The Mažuranić family
Traces of Mažuranić family date back to the 14th century in Split, from where one part of the family moved to Senj and later to Novi. In documents from the 17th century, some members in the Mažuranić family are called Jankovići, from Janko (1638-1697). They were involved in agriculture. The first educated Mažuranić was the priest Antun Mažuranić, a self-taught artist and sculptor who lived in the 18th century.
In the old family from Novi, Mažuranić, in the marriage of Ivan Mikula Mažuranić Petrov, a literate elder, people’s judge from Novi and Marija born Ivić, five sons were born:
- Petar Luka (1799 – 1817) little is known about him, he died as a student in Ogulin
- Josip (1802 – 1891) remained in Novi, died in Čajnić (BiH)
- Antun (1805 – 1888) philologist and lawyer
- Ivan (1814 – 1890) poet, lawyer and Ban
- Matija (1817 – 1881) blacksmith, entrepreneur and travel writer
The three brothers Ivan, Antun and Matija marked the 19th century with their work and achievements and they left valuable traces in the Croatian history. They made exceptional contribution to the development of Croatian politics, science, culture and art. Ivan, a poet, Ban and the creator of the modern Croatian state, is especially significant.
Professor of Croatian language, Croatian writer and a linguist. He worked in Zagreb Gymnasium. He spoke Latin, Italian, Greek, French, German and Russian.
From Ban Jelačić, he was appointed Ban’s commissioner for Vinodol (1848-50), with its seat in Novi, and in 1861-68 he was the director of the gymnasium in Rijeka. He prepared editions of old Croatian writers (H. Lucić, M. Vetranović and I. Đurđević), and in 1843 he published the Statute of Vinodol in Vraz’s Kola, book III. The manuscript of the Statute of Vinodol was kept in the archives of the Modruš Chapter in Novi.
As a native from Novi, he studied and scientifically analysed Croatian Chakavian dialect, especially accentuation in Chakavian.
He published: Kratak pregled stare literature hrvatske; Temelji ilirskoga i latinskoga jezika and Slovnica hérvatska. He was awarded the Russian medal of the Order of St. Vladimir, thus gaining the right to the Russian nobility.
Ivan Mažuranić (Novi, 1814 – Zagreb, 1890)
Croatian Ban, politician, writer and lawyer, founder of the modern Croatian state. He was a poet, a statesman, a polyglot, a versatile and a shy person. He conducted numerous state duties, wrote legal programmatic writings and was able to write excellent texts. In all his affairs, in all the fields in which he was engaged, he left a deep mark.
He studied philosophy and law in Zagreb and Szombathely and graduated in Zagreb in 1835. He worked as a high school teacher, then in Karlovac as a lawyer.
Although he was briefly engaged in poetic work, he had created verses and sentences that we still talk about today. He left behind an ingenious addition to songs XIV and XV of Gundulić’s Osman in 1844, and in 1846 he wrote the epic Smrt Smail age Čengića, one of the most translated works of Croatian literature. He is the creator of the first political prose Hrvati Mađarom.
He spoke a dozen languages. He spent his last years with his family studying mathematics and astronomy.
Matij (Matija) Mažuranić (Novi, 1817 – Feldhof, Graz, 1881)
Blacksmith, mill builder and construction entrepreneur. With an adventurous spirit, he went to Bosnia and in 1842 published the first Croatian travel book Pogled u Bosnu.
He later worked on the construction of a railway in Zagorje ob Sava, and in August 1847 he was again in Sarajevo. In 1847-49 he built mills on Miljacka in Sarajevo and on Lašva in Travnik.
He returned to Novi 1852 and managed his own land, undertook works on the repair of roads and bridges in Carolina, and was the mayor of the municipality Novi in 1856. In 1861, he employed people from Novi for public works on repairs to rain-soaked roads in Novi.
In that year, the road along the sea from Lukavica to Mel was built, in 1863 he started the construction of Vela Riva (port breakwater), for which he obtained building permits as a contractor, and later left the construction to the municipality. That year he built the bridge on Ričina, in 1868 he built the road St. Juraj – Krasno. In 1869 he mapped the Rudolfina road from Pleteni to Ogulin, which he built from 1870 to 1874. The road was opened on October 30, 1874.
In 1864, on the site of the demolished father’s house, he built a house for himself and his brothers Anton and Ivan (inscription on the front: Bratja Mažuranići), later called Glavarova kuća. He later reimbursed his brothers costs of contributing to the house. At his own expense he built a street of the present width to his house. The owners of the houses that were built later in that street ceded part of their plots so that the street could be constructed. He cultivated 23 acres of his own land, and three acres of other people’s land – arable land, vineyards and pastures. He had a couple of houses in Novi and a house in Zagreb. He was wealthy. In June 1879, he ended up in the sanatorium for the insane in Feldhof near Graz, where he died in 1881.
Vladimir Fran Mažuranić (1859 – 1928)
Poet, cartoonist, novelist and travel writer. Son of Matija Mažuranić. He was a writer and journalist, an active officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, which he left because of his political ideas and travelled the world. During 30 years of wandering, he crossed all continents except Australia. He earned for a living writing literature and through journalism by writing in foreign languages. Almost all his literary work created abroad under various pseudonyms has been completely lost. He published in Croatian in the prose Lišće in 1887. After 40 years, when everyone already thought he was dead, he published the book Od Zore do mraka, 1927. He died in 1928 in Berlin, and in 1973 his remains were transferred to Novi, in a stone urn to the cemetery in Novi.
Vladimir Mažuranić (1845 – 1928)
Legal writer and president of Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, Croatian lexicographer, writer, lawyer, historian and academic of Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is the son of the Croatian Ban and poet Ivan Mažuranić (1814-1890) and Aleksandra, the sister of the linguist Dimitrije Demetra and the father of the Croatian writer Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874-1938). He was the president of the Tabula Banalis (Ban’s Table) (1898-1912). In the period from 1908 to 1922, Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts published his major scientific work Prinosi za hrvatski pravno-povijesni rječnik in ten volumes, and in 1923 the author’s additions with a total volume of 1,756 pages. He was the president of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1918 to 1921, an honorary member of the Czech and Polish academies, and an honorary Doctor of Law at the University of Zagreb.
Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874 – 1938)
Croatian writer (granddaughter of Ban Ivan Mažuranić and daughter of Vladimir Mažuranić, writer, lawyer and historian) known in Croatia and in the world as one of the most important writers for children. She studied privately and acquired excellent education, including knowledge of foreign languages, so some of her first literary attempts were in French. Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić started writing poetry, essays and diaries very early, but her first works were published at the beginning of the twentieth century. She published a collection of short stories and poems for children Valjani i nevaljani in 1902. Stories and texts such as a series of educational articles entitled Škola i praznici had been published regularly since 1903. In 1913, she got the real attention of the literary audience with her children’s novel Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića. She wrote a collection of poems Slike (1912), a pedagogically intoned Knjiga omladini (1923), records on family genealogy (Obzor, 1933-34), which she compiled in three books (1934, 1935), a historical-adventure novel for youth Jaša Dalmatin potkralj Gudžerata (1937) and translated from German and French. The most significant and striking work is the collection of short stories Priče iz davnine, published in 1916, which contain motifs of mythological wisdom of the ordinary world inspired by Slavic mythology.
She was nominated for the Nobel Prize four times (1931, 1935, 1937 and 1938), and in 1937 the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts accepted her as its (corresponding) member, the first woman to be awarded such an honour.
Often called Croatian Andersen (for her virtuosity as a children’s storyteller) and Croatian Tolkien (for reaching into the fantastic world of mythology), Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić stands side by side with the greats of children’s literature with her originality and creativity. Her works have been translated into all major world languages.
