laterza, 1999): 174–201.57 ABH, ZVS, 192.630, August 23, 1918, 13–14.58 Robert J. Donia, Sarajevo, A Biography (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006). Regarding the new social practices that emerged in Sarajevo after 1878, see Besarović, Iz kulturnog života u Sarajevu; Kruševac, Sarajevo pod austro-ugarskom upravom.59 Cânâ Bilsel, 'L'espace public existait-il dans la ville ottomane? Des espaces libres au domaine public à Istanbul (XVIIe–XIXe siècles)', Études balkaniques 14 (2007): 73–104.60 Safijje-hanum, Pisma u obranu, 6.61 Ibid.62 Ibid., 18.63 Ibid., 4.64 ABH, ZVS, 57/45/10, Štefanija Franković to ZVS (1901). In 1906 the wealthy Bašagić family decided to host the school in a house on their property in Kečina Street, in a mahala. See ABH, ZVS, 84/150/39, Edhem Mulabdić to ZVS (1917).65 E., 'Nešto o našoj ženskoj ruždiji', Sarajevski list 187 (1910): 1–2.66 ABH, ZVS, 57/281/2, Marija Kulijer to ZVS (1903).67 Daughter of the Ottoman pasha in Bosnia, she wrote poems in the Ottoman language in the 1870s, which were published in the journal Servet-i-funun. See Ajša Zahirović, Od stiha do pjesme (Tuzla: Univerzal, 1985), 14–17.68 ABH, ZVS, 57/49/4, Štefanija Franković to ZVS (1903).69 Nafija Zildžić, 'Proljeće je granulo', Behar 8 (1907–1908): 27. On the late-Ottoman woman writers, see Elizabeth B. Frierson, 'Women in Late Ottoman Intellectual History', in Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy, ed. Elisabeth Özdalga (London: Routledge-Curzon, 2005), 135–61.70 Zahirović, Od stiha do pjesme.71 Nafija Sarajlić, Teme (Sarajevo: Preporod, 1997).72 Šefika Bjelevac,'Odgoj i Škola', Biser 12 (1913): 274.73 For a broader analysis of the written production of Muslim women in Habsburg Bosnia, see Fabio Giomi, 'Daughters of Two Empires: Muslim Women and Public Writing in Habsburg Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878–1918)', Aspasia 9 (2015, forthcoming).74 Bilal Hasanović, 'Islamske obrazovne ustanove u Bosni i Hercegovini od 1859 do 1941 godine', Islamski pedagoški Fakutet (Zenica, 2008), 184.75 Kujović, 'Muslimanska osnovna i viša djevojačka škola', 75.76 Nusret Kujraković, 'Osvitanje. Prvo udruženje muslimanki u Bosni i Hercegovini', Prilozi 38 (2009): 145–64.77 Hasan Rebac, 'Pojava muslimanke među sestrama jugoslovenkama', Ženki Pokret 4–5 (1920): 25–7.Additional informationFundingResearch for this article was made possible through financial support from the Institute for Advanced Study at the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), where the author spent the 2013–2014 academic year as a Junior Fellow.