Jara Ribnikar ( sr-cyr, Јара Рибникар; born Jaroslava Hájková; 23 August 1912 — 30 April 2007) was

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

n and

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

n writer, translator, partisan fighter and politician. She was the second wife of

Vladislav S. Ribnikar Vladislav ( be, Уладзіслаў (', '); pl, Władysław, ; Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, sh-Cyrl, Владислав) is a male given name of Slavic origin. Variations include ''Volodislav'', ''Vlastislav'' and ''Vlaslav'' ...

, journalist and editor-in-chief of

Politika ''Politika'' ( sr-Cyrl, Политика; ''Politics'') is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans. Publishing and owners ...

, member of the prominent

Ribnikar Ribnikar ( sr, Рибникар) is a Serbian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Darko F. Ribnikar (1878–1914), Serbian journalist *Vladislav F. Ribnikar Vladislav F. Ribnikar ( sr-Cyrl, Владислав Ф. Рибника� ...

family. She wrote novels, memoires, short stories and poems. Jara Ribnikar was vice-president of the

Serbian Literary Guild The Serbian Literary Guild or Serbian Literary Cooperative is Serbia's oldest writers' organization and the second oldest still existing publishing house after Matica srpska. History It was founded in Belgrade on 29 April 1892 in the no longer ex ...

, president of Serbian (1966-1980) and Yugoslavian

PEN Centre The Pen Centre (originally Niagara Peninsula Shopping Centre) is the largest shopping mall in the Niagara Region, located in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. History The Pen Centre was built in 1957 as the Niagara Peninsula Centre, a single- ...

s and member of the Council of Peoples of the Federal People's Assembly.

Biography

Ribnikar was born Jaroslava Hájková in

Hradec Králové Hradec Králové (; german: Königgrätz) is a city of the Czech Republic. It has about 91,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Hradec Králové Region. The historic centre of Hradec Králové is well preserved and is protected by law as an ...

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

, her father was pianist and composer

Emil Hájek Emil Hájek, sr, Емил Хајек, Emil Hajek, russian: Эми́ль Яросла́вович Га́ек (March 3, 1886, Königgrätz ( cs, Hradec Králové, north-east Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary March 17, 1974, in Belgrade, SR Serb ...

. The family moved to

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

, Yugoslavia, when Ribnikar was a child. In Belgrade, she married Vladislav S. Ribnikar, one of the owners of the Politika newspapers. In the interwar Yugoslavia, Vladislav supported the clandestine

Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

. In 1941, the meeting of the communist leadership was held in the home of Vladislav and Jara Ribnikar in

Dedinje Dedinje ( sr-cyrl, Дедиње, ) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Savski Venac. Dedinje is generally considered the wealthiest part of Belgrade, and is the site of numerous ...

. At this meeting, the decision to start the

National Liberation War Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...

was made. From the beginning of the war, the Ribnikars were members of the Partisans. Jara Ribnikar worked for the Partisans' Supreme Staff and was present in

Jajce Jajce (Јајце) is a town and municipality located in the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the 2013 census, the town has a population of 7,172 inhabitants, with ...

during the Second session of the

AVNOJ The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia,, mk, Антифашистичко собрание за народно ослободување на Југославија commonly abbreviated as the AVNOJ, was a deliberat ...

in November 1943. There, her husband Vladislav and

Moša Pijade Moša Pijade ( sr-Cyrl, Мoшa Пијаде; he, משה פיאדה; alternate English transliteration Moshe Piade; 4 January 1890 – 15 March 1957), nicknamed Čiča Janko (, lit. "Old Man Janko") was a Serbian and Yugoslav communist of J ...

established

TANJUG Tanjug (/'tʌnjʊg/) ( sr-cyr, Танјуг; sometimes stylized as TANJUG) was a Serbian state news agency based in Belgrade, which officially ceased to exist in March 2021. Since then, Belgrade based private company Tanjug Tačno, acquired the r ...

, a Partisan news agency. Jara Ribnikar became member of the TANJUG staff. Between 1948 and 1965, Jara Ribnikar was editor of the artistic journal "Jugoslavija". In this period, she published her first poems under a pen name Dušanka Radak. After Vladislav's death in 1955, Jara started writing prose. She wrote a dozen novels and several short story collections. Her best known novel was ''Jan Nepomucki'' (1969) for which was among the finalists for the

NIN Award The ''NIN'' Award ( sr, Ninova nagrada, italics=yes, Нинова награда), officially the Award for Best Novel of the Year, is a prestigious Serbian (and previously Yugoslavian) literary award established in 1954 by the ''NIN'' weekly an ...

. Between 1979 and 1991, she published five volumes of memoirs. In the 1990s, Ribnikar became proponent of the

transcendental meditation Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a form of silent mantra meditation advocated by the Transcendental Meditation movement. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi created the technique in India in the mid-1950s. Advocates of TM claim that the technique promotes a ...

and supported pro- Milošević party

Yugoslav Left The Yugoslav Left ( sr, Југословенска Левица, Jugoslovenska Levica; abbr. ЈУЛ, JUL) was a far-left political party in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At its peak, the party had 20 seats in Republic of Serbia's National As ...

. Ribnikar died in Belgrade's Dragiša Mišović Hospital on 30 April 2007.

Works

Poem collections

*''Idu dani, noći, dani'', 1952

Novels

*''Nedovršeni krug'', 1954 *''Zašto vam je unakaženo lice'', 1956 *''Bakaruša'', 1961 *''Pobeda i poraz'', 1963 *''Ti'', 1963 *''Ja, ti, mi'', 1967 *''Jan Nepomucki'', 1969 *''Priviđenja'', 1976 *''Kratko beogradsko proleće'', 1977 *''Porodične priče'', 1995 *''Roman o T. M.'', 1998 *''Skretnica'', 2001

Short story collections

*''Devetog dana'', 1953 *''Largo'', 1957 *''Među nama'', 1973 *''Ženske ljubavne priče'', 1997

Memoirs

*''Život i priča'' I–V, 1979–1995 *''Dete iz Hradeca'', 1990

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ribnikar, Jara 1912 births 2007 deaths People from Hradec Králové 20th-century Serbian novelists 20th-century Serbian poets Serbian translators Yugoslav Left politicians Women in the Yugoslav Partisans Serbian people of Czech descent