Katarina Bogdanović (28 October 1885 OS / 10 November 1885 NS – 11 January 1969) is often referred to as the first woman philosopher of Serbia and one of the first women to write a high school textbook in the country. Born in Trpinja, at the time in Austria-Hungary, after three years of primary schooling, she moved to Belgrade to complete her secondary education. She graduated from the normal school in Karlovac in 1904, and then taught elementary school until 1906 in Tuzla. Wanting to further her education, she resigned, and enrolled to study languages, philosophy, and Serbian literature at the University of Belgrade. Graduating in 1910, she taught at the private girls' high school in Smederevo for two years. She began graduate studies in Grenoble and in Paris at the Sorbonne, but returned to the Kingdom of Serbia in 1913 to teach at the Second Girls' High School of Belgrade.
In the interwar period, Bogdanović became involved in the women's rights and pacifist movements, and began publishing numerous reviews and translations in literary journals. In 1923, she and Paulina Lebl-Albala published (Literary Theory), the first high school textbook to be written by women in the country. She traveled widely attending both human rights conferences and visiting schools and colleges to learn about teaching methods in use in other countries. An atheist, she distrusted politicians and political parties and chose not to marry, believing that marriage made women legal subordinates to their husbands. She wrote that women could only realize their full potential if power structures were changed to remove barriers that denied them equal opportunities. She was appointed as principal of the Girls' High School in Niš in 1928, becoming one of the first two women to head a woman's school in Serbia. She transferred as principal of the Women's Gymnasium in Kragujevac in 1932, teaching until 1940, when she was forcibly retired for communist sympathies, although she never joined the Communist Party.
After World War II, Bogdanović was active in the Women's Antifascist Front. She was editor of the journal (Our Reality) and published literary analysis and articles on current events. A recipient of the Order of St. Sava in the fifth degree for her cultural contributions to the city of Niš, she was recognized as an honorary citizen of Kragujevac in 1955, and was honored with the Order of Labour, second class, in 1958. She retired from public lecturing in 1963 and moved into a pensioners’ home in Kragujevac, where she died in 1969. Posthumously, some of her writings were published by her biographer Milan Nikolić. Streets in Kragujevac and in Čukarica, Belgrade were named in her honor and a plaque was placed on her childhood home in Tripinja in 1990.
Early life and education Katarina Bogdanović was born on 28 October 1885 in Trpinja, at the time in Syrmia County, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia of Austria-Hungary. She attended three years of primary schooling in her hometown and then went to Belgrade, at the time in the Kingdom of Serbia, where she finished her primary education and graduated from the Girls' High School. She then moved back to Austria-Hungary to Karlovac and completed four years of training at the normal school in 1904. From a young age, Bogdanović decided to reject patriarchal rules and live life on her own terms. She wrote in a diary that she would "sacrifice everything" to be able to learn and confirmed that she was an atheist. She taught primary school in Tuzla from 1904 and 1906, in Bosnia under Austro-Hungarian rule, where one of her colleagues was Veljko Čubrilović, later an assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
Deciding after two years to continue her education, Bogdanović returned to the capital of Serbia and enrolled at the University of Belgrade intent on studying philosophy, languages (English, French, and German), and literature. Her parents, especially her father, did not agree with her decision to leave teaching and her mother could not understand why she refused to marry. Her relationship with her family was strained and she rarely wrote to them. She wrote in her diary that marriage was not a natural state, but one designed to enslave women and keep them chained to their spouse. She also wrote that with marriage, she would have to have had children, which would have prevented her from furthering her education or traveling. Bogdanović's choices meant that she was largely responsible for financing her own education. She studied under Branislav Petronijević and Jovan Skerlić, who influenced her thoughts on civic responsibility. During her schooling, she began to participate in socialist protests.
Career Her biographer Milan Nikolić stated that upon completing her schooling in 1910, Bogdanović graduated as the first woman to earn a degree in philosophy and Serbian literature at the University of Belgrade. Skerlić recommended that she accept a position as a teacher at the private girls' high school in Smederevo, but after two years, Bogdanović resigned. She studied for four months in Grenoble, France, and then went to Paris in 1912 to do post-graduate work at the Sorbonne. She joined the (Anarchist Communist Federation) in 1913, which was a left-wing intellectual and anti-war association. The organization was in favor of radical unionization, which she adopted in both her life and work. During her stay in France, she became aware of the fight for women's civil and political rights, which would be a focus for the rest of her life. Invited by the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Serbia to return to teaching, she taught philosophy and literature at the Second Girls' High School of Belgrade from 1913 to 1928. During this period, she traveled often and attended educational seminars, including a course on the Dalton Plan held in Bristol, England in 1922. She combined visits to cultural venues with trips to study different educational systems and methods used at varying schools and colleges in order to become familiar with the range of educational systems and innovations in teaching in England, Germany and France. She used these trips as the foundation for publishing articles on how education in Serbia could be improved. She argued that schooling at that time taught students to be conformist and dependent, by rewarding their obedience, rather than preparing them for life and rewarding them for their creativity. She advocated for the abolition of grading systems and in favor of allowing students to participate in their own governance by creating self-governing student organizations that would teach them about the responsibilities of the state and duties and rights of its citizens.
When the National University, later the Kolarac National University, was founded in Belgrade in 1922, Bogdanović, Ksenija Atanasijević, Isidora Sekulić, and Zorka Vulović were the first women to lecture there. They attracted wide attendance, often because it was so unusual for a woman to be engaged in academic and scientific work. Bogdanović's most productive writing period roughly corresponded with the interwar period, at the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. She began to publish book reviews and translations of writers from a variety of fields like Honoré de Balzac, Denis Diderot, Henry Ford, Blasco Ibanez, George Meredith, among others. In 1923, she and Paulina Lebl-Albala published the first high school textbook written by women in the country. (Literary Theory) was used in Serbian high schools for eighteen years (up to the start of World War II), and was updated in at least five editions. She reviewed Alexandra Kollontai's (New Woman, 1918), Truska Baginska's (An Enlightened Woman, 1926), and published an article about French writer and artist Jean Cocteau in 1933. She analyzed numerous works from Russian writers like Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, Ivan Turgenev, and Tolstoy and German philosophers such as Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer. Many of her articles appeared in the Serbian Literary Herald, the most influential literary journal of the time.
In 1928, Bogdanović was appointed principal of the Girls' High School in Niš, becoming one of the first two women to head a woman's school in Serbia. That year she was elected president of the Association of Secondary School Teachers and was named to the Order of St. Sava in the fifth degree for her cultural contributions to the city of Niš. She moved to Kragujevac in 1932, becoming the principal of the Women's Gymnasium. That year the Kragujevac branch of the (Association of University Educated Women) was established and Bogdanović was elected as its president. She encouraged her students to follow their consciences and be socially engaged. Along with the students at the Boys' High School, her pupils participated annually in May Day worker's actions. In 1937, the rally turned into an anti-fascist protest with a demonstration in front of the Officers' Club building. When Hitler's troops annexed Sudetenland, the Girls' High School organized a strike and students protested by taking their final examination in French rather than German. Bogdanović supported her students in these actions and intervened with the police on their behalf, leading the Minister of Education to forcibly retire her in 1940 on the grounds that her leftist ideas and communist sympathies made her unfit to teach impressionable youth. In her diaries, Bogdanović wrote that she distrusted politicians and political parties, primarily because she saw them as devoid of ethics and questing for power at the expense of humanity.
Activism In 1919, Bogdanović, Zorka Kasnar, Lebl-Albala and other activists formed the (Society for Women's Enlightenment and Protection of their Rights). The following year, they began a publishing arm for the organization establishing a magazine, (Women's Movement), with Kasnar as the first editor-in-chief. She was followed before the end of the year by Bogdanović, who was the main editor through 1921. That year, they also produced a collection of articles entitled (Suffrage for Women). Bogdanović's contribution was the chapter "" ("Women Officials' Right to Vote"). Two years later, the organization created a working network to provide courses for women in hatmaking and tailoring, and assistance with employment. Simultaneously, they founded a women's shelter to provide lodging and sanitary conditions for women in need. They conducted educational courses to help women become informed of social issues and responsibilities of public life and also offered classes in learning foreign languages.