Multilingualism and the Social Status of Women in the City of Osijek in the 19Th and Early 20Th Centuries

Multilingualism and the Social Status of Women in the City of Osijek in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries Ljubica Kordic1, Visnja Lachner2, 1Associate Professor, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Law Osijek, Croatia 2Assistant Professor, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Law Osijek, Croatia *Ljubica Kordic Abstract. The authors strive to present the social status of women in Croatian cities in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries on the example of the multilingual city of Osijek. The main goal of the paper is to determine the main features of the social position of women at that time and to examine how it was influenced by their knowledge of two or three languages spoken in the multilingual milieu of the city: Croatian, German and Hungarian. The object of the research encompasses job announcements and advertisements concerning women in the local newspapers in the German language die Drau and Slawonische Presse published in Osijek in that period. In the introduction, the political background of Croatian society at the observed period is presented and the analysis of the relevant legal regulations conducted from the point of view of the history of law. In the main part, newspaper announcements and advertisements concerning women and multilingualism are researched into and discussed from the perspective of pragmatic linguistics and sociolinguistics. The method used in achieving this goal was fieldwork research of the original issues of two local newspapers in the German language - Die Drau and Slawonische Presse available at the State Archives of Osijek. The corpus of the research encompasses all the issues of Slawonische Presse published from 1870 to 1918, and of Die Drau from 1870 to 1927. In the final part, conclusions are drawn based on the findings and the social status of women is depicted as influenced by their knowledge of two or more languages spoken in the city of Osijek. Keywords: multilingualism, women, social status, the multilingual city of Osijek, Croatia 1. Introduction The paper1 deals with the social status of women in the city of Osijek in the 19th and the early 20th centuries. In the explored time, Croatia was a constituent part of the Austro- Hungarian Kingdom, so multilingualism was an important feature of social life, especially in 1 This paper is a product of work that has been fully supported by the Faculty of Law Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, under the project number IP-PRAVOS-20: “Germans and Austrians and the German language and culture in the city of Osijek throughout a history – legal and linguistic aspects”. 1 urban settings. Multilingualism represented an integral part of the multicultural city of Osijek and an essential element of its identity. 1.1 Hypothesis, methods, and the goal of the research In the explored time, Croatia was a constituent part of the Austro-Hungarian Kingdom, so multilingualism was an important feature of social life, especially in urban settings. Multilingualism represented an integral part of the multicultural city of Osijek and an essential element of its identity. The hypothesis of this research is that the multicultural social and linguistic context of the city significantly influenced the social status of a woman. The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether and to what extent women's social position was influenced by their ability to speak other languages than Croatian in Osijek. From the point of view of pragmatic linguistics, the goal of the research is to define the face of woman as determined by the social context of the multicultural and multilingual milieu of the city. The word “face” is understood here as “(…) the public self-image of person; (…) that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize” (Yule, 1996: 60). A picture of the social status of the woman living at that time in Osijek derives from thorough research into newspaper advertisements, job announcements and other newspaper reports relating to women. Job announcements and advertisements relating to women, which represent the corpus of the research, are collected from two local newspapers, Die Drau and Slawonische Presse. Both newspapers were published in the German language at the time when Croatian was recognized as the official language in Croatia that was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy back then. Before analysing job announcements and advertisements as specific types of utterances from the perspective of pragmatic linguistics, the social and historical context in which these texts were published will be presented. 1.2 Social, legal, and political context of the research The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century is a very dynamic period in the development of Central Europe as well as of the city of Osijek. It is a time of great economic progress and new scientific discoveries. In Croatia, this was the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, i.e. the dualism in which Croatia was left to the Hungarian political supremacy and interest policy. In the mentioned period Ivan Mažuranić and the Hungarian Khuen Hedervary, who wanted Croatia to become a part of Hungary, were appointed Croatian Bans, i.e. persons at the head of the Croatian government. During the time of the Ban Ivan Mažuranić (1873 - 1880), the Croatian lands were hit by a wave of modernization, which affected various areas of society. As regards women, this was the age of "conservative modernization", because the only "women's issue" that attracted attention in the 19th century was the issue of upbringing and education of girls (Jagić, 2008: 77). Modernization processes also influenced the development of civil society in which struggles took place between traditional patriarchal relations and the modern civil system. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Osijek was one of the largest and most economically developed cities in Croatia, i.e. the administrative, political, cultural, religious, educational, social, and economic center of the region Slavonia. Under the Law on the Organization of 2 City Municipalities of 1881, it enjoyed a special status of the city in the rank of a county. New changes in the organization of city municipalities occurred in 1895, with the Act on the Organization of City Municipalities in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia. This law, passed by the authoritative government of Khuen Hédérvary, led to a more pronounced centralization and to the restriction of the right to vote only to men. As before, the city's grand prefect supervises the operations of the city administration, so the city of Osijek was directly subordinated to the Provincial Government. As a direct consequence of the above-mentioned modernization processes, the share of the female population in the second half of the 19th century was significantly higher than that of the male population. According to Szabo, between 1880 and 1900, there were 47.50% of men and 52.50% of women in the Croatian urban population (Szabo, 1996: 156). Consequently, these processes have affected the position of women and their role in the new social environment. They leave the private sphere and enter the public sphere, which until then was reserved only for men. This significant step forward on the social and economic scene and the labor market was possible primarily through education. Before Mažuranić's reforms, women in the countryside were uneducated, while women in the city often received insufficient education in girls' schools. They were raised to be good housekeepers, wives, mothers, and often nothing more. Most families at the time did not have the financial means to educate all their children. In 1874, Ban Mažuranić introduced compulsory primary education for male and female children - until then, it was only male children who enjoyed that right (Krešić, 2019: 234 f.). Civic, i.e. girls' colleges were opened, which provided girls with the opportunity for further education. Accordingly, in 1882, the third Slavonian Girls' High School was opened in Osijek, and the number of students grew every year (Župan, 2013: 79). However, the curriculum of the Girls' High School did not enable further higher education, so women's education in Croatia ended in teacher's schools (preparatory schools for future teachers). It was not until 1901 that the imperial decision permitted women to study at the University of Zagreb, and in 1917 higher education was made possible (Župan, 2013: 107- 110). Consequently, the job of a teacher was the first occupation that enabled women to enter the public sphere, as it was considered that the occupation was in line with the female "nature" because it arose from the female maternal identity (Župan, 2013: 141). In performing this profession, women were discriminated against because they were paid less than male teachers until 1874 when the law equalized the salaries of teachers. This Mažuranić's law was one of the few laws in Europe that did not discriminate against female teachers (Krasnohorska, 1884: 452). However, with the amendment to the law of 1888, the female teachers could not marry, that is, marriage was considered a voluntary resignation from the service (Cuvaj, 1911: 373). In line with modernization, the emergence of mass consumption, and the growth of industry, women from lower social classes were forced to work to support themselves and their families. They worked as auxiliary workers in factories, mostly in the textile and chemical industries. They were the heirs of their deceased husband's trade and were seamstresses, inn- owners, and maids (Červenjak, J. and Živaković-Kerže, 2014: 135-136). In Osijek in 1880, 797 women were employed in crafts and most often worked as auxiliary workers in tailoring salons, cafes, patisseries, and the like (Szabo, 1996: 160). In wealthy families, women from lower social classes were employed as servants (Červenjak, J.

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