Two Models of Women Fairy Tale Creation in Slovenia – Women Fairy Tale Writers and Women Storytellers MILENA MILEVA BLAŽIĆ This article presents Slovenian female fairy tale writers who belonged to the streams of fairy tale writing in the middle of the 19th century, when Josipina Turnograjska published the fairy tale Rožmanova Lenčica (Rož- man’s Lenčica) in 1853. This was much later than the start of European women fairy tale writing, which has its roots in the late medieval period with the trobairitz, and continued in the 16th century. After that the new stream of women fairy tale writers developed with the préciosité in the 17th century. The author researches the development of women fairy tale writing in Slovenia and classifies their creation of fairy tales in two main models: writing literary fairy tales, and storytelling or performing folk tales. Lately, among Slovenian women, writing contemporary fairy tales is also popular. 1. The topic addressed Slovenian women fairy tale creators made an appearance in the middle of the 19th century, when Josipina Turnograjska in 1853 published the fairy tale Rozmanova Lenčica (Rožman’s Lenčica). With this publication, the Slovenian women fairy tale creators also ‘officially’ became synchronously integrated into the European streams of women fairy tale writing. Long before that, the medieval female troubadours (trobairises) had created their works in Europe, while in the 17th century the French women authors of the literary style called préciosité, known as les précieuses, developed an authorial approach to fairy tale writing, which was later also to become established in the Slovenian territory. 254 Milena Mileva Blažić It is a known fact that the first collections of fairy tales were intended for adult readers, as is evident in the works Le piacevoli notti (The Face- tious Nights of Straparola, 1550–1553) by Giovanni Francesco Straparola, and Il pentamerone (1634, 1636) by Giambattista Basile, which are now recognized as the first collections of fairy tales for adults. The first collection of fairy tales for children – according to current knowledge – was Les Contes de ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Tales, 1697) by Charles Perrault. The most popular children’s fairy tale collection – also according to the number of translations – entitled Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) and written by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm was first published in 1812 (the first book) and in 1815 (the second book), after which it experienced several updated editions. In fairy tale re- search this collection is still regarded as the central book collection of fairy tales. Typical of French fairy tales, narrated in literary salons, was that the “text was intended for children, while the context was meant for adults”1. Nevertheless, fairy tales of the French les précieuses exerted a major impact on the development of fairy tale writing and storytelling, not only for adults but also for children around the world. 2. The women fairy tale writers and storytellers The model of writing fairy tales comprises the first form of ‘women fairy tale creating’ represented by literate storytellers or w r i t e r s of fairy tales, such as les précieuses. These were the authors of higher social origin, like the most famous writer of fairy tales, Marie- Catherine d’Aulnoy (1650/51–1705), also known as Madame d’Aulnoy. Beside her, among the most prominent French women fairy tale writers were Henriette-Julie de Castelnau de Murat (1670–1716) and Marie Jeanne 1 Seifert 2006, p. 54. Women Fairy Tale Writers and Women 255 L’Heritier de Villandor (1664–1734). The latter wrote a collection of short stories entitled Les Caprices du destin, ou Recueil d’histoires singulière et amusantes (1718). They put model folk tales into literary form, while also adding authorial elements and placing stories into a cultural context. Re- nowned as les précieuses were also Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (1695–1755), who wrote La jeune américaine et les contes marins (1749), and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumon (1711–1780), with the work Magasin des jeunes Dames and La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast). In her collection of fairy tales Madame de Villeneuve also published one of the most recognizable variants of the fairy tale type ATU 425C – Beauty and the Beast: La Belle et la Bête, which still has an important role in comparative literary-historical studies. The fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is similar to Apuleius’ fairy tale Cupid and Psyche (ATU 425), which was published in his well-known book Metamorphoses. The model of oral creation or storytelling comprises another form of ‘women fairy tale creating’, represented by the so-called storytellers or the narrators and amanuenses of fairy tales, as they were engaged with storytelling and writing of fairy tales. This article does not include the folk storytellers – narrators, of whom the most famous was Dorothea Viehmann from Rengershausen near Kassel (1755–1815), who passed on as many as 21 fairy tales to the Brothers Grimm which were mostly included in the second book of the first edition (1815). Considering that she was of Huguenot descent, it makes sense that her ‘German’ fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm often refer intertextually to the French context. Dorothea Viehmann was a peasant woman of lower social origin who dealt with storytelling, especially of folk tales. Left to fend for her four children at the time when the Brothers Grimm collected fairy tales, she came in their bourgeois house in Kassel, where she told them 36 fairy tales which they wrote down. She was immortalized by the third brother, Ludwig Grimm, who was a painter and drew her portrait. Dorothea Viehmann was not the only storyteller for the Brothers Grimm, as the latter also got their 256 Milena Mileva Blažić fairy tales from other storytellers, including the Hassenpflug sisters (Amalie, Johanna, Marie) and Dorothea Wild. 3. The women fairy tale writers of the 19th century The 19th century, under the influence of Romanticism and the search for national identity, saw the rise of interest in the folk tradition, including fairy tales; this is why Jack Zipes named it the Golden Age of folk and fairy tales.2 At the end of the 19th century, a monographic disquisition was also created in the field of comparative analysis of a single fairy tale type – under the influence of historical-geographical method of fairy tale research – written by Marian Roalfe Cox (1860–1916), addressing the fairy tale type ATU 510A – Persecuted Heroine: Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty- Five Variants of Cinderella (1893). This was a time when the first female researchers began collecting fairy tales and folk tales, which had until then been published mostly by male collectors, even though many of the latter gathered fairy tales from the so-called female informants or narrators of fairy tales. At this time, when society was still traditionally oriented, the women authors and collectors, researchers or writers of fairy tales only seldom, if ever, managed to establish themselves. Among the few exceptions are the already mentioned Marian Roalfe Cox and Božena Nemcova (1820–1862), who in the period 1857–58 issued the Czech Fairy Tales (translated into Slovene in 1912 and 1920), and beside them also Laura Gonzenbach, who collected the material for fairy tales in Sicily and published it in the book Sicilianische Märchen (Sicilian Folktales, 1870). In the Slovenian territory, in addition to male collectors and authors of fairy tales (Matevž Ravnikar (Poženčan), Matija Valjavec, Janez Trdina, Fran Levstik, Josip Jurčič et al.) also women fairy tale writers began to 2 Zipes 2013. Women Fairy Tale Writers and Women 257 collect and/or write folk tales. They started to gain reputation in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, primarily by writing songs with fairy-tale elements and translating fairy tales. Among them were Marica Strnad Cizerlj, Marica Nadlišek Bartol, Manica Koman, Lea Fatur, Josipina Urbančič Turnograjska, Vida Jeraj, Marija Grošelj, Marica Gre- gorič Stepančič, Elza Lešnik, Marija Kmet, Pavlina Pajk, Luiza Pesjak, Marija Jezernik, Sonja Sever, Ljudmila Prunk, Marjana Grasselini Prosenc or Anka Nikolič, Ilka Vašte, Liza Hribar, and others. Besides these well- known female fairy tale writers, there are many about whom we do not have enough information and who therefore require further research, in- cluding Albina Hintner. According to those sources known at present, Josipina Turnograjska was the first Slovenian woman writer to write and also publish a fairy tale. Her fairy tale entitled Rožmanova Lenčica (Rožman’s Lenčica) was pub- lished in 1853 in the newspaper Zora (pp. 113–127). Thus, also in the Slovenian territory two models of creating fairy tales developed – the written and the oral model. The first model of creating fairy tales, represented by women fairy tale writers, began in 1853 by Josipina Turnograjska. The author originated from a higher social class, which means that she was well-educated, had learned languages and, what is important, knew how to write and had access to the Slovenian literary system of the time, namely the publications in magazines. Another Slove- nian woman writer of fairy tales, Luiza Pesjak, who translated into Slovene the German version of Red Riding Hood (Rudeča kapica 1875), also came from the higher social class. The storytellers or ‘narrators of fairy tales’, of course, existed long be- fore fairy tale writers appeared, but no records on the matter exist. Only later, certain sources were preserved about them, for example in Štrekelj’s and Križnik’s collections; however, even these records are modest at best. Nevertheless, they proved invaluable for further research. When the collec- ting of folk literature became a part of scientific discipline – folklore studies and ethnology – the information on the women storytellers also started to 258 Milena Mileva Blažić be preserved.