Exhibition
LIKE HLAPIĆ AND GITA
Orphans in Croatia from the late 19th to the early 20th Century
Organizer
Croatian School Museum, Trg Republike Hrvatske 4, 10000 Zagreb www.hsmuzej.hr
On the Behalf of the Organizer
Branka Manin
Author of the Exhibition
Štefka Batinić
Visual Design of the Exhibition
Ivan Antunović
Marketing
Kristina Gverić
Educational Programme
Ivana Dumbović Žužić
Technical associate
Fredy Fijačko
The exhibition and catalogue were financed by the City Office for Education, Culture and Sports and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.
From November 14, 2013 to March 15, 2014
Hlapić and Gita – the main protagonists of the novel by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, The Strange Adventures of Hlapić the Apprentice [original Croatian: Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića] – are the most well known orphans in Croatian children's literature. First published in 1913 by the Croatian Pedagogical Literary Society, Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić's remarkable children's novel is an award book for school students which offers a truly moving reading experience for every reader, even today. In commemoration of the 100 year anniversary since the book's first publication, The Croatian School Museum is joining together the exhibition Hlapić in 2013 with a publication on orphans in Croatia from the late 19th to the early 20th century with the aim of approaching the pedagogical and social contexts of the turn of the century as the real-life inspiration for the literary model of the orphan-apprentice. This in turn should help contemporary readers to better understand the perspectives of the character model. This pedagogical and social contextualisation is also a contribution to the history of organised care and the protection of vulnerable children in Croatia.
The concept of an Orphan is understood as a social category and rather than purely relating to a child without one or both parents, it can be understood as a more general symbol of poverty or even neglected children, deprived of necessary care or a decent childhood. Everyday teachers are confronted with such children in their work, but without the adequate social support or systematic professional training to work with such children, teachers are left to rely on their own pedagogical skills and ultimately their innate social sensitivity. Therefore in this paper there is an emphasis on teachers' contribution to the development of the educational and social welfare of orphans and abandoned children, which has been insufficiently researched and is thus under-emphasised in current historical perspectives.
The beginnings of organised social welfare for un-cared for children can be traced back to the 15th and 16th centuries when institutions were established to take in and take care of unwanted babies [nahodište] in a number of Dalmatian towns. During the 19th century orphanages were established for children who were left without parents. These orphanages functioned to provide daily care for impoverished children whose parents were forced to work, and who had no one who they could trust to care for their children while they were working. When parents were unable to properly care for their children, the orphanages provided medical care and shelter, and fed and cared for them. The majority of these institutions arose from the initiative of individual benefactors, charities and religious orders. Care for neglected children was primarily reliant on charity up until the early 20th century, with smaller or larger amounts of help from state aid.
The development and modernisation of society in all areas intensified the problem of abandoned and neglected children, especially in cities. Children in the early 20th century were the most endangered population in society. More than 50 percent of the total number of deaths was of children up to the age of 14, and 20 percent of newborn children died in the first year of life. Impoverished families many of them living in small and unhygienic living conditions, the death of parents, alcoholism, difficult financial conditions, the increasing necessity for both parents to work, child labour – these are some of the many causes for the increase in the number of vulnerable children. Children born out of wedlock were also part of this endangered group of children. At the end of the 1910s in Zagreb 20% of newly born babies were born out of wedlock. Most of these children were stigmatized according to the governing social norms and customs, and did not have the possibility of growing up in an appropriate and stimulating environment. They would suffer due to their limited educational opportunities and therefore had little chance to climb the social ladder.
The first professionals to deal with the problems of welfare for orphans and abandoned or neglected children in Croatia emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. Among them were lawyer, Josip Šilović and teachers Ivan Tomašić, Stjepan Širola, Milka Pogačić Vera Tkalec. The arguments of these people, alongside the natural progression of civilisation, and by following successful examples from other countries in this field, helped to advance the process of transitioning the issue of welfare for orphans from the private sphere to the public sphere and to help instigate continual and systematic social action. The question of social welfare for children became a question of national importance and moreover, a question of elementary humanity.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Croatian school teachers showed that sensitivity towards children and their problems both in word and in deed was not a passing intellectual fashion or convenient mercy, but rather a genuine effort for their theoretical and practical work to finally make tangible progress in the pedagogical and social field. Within these efforts was the notable influence of the European reformative pedagogical idea and movement, which were separate and adapted to function within their own place and time. The association of teachers, 'For our children' [Za našu djecu] launched Children's day and Children's holiday in order to raise money for the establishment of an institute for neglected children (envisaged as a shelter, cradle and safe place for children), while The Youth Holiday Colony promoted its work in the daily and professional press, particularly in the magazine, 'The Domestic Hearth' [Domaće ognjište].
The pioneering work of teachers in both the theoretical and practical field of social work in Croatia was an important link in the further development of the discipline, particularly in the approaching difficult periods of the First World War and the post-war period. The majority of the goodwill organisations intensified their work during the war, and The League for the Protection of Children had a particularly important role, as the Zagreb city government saw the organisation as its partner and collaborator in the great mission for the welfare of war orphans and the families of mobilised soldiers. The League expanded its actions outside of Zagreb and also established a special department called, The League for the Protection of Families of Mobilised Soldiers. During the war the League organised a large social action concerned with the hunger of children in Istria, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia, thanks in great part to the efforts of Josip Šilović and Đuro Basariček.
Children from the orphanage and shelters rarely had the possibility of acquiring further education. More often than not, after finishing the lowest level of mandatory school education children would train for practical occupations provided by apprentice and vocational schools. In Zagreb at the end of the 19th century there was a school for abandoned children, or more precisely a ‘remedial’ class, which was attended by boys with problematic behaviour who were previously school leavers. With the establishment of the reformatory in Glina in 1902, the school closed. ‘Earn your own bread as soon as possible‘ was the basic principle in the education of orphans. Boys found their bread as apprentices in various professions, and girls as chambermaids, maids and nannies.
Fictional orphans in children’s novels and short stories from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century did have a little more success than their peers in real life. Their successes, however were based on certain presuppositions which frequently reoccur with children’s writers (who are in large part teachers themselves), which include; an appropriate personality for the orphan, his unbearably difficult life which proves the child’s virtues to his adult mentors (who are once again primarily teachers) and ultimately, a benefactor who will provide him with financial security. It is not a coincidence that most orphans experienced both fortune and misfortune in their apprenticeships. In this, at least, the fictional lives of orphans and their real counterparts are not so different. Social and economic circumstances (‘earn your own bread as soon as possible’) were important for both real and fictional orphans. The orphan-apprentice as a literary character was a convenient and fruitful medium for the pedagogical message. He was either the epitome of compassion and pity, for those who were so removed from his world, or an offer of hope, a model example for his fellow sufferers in reality. Apprenticeship was a kind of initiation into life, a period of trials that had to be overcome or a decision that had to be made to change the life of a former orphan in order to finally raise him above the position of a social outsider.
With the beginning of the ‘century of the child’ and the repeat of ‘the discovery of the child’, there has been generated in Croatia, albeit in modest terms, the appearance of a debate surrounding issues of neglect and violence against children, and a warning to teachers: ‘Do not raise your hand to children! The streets may have filled them with vulgarity and brutality, but this is because they have no home. Their profanity and roughness accuses...