Draft:Kosara Cvetkovic

Kosara Cvetković (Gornji Milanovac, Serbia, 15 February 1868 - Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia, 28 January 1953) was a Serbian writer, translator, visual artist, photographer, pedagogue, literary and theatre critic. She also had a significant role in the emancipation of women in Serbian society.

Biography
Kosara Cvetković was born in Gornji Milanovac on 15 February 1868, as the seventh child. She lost her mother at an early age, and some of her siblings also died in early childhood. Father Kuzman Cvetković first worked as a clerk in the District Court in Gornji Milanovac, but over time he progressed in the service, so the family often moved because of his work. Since 1871 they lived in Aleksinac, three years later they moved to Kruševac, and in 1875 they moved to Čačak, where Kosara's father became a member of the court, and later a judge, the position he held until his death. Kuzman was originally from Sokol in Azbukovica, near Bosnia and Herzegovina. Apart from his regular work, he had wide interests in ethnology and folk customs, as well as for the enrichment of cultural life in all the environments in which he lived. That he instilled in his daughter. He was a longtime friend of the literary critic Svetislav Vulović, with whom he often corresponded.

Kosara started her education in Kruševac. She was an excellent student when she graduated from high school in Čačak in 1883. She was a classmate of Jaša Prodanović, with whom she remained friends long after. Even while living in Čačak, she showed an inclination towards visual arts and music, playing the violin and flute. She learned the Russian language with her father, and also had a good command of French and German. In 1884, she graduated from the Women's Grande école in Belgrade, and in the same year she passed the teacher's exam.

Although she was offered a job as an assistant after finishing her studies at the Women's High School, most likely because she wanted to be closer to her father, at the age of 16 she started working as a teacher at an elementary school in Gornji Milanovac. Two years later, she requested a transfer to Guča, where her brother Velimir Cvetković worked as a teacher.Then she worked at an Elementary School for Girls in Čačak. However, despite the fact that she was one of the best teachers there, she quickly became disillusioned and left teaching, after her superiors criticized her for helping her colleague Atanasija Berbović-Majsner, whose husband committed suicide leaving her with a debt and children to care after.

After leaving the school, she continued to live with her father in Čačak, and she spent her time trying to expand her knowledge of foreign languages, reading foreign literature and subscribing to numerous magazines

She drew portraits and landscapes, political illustrations and caricatures, which she published under pseudonyms. During that period, she created an album with over 120 drawings, watercolors and graphics on which she recorded Čačak and its surroundings. This album, in addition to the art, also has a special documentary value.

She collaborated with popular Serbian magazines such as "Neven", "Zorica", "Bosanska vila", "Zenski svet", "Brankovo ​​kolo", "Venac", "Golub", "Brka", "Misli", "Srpče", "Vardar", and others, in which she published art pieces, poems, prose, stories and articles.

After her father's death in 1889, she returned to her chosen profession. She worked as a teacher of drawing, geography and writing as needed, often changing jobs. She worked in Kragujevac, Užice, Čačak, Bijeljina, and finally in 1894 she transferred to the Women's Grande école in Belgrade, where, in addition to teaching, she also performed the duties of supervisor for many years.

The new environment had a very stimulating effect on her, as she found herself in the company of exceptional personalities such as Katarina Milovuk, Nadežda Petrović, Isidora Sekulić, Milica Janković, Paulina Lebl-Albala, Katarina Bogdanović and Stanka Glišić.[9] She maintained intensive correspondence with many important personalities of that time. With her literary works, she belonged to the group of Serbian women writers from the era of realism, who, dissatisfied with female literary characters, criticized society, culture and politics, especially in the field of education, family and church, and fought against established stereotypes and ignorance, as a literary and then as a theatre critic.

At her own expense, in 1903 she published the collection "Stories for Girls and Boys", and in 1907 the collection "Seven Stories for Girls and Boys", with translations of works by Russian writers. The publication of these books represented a significant literary event, because until then children's literature in the Serbian language, apart from poetry, was very scarce. She is one of two women who were elected by secret ballot as members of the Serbian Literary Society (1906).

Before the First World War, she prepared a memorial on the "Fiftieth Anniversary of the Higher Women's School 1863—1913", in which she gave an overview of the history of this institution.

Kosara Cvetković retired in 1924 as a teacher at the Second Women's High School. Towards the end of her service and after her retirement[11] she devoted herself completely to translation work. She translated Aldanov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev.

Although a large number of her works in periodicals at the time are now extant, and her habit of using numerous pseudonyms made it hard for researchers, though there remains much more of her opus to be studied.

Today's reprinting of her translations of certain masterpieces of Russian literature, more than a century old, speak of the fact that better translations than hers have not been made in Serbian until now.

She remained single and had no children.

Kosara Cvetković died in Belgrade on 28 January 1953 at the age of 83.

Books by translator and author
ISBN-13: 978-86-07-01682-2, ISBN: 86-07-01682-2
 * Deveti termidor by Mark Aleksandrovic Aldanov, Kosara Cvetković was the translator. Paperback, Published 2006 by Prosveta - Beograd

ISBN-13: 978-86-7659-388-0, ISBN: 86-7659-388-4 ISBN-13: 978-86-7659-388-0, ISBN: 86-7659-388-6
 * Nečiste sile (The Devils) by Fjodor Mihajlovič Dostojevski, Kosara Cvetković was the translator. (It was first published in two volumes in Belgrade in 1922, reprinted in 1959 and 1964). Published 2007
 * Nečiste sile (The Devils) by Fjodor Mihajlovič Dostojevski, Kosara Cvetković was the translator. (It was first published in two volumes in Belgrade in 1922, reprinted in 1959 and 1964). Published 2007

ISBN-13: 978-86-84869-00-7, ISBN: 86-84869-00-1
 * Sokobanjski predeli duše by Kosara Cvetković. Published 2003

ISBN-13: 978-86-84869-02-1, ISBN: 86-84869-02-8
 * Sokobanjski predeli duše by Kosara Cvetković. Published 2004

ISBN-13: 978-86-7121-086-7, ISBN: 86-7121-086-3
 * Pripovetke (Collected Stories) by Anton Pavlovič Čehov, prevodilac/translator: Kosara Cvetković. (It was first published in six volumes in Belgrade in the 1930s). Published 1989