Staka Skenderova

The professional career of Staka Skenderova can be divided into literary and educational-humanitarian.

Staka was educated by famous Sarajevo teachers Sima and Mića Aranitović. She started going to church early.

At the initiative of the Russian consul Gilferding, Staka wrote Ljetopis Bosne 1825-1856 (Bosnian Chronicle 1825-1856) and that remains her only known work. The original was lost, but thanks to Gilferding, who included Ljetopis in his book Travels through Herzegovina, Bosnia and the Old Serbia, published in St. Petersburg in 1859, Staka’s work saw the light of day in Russia, when it was translated. In 1976, Vojislav Maksimović translated Gilferding's book into Serbian.

Celia Hawkesworth states that Gilferding gave Staka the idea to write a chronicle on the successive efforts of Bosnian viziers to smother the rebellions of Bosnian beys in Bosnia in the first half of the 19^th century. The chronicle is written in the traditional form of oral epic literature which Staka knew best and which best reflected the needs of such a chronicle. It is a personal confession and historical testimony on the life in Bosnia during hard times. Staka was always at the centre of social turmoil and she wrote about it with vivacious energy, but also with bitterness, not sparing the harsh pashas, the egotistical Bosnian beys (which Serbs considered much worse than Turks), Muslim tyrants or Serbian local merchants and profiteers. Staka’s chronicle is a dramatic narrative on "violence and anarchy, suffering and desperation". The description of the merciless torture and the suffering of Staka’s younger brother Jovan is reminiscent of the descriptions of the suffering of Christian martyrs from medieval hagiographies, which Staka must have read, as well as the images of tortures of Serbian heroes from folk epic poetry. (Vojislav Maksimović) In the foreword for his book, Gilferding states that the translated manuscript is written in prose, with no interruptions, and no punctuation, adding that the author does not differentiate between prose and verse. However, where she speaks, her words fit the traditional Serbian decasyllable.

The cultural and educational work of Staka Skenderova was marked by the first girls’ school in Bosnia and Herzegovina – "St. Sava Girls’ School". Despite fierce objections, the school was founded on October 19, 1858, after Staka advocated the cause with the Russian consul, Serbian metropolitan and the Turkish authorities. Before opening the school, Staka traveled to Belgrade to acquire books and everything needed for a school. In the beginning, the school was only for Orthodox girls, but, thanks to its reputation, Muslim, Catholic and Jewish girls soon started attending it. Staka’s pupils, Ana Dizmarova and Fima became the first teachers in Mostar, while Ana Karanova and Koka Đurićeva stayed on to teach at the school. Aside from its educational role, the school also had a humanitarian role. It was a sanctuary of the socially endangered, the sick and the abandoned. Its first pupils came from poor Sarajevo families. With her selfless work, Staka soon became reputable with the poor; with her authority and knowledge of Turkish, which she used in direct negotiations with the Turkish authorities, she earned the respect of all. Staka dedicated her entire life to the benefit of the people. When Kudryavcev became the Russian consul, the Russian interest in the school dwindles. After 1870, the work of Staka’s school dwindles because there aren’t enough funds, because it lost support from several sources and because the conditions of work changed. The school is mentioned less and less in the newspapers. The last information comes from 1874, when the paper Bosna (Bosnia) writes about the success of its pupils. There is no more information later on, and it is suspected that the school was shut down by 1877. The new political reality, when the Turkish authorities were replaced by the Austrians, was not favorable for Serbian education.