Two Events from Desanka Maksimović’s Teaching Career Cover Image

Два догађаја из наставничке каријере Десанке Максимовић
Two Events from Desanka Maksimović’s Teaching Career

Author(s): Bojan Đorđević
Subject(s): Serbian Literature
Published by: Институт за књижевност и уметност
Keywords: Desanka Maksimović;teachers;First Female Gymnasium in Belgrade;communism;literary society;

Summary/Abstract: Desanka Maksimović holds a distinguished place among Serbian writers who earned their bread by teaching. After several years spent working in the Private Gymnasium in Obrenovac, the Third Female Gymnasium in Belgrade and the Coeducational Teacher’s Training College in Dubrovnik, she spent her entire working life (until 1953) as a professor of the First Female Gymnasium in Belgrade. Just before the occupation of Yugoslavia, in the spring of 1940, her pupils, members of a school literary society, were accused of taking part in communist agitation. The reason for that was a scandal concerning the journal “Zora”, published by pupils of the Seventh Male Gymnasium in Belgrade. The pupils of the First Female Gymnasium in Belgrade supported their persecuted colleagues and collected petition signatures.In her statement at a meeting of the Teacher’s Board, Desanka Maksimović, then the supervisor of the pupils’ literary society, defended her students, although her colleagues accused her of softness and lenience. After World War Two, when the new communist government arrested two pupils of the First Female Gymnasium in Belgrade, Desanka Maksimović, led by the ethics of her teacher vocation, again defended her students.

  • Issue Year: 45/2013
  • Issue No: 150
  • Page Range: 563-570
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Serbian