Children's novel „The Brave Adventures of a Shoemaker's Boy“ and „Stories from the past“ 22.06.2022.
Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić began writing Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića [Children's novel „The Brave Adventures of a Shoemaker's Boy“] in early May 1912.
In mid-June, having finished the first half of the manuscript, she sent it to Josip Škavić, a teacher and at that time the editor of Smilje, a children's magazine and the series Knjižnica za mladež [Youth Library] asking him whether he would be interested in publishing the novel. In the reply Škavić expressed his interest in publishing the novel and said that he would need the final version by mid-October in order to be able to publish the novel before Christmas 1912. Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić finished the manuscript on October 13. That is why we celebrate Šegrt Hlapić's birthday on October 13. However, due to a variety of circumstances, the novel was published in June 1913 with illustrations by Nasta Šenoa Rojc, a family friend. The book was enthusiastically received by both children and adult readership. However, soon after the novel was published the circumstances radically changed. In the following year the First World broke out and horrible events that ensued captured the attention of the public. In 1916, in the course of the war, another work by Mažuranić, Priče iz davnine [Croatian Tales of Long Ago], was published, which completely overshadowed the author's debut novel. Thus, Šegrt Hlapić spent another twenty years in a modestly designed edition without illustrations published by Stjepan Kugli in 1922. Finally, in 1941 the novel got equisite illustrations by Vladimir Kirin. However, already in 1945 doubts arose concerning reprinting of the book. Still, Hlapić appeared in bookshops six years later, in 1951, published in Sarajevo. Šegrt Hlapić was written in the Christian spirit and as such did not satisfy Socialist educational goals, which probably sparked a debate on whether Šegrt Hlapić is a children's novel or a fairy tale. Relying on this new perspective on Šegrt Hlapić some illustrators embellished the book with fantasy illustrations and in 1997 an animated film featuring Hlapić as a mouse was porduced. Although it is evident that fortune has not favoured Šegrt Hlapić, the novel has managed, in an extraordinary, warm way, to find its way to the broad readership and become the most published Croatian novel of all time.
Children's novel „Stories from the past“
In 1925 in a letter to her father, Vladimir Mažuranić, Ivana Brlić Mažuranić assessed the succes of Priče iz davnine: „I am afraid, however, that we have already experienced the greatest sucess and the greatest joy with this book on two ocassions: first, when it was received with unanimous admiration all over Croatia eight years ago and second, when we saw its admirable English edition and could read that English experts recognized its value, in particular in national terms!“ Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić believed that the book had already enjoyed a tremendous success with readers and could not see what else it might achieve in the future. In 1925, Ivana Brlić Mažuranić could not anticipate that Priče iz davnine would be published in hundreds of new editions nor could she foresee the admiration that her genuine literary masterpiece would inspire even a hundred years after it was first published.
The three most prominent editions of Priče iz davnine published in the lifetime of Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić are: the first edition from 1916, which included illustrations by Petar Orlić and was received with unanimous genuine admiration of readers in spite of the fact that Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić was not satisfied with the illustrations; the English edition from 1924 with illustrations by Vladimir Kirin, which Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić especially loved and the third extended Croatian edition from 1926 illustrated by Vladimir Kirin, which included another two fairy tales, Jagor and Lutonjica Toporko i devet župančića [Lutonjica Toporko and nine county ruler's sons].
