Numerous tourists sightsee and take walking tours in the centre of Zagreb every day, and only recently were they given the unique opportunity to follow in the footsteps of many significant and peculiar women who have made their mark in the history of Zagreb and who are mostly forgotten. The walking tour that will take you to the unknown history of Zagreb women is titled Badass Women, and is brought to you by Iva Silla, a well-known tourist guide from Zagreb, who has previously made a reputation for herself as a creator of unusual tours when she championed her Secret Zagreb tours.
If you pay attention to the street names in Zagreb, you’ll notice that, just like anywhere else in the world where the streets are named after significant people, they mostly have the names of the famous men. Were there no women in Zagreb in the history that were worth commemorating in such a way, by giving them streets that will carry their names? And the sad fact is that even the most people of Zagreb, when prompted to remember a significant woman from the history of the city, will remember Marija Jurić Zagorka, and after that they will draw a blank. Marija Jurić Zagorka was the first female journalist in Croatia and the author of very popular novels (enjoyed by many Croatians to this day), who has a monument in Tkalčićeva street. But there must’ve been other women in the history of the city?
Unfortunately, not many people know of Dragojla Jarnević, also an author, teacher and mountain climber who was only one of the two women included in the picture “Men (sic!) of the Iliryan era”, which presents all of the significant members of the Illiryan movement in Croatia in the nineteenth century. The other woman on the picture is Countess Sidonija Erdödy Rubido, popular opera singer of her time. And even less people have heard of Štefanija Falica, born in Šibenik, who joined her husband in the army during the WWI, and came back from the war in a uniform which included a skirt (again, World War One!), and had the officer’s rank!
You’ll hear more about them, and other similarly remarkable women if you join the Badass Women tour, and join Iva Silla in an original, fresh and deeply inspirational walk around the town. The tour starts at Zrinjevac and takes you all the way to Gornji grad. The tour will leave you understanding a famous sentence by Marija Jurić Zagorka, who once wrote “You only need to open your eyes and look around you to be able to see the army of strong women, walking along every path of life”!
More information, schedule and booking info for Badass Women of Zagreb tour: http://www.secret-zagreb.com/badass-women-in-zagreb/
