After studying pedagogy in Zagreb, Jelica Belović-Bernardžikowski spent the most successful years of her intellectual life in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prague and Paris. In the region, she was the first to speak of “feminine writing” and to argue that women had “a different view on the world and life”, and that they should not give it up. As far as she was concerned, women had to take part in the social and cultural activities of their people. J. Belović published numerous articles in European and Yugoslav magazines and newspapers such as Frankfurter Zeitung, Frauenzeitung, Revue des Deux Mondes, The Gipsy Lore, Ženski Svet [The Female World]. She was editor-in-chief of Narodna Snaga [Popular Force] and Frauenwelt. She protested against national and religious partitioning and advocated for the strengthening of relations between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Austro-Hungarian era. Passionate about ethnology, J. Belović studied popular, literary and artistic tradition. She gathered folk tales, published in “Narodne pripovetke iz Bosne i Hercegovine” ([Folk Tales of Bosnia and Herzegovina], 1899), and “Hrvatske jelice” ([Croatian Tales], 1908). However, most of her works are devoted to the promotion of the art of embroidery, for which she systematised and created the terminology: “Građa za tehnološki rječnik ženskog ručnog rada” ([Material For a Technological Dictionary of Women’s Manual Work], 1898-1906); “O renesansi naše vezilačke umjetnosti” ([The Rebirth of Our Art of Embroidery], 1906) or “Narodno tehničko nazivlje” ([Popular Technical Terminology], 1907). She was a member of the Vienna Folklore Society and collaborated with Friedrich Krauss, a renowned and Slavic ethnologist, who published several of his works. She was invited in 1922 to the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom Congress in London, but was prevented from attending by the authorities. In her fifty-year career, she wrote more than 800 articles and several dozen books, and corresponded with 442 personalities throughout Europe, yet she died alone, and forgotten.
