POLOŽAJ ŽENE U POSLJEDNJIM DESETLJEĆIMA OSMANSKE UPRAVE U SARAJEVU – S POSEBNIM OSVRTOM NA ŽIVOT DAŠE JELIĆ
THE POSITION OF WOMEN DURING THE LAST DECADES OF THE OTTOMAN RULE IN SARAJEVO – WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE LIFE OF DAŠA JELIĆ

Summary/Abstract: Sources about life of women during the last decades of the Ottoman rule in Sarajevo are scanty and partial. The data about them are usually found in travelogues, memoirs, media and archival documents and least of them were records composed by women themselves. Whereas foreign travelogues tended to present a general image of a woman in Bosnia, in the chronologies and media there are occasional records which mention women only if an ”interesting” event for the general public had happened in which a woman took part or if a woman from a prominent family died. Daša, the wife of Gavro Jelić was one of the rare women from this period, who by the virtue of certain circumstances, left several personal letters. Her letters show the way of thinking about life and reality of a woman. Even though Daša’s letters mainly speak about the relationship to her husband, they indirectly speak about certain priorities that women had during this period. We also learn about her life from indirect documents which, although not offering her views on life, clearly indicate what she was going trough. Sometimes her silence about problems of which she had many was sufficient to distinguish her attitude and opinion about them. Even though over time Daša changed the way she expressed her love, concern or respect for her husband, she obviously attempted to stress her wishes and needs and that very clearly. Her letters are also the reflection and an image of a period, life of a woman for who we may certainly argue that she spent the last years of her life humbly with many problems that she, in 1856 when she got married and came to Sarajevo, could not even have dreamt of. Daša was married off into a rich and esteemed family and even though it seemed ideal to her as a young girl who came for the first time to Sarajevo, she soon understood that life had prepared something different for her. She spent 40 years in a marriage, survived the death of her six children, the total business fiasco of her husband, his imprisonment, she had to stand as a witness in court with young children because of the death of their employee, she was forced to sell her property at an auction and she was constantly exposed to problems between her husband and her eldest son Ačim as well as the fact that she was separated from him. The life of Daša Jelić in all its happy and less happy moments is a picture of life of only one woman in Sarajevo in the second half of the 19th century; the life she shared with her family, but she was special and unique in her daily routine.

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