Predodžbe djece i mladih u Pričama iz davnine Ivane Brlić-Mažuranić
Representations of the Child and an Adolescent in Tales of Long Ago

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses Tales of Long Ago by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić from a culturalist perspective. The initial hypothesis is that representations of children and young people correspond to the representations of the time when the collection was written and not to the period of a long-ago, unspecified mythological past. Further, the paper interprets the characteristics of children and young people representations in the tales of the collection. The importance of children and young people and the meaning that is attributed to them is interpreted as part of modern, post-Enlightenment views on children and young people, which construct them as the centre of family and social life. One set of representations shows the innate goodness of the children and their innate potential to change society for the better, thus it attributes them utopian meanings. Other representations show children and young people in their process of socialisation process which should turn them into subjects that participate in the activities of the community in a purposeful and useful way. Both groups of representations can be seen in the interaction with the civil culture of the long 19th century (Hobsbawm 1987) that marked the life and work of Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić.

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