Looking for a female precursor of Serbian literature  is not  a simple task.   The long  search should  actually begin  in the  very remote past, from the  oral literature,  which had been 'proclaimed gendered' ever since 1814, when the division on "male" and "female" oral poetry was  introduced by Vuk Karadžić, a language reformer and collector of folklore poetry.

In this text, I am going to concentrate on the work of five women poets. The notion of gender will be the key, although not the exclusive category in my analysis of their poetry.

«Vrdnička vila» Milica Stojadinović Srpkinja jedna je od prvih naših pesnikinja. Na literarnom polju bila je brzo prihvaćena, pesme su joj donele slavu, ali je još većom brzinom zaboravljena.

Serbian literature incorporates a variety and abundance of women’s voices but, unfortunately, many of them are  unheard. Literary works written by female authors  fail to earn the critical acclaim they deserve. This receptive void is due to many reasons which are to be dealt with elsewhere: silence and neglect surrounding the best works of women’s writing are logical  consequences of a male-oriented literary canon which pidgeon-holes women’s writing into the section of trivial literature and pot-boilers. This paper will be an attempt at voicing the main issues of Serbian women’s writing.

Rad se bavi bugarskim, srpskim i hrvatskim usmenim pesmama koje bi mogle biti refleks sudbine istorijske ličnosti - Mare Branković, i to prevashodno sa stanovišta ambivalentnog odnosa prema ženi i načina na koji se ta ambivalencija artikuliše u usmenopoetskoj tradiciji i kulturi zajednica koje su bile tvorci i prenosioci ovih pesama.