Povijest autobiografije pratimo još od antike i srednjeg vijeka, međutim teorijska
misao o autobiografiji razvila se tek u drugoj polovici 20. stoljeća. Zbog različitih i složenih
pojavnosti autobiografije, te problema (ne)odredivosti autobiografije kao žanra, suvremene
teorije sklone su je promatrati kao diskurs. Feministička teorija na autobiografiju gleda kao na
specifičan diskurs čija je svrha konstituiranje ženskog subjekta.
Budući da u hrvatskoj znanstvenoj produkciji dosad nije bilo sustavnijih istraživanja
ženskih autobiografija, ova će disertacija na zaokruženom korpusu autobiografskih tekstova
hrvatskih književnica nastojati pokazati osnovna obilježja autobiografskog diskursa, tipove
autobiografskih subjekata i identiteta, njihovo konstituiranje i reprezentiranje u tekstu te
različite politike (samo)predočavanja.
Kao kriteriji analize uzet će se naratološke kategorije poput pripovjednog lica, vremena i
prostora, zatim tipovi diskursa i stilsko-retoričkog okvira koji se pojavljuju u autobiografijama
hrvatskih književnica te postupci autoreferencijalnosti i intertekstualnosti. Analizom i
usustavljivanjem dosad slabo istraženog područja ženskih autobiografija u hrvatskoj
književnosti nastojat će se dati početni poticaj daljnjim istraživanjima te teme.The history of autobiography dates as far back as antiquity and the Middle Ages,
but the theory of autobiography is developed only in the second half of the 20th century. As a
result of its different and complex manifestations and of the (im)possibility to define
autobiography as a genre, contemporary theories favour the idea of autobiography as a
discourse. The feminist theory understands autobiography as a particular discourse that
constitutes the female subject.
As there have been no systematic and relevant studies of female autobiographies in
Croatian science so far, this doctoral thesis will analyse the autobiographies of Croatian female
writers who lived and worked in 19th and 20th century and try to show the basic characteristics
of the autobiographical discourse, different types of subjects and identities, their constitution
and representation in the text, as well as different policies of (self)representation. Criteria of
analysis that will be considered: narratological categories such as narrative point of view (firstperson
narrative, second-person narrative, third-person narrative), narrative time and space,
furthermore types of autobiographical discourse, rhetorical and stylistic figures and
conventions and acts of self-reference and intertextuality in autobiographical discourse of
Croatian female writers.
First criteria – narrative pont of view – shows us that first-person narrative is dominant and
considered as usual and expected in the autobiographical discourse. However, in some of the
texts analysed there is a tendency to evade the first-person narrative and use other narrative
strategies, such as third- and second-person narrative. Such strategies can be interpreted as a
sign of the turn in perspective view or narrative model or even experiment and subversion of
the autobiographical subject.
Second criteria – narrative time – shows us that Croatian female writers dominantly use the
chronological approach in writing their autobiographies. One of the dominant characteristics of
autobiography is its tendency to retrospective and reminiscence, and most of the texts analysed
emphasise the importance of the past and chronological presentation of that past. However,
some of the autobiographies show different type of autobiographical discourse, which is rather
achronological, discontinuous and incoherent.
Third criteria – narrative space – shows us the importance of both geographical and social
(cultural) space in autobiographies of Croatian female writers. Most of the authors understand
the social space as social construct and they write their autobiographies with the idea of
positioning themselves in that social and cultural space. Autobiography is considered to be the type of discourse that allows its subject to position itself into the social, cultural, political
sphere of life. Some of the authors emphasise the importance of deconstruction of the
dichotomy public/private space, in terms of women's egalitarian participation in the public
space and all the practices of social and political life.
Fourth criteria – rhetorical and stylistic figures and different types of autobiographical
discourses – shows us that Croatian female writers use different and numerous narrative and
rhetorical sets and strategies in order to represent their autobiographical identity. There are
autobiographies that demonstrate a higher level od literariness, and also those that demonstrate
rather factographical or theoretical than literal type of discourse. The corpus shows us some
examples of parodical and ironical approach to the autobiographical subject, as well as the
multi-discoursive approach to constituting and representing the autobiographical subject.
Fifth criteria – acts of self-reference and intertextuality – shows us proneness of Croatian
female writers to a particular kind of textual strategies such as referring to the act of writing
autobiography and awareness of that act and its subject which is a construct, or rather a product
of cultural and linguistic models and narratives. The concept od intertextuality (in Kristeva's
sense of the word) is found to be one of the strategies in establishing the dialogue amongst the
autobiographical texts writen by Croatian female writers and totality of the cultural text that
they refer to. Intertextuality is often actualized by quotation and even self-quoatiton (in such
cases in which the author establishes the dialogue with other, non-autobiographical, texts in her
literary work).
Autobiographies of Croatian female writers show us the tendency of constituting and
representing the relational type of autobiographical identity – in most of the texts analysed the
emphasis is on the relation towards the world of literature and culture (which is understandable
given the professional affiliatiton of the autobiographers). In some cases, the dominant
ideology and cultural (literal) model of subject and selfhood is merely reproduced, and in some
other cases it is being questioned and subject to criticism.
Analysis and systematization of this insufficiently researched domain will hopefully give
an initial incentive for the future research of female autobiographies
