When you are happy, the sun is chasing you.

Ivana

Dino

Vacations with children were and remain the same...

After getting married and moving to Slavonski Brod, Ivana plunged into everyday family life. She gave birth to eight children, and she would describe their incidents and accidents in the letters she sent to her mother in Zagreb. That's how she once vividly described what the summers spent in the summer house Brlićevac looked like.

"The same story begins about how beautiful it is in our vineyard this year! But what is true is true! In fact, our entire villa, the plateau in front of it, the arrangement, etc. Everything is beautiful! (...) I'm sending you the vineyard program right away: in the morning you eat sour milk with profunta or coffee with bread rolls and butter. Then it is washed or not washed. This is immediately followed by the cursing of Ivo, which continues throughout the morning, as he either says he is hungry or asks when the meal will be ready. At noon, they eat outside, but since there is a sudden storm, thunder, cannon fire and fear of hail at the breaded chickens, everyone runs under the veranda with their plate, Zdenka knocks over the jug of water and breaks it, Naca runs up and down carrying glasses and wine... - Pancakes are then eaten under the veranda, without a tablecloth, the rain is pouring... - And now comes the last, most beautiful point, a living picture. Naca and I are sitting after dinner in the moonlight in front of the house, the children, barefoot and in their shirts, run outside to say good night, we take them on our lap, while Zdenka scrapes her leg on the kid's straw armchair. After the leg is washed with hypermanganese, the idyll continues, over the moonlit plain where the Sava winds like a golden streak."

In the vineyard

What children wish for, mothers must achieve! And then they suffer.

Of course, Ivana, the mother of eight children, was faced with problems and requests known to every parent every day.

Her little son Ivo would wail: - Mom, mom, I really want a dog! –
If Ivana, to silence her little son, hinted that his wish could come true, Nada would wail from the other end of the room with the greatest sadness: - Maaaamaa! If he can get a dog, why can't I get a cat!?! –

Ivo, in his high-pitched child's voice, would immediately give a counterargument: - But I will take care of my dog! I promise, I promise! –

However, Ivana, like all parents, once had to give in. And she immediately regretted it. So, complaining in her usual humorous way, she wrote the following in a letter to her mother:

- The animal mania that reigned here has probably reached its climax, and I have to constantly worry about that whole menagerie because I am convinced that the end of the four servants and the end of all the children's love would die of hunger. –

About dogs and cats

Ivana, as a child, tried to trick everyone into thinking that a poem she wrote was actually a lost work of her famous grandfather.

As a child, Ivana was not very girly.  She declared topics her friends talked about to be „boring“ and called their conversations "pointless yelling". Ivana, on the other hand, loved writing.

But she was aware that, just because she was a woman, it would be difficult for her to succeed in the 19th Centuries world of literature. Although she was a granddaughter of the first Croatian ban – a commoner known for having introduced compulsory schooling for all children, both male, and female, she did not attend school.

Ivana finished only two classes of the girls' gymnasium and was educated at home by the governess Henrietta. But, thanks to her grandfather's library and private teaching in various languages, she was very educated.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of formal education, she could not attend institutions of higher education. But she found her purpose in writing. As a child, Ivana feared that she will not be taken seriously in the world of literature. The world which she truly loved and admired. And this is why she decided to protest.

It was in her teenage years, during the time her beloved grandfather died. 

 When the shock subsided, she observed as her parents slowly began to organize Ivan's legacy. Boxes full of yellowed sheets of paper were brought out of his study. They contained verses, translations, and poems of the biggest Croatian poet – Ivan Mažuranić himself.

 She looked at this work full of envy, thinking that she would never be able to be proud of her own poems. She thought that no one would want to publish her works. So, one evening while everyone was sleeping, Ivana pulled out a yellowed paper from a box full of her grandfathers' writings.

She carefully carried it to her room. And when she was sure that no one would notice her, Ivana took out a quill and wrote on the stolen paper. 

She decided to write down, what she, herself, declared to be her best literary achievement – the poem "Thought". After copying the poem as closely as she could to her grandfather's handwriting, she secretly slipped it back into the dusty old box with his legacy. She dreamed that at least one of her works would live publicly among his achievements.

Unfortunately for Ivana, her childhood poem was never published as a poem by Ivan Mažuranić. But it shouldn't have been. 

Ivana grew up to be one of the most talented Croatian writers and a famous children's author. Ivana Brlić Mažuranić is considered to be the most translated Croatian writer and the writer with the largest number of publications. Her childhood fear did not come true. Towards the end of her life, Ivana was widely read and appreciated.

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Read more stories

In the vineyard

About dogs and cats

Little Ivana's Big Mischief!