Everyday Cosmopolitan Practices of Croatian Patriots in Late 19th Century Zagreb

Abstract

The paper analyzes the diary of the Croatian writer Ivana Mažuranic which she wrote during her youth from 1888 till 1891, living in the Croatian part of the Austria-Hungary. The diary is analyzed within the context of ethnic tensions during the late imperial period with particular emphasis on the author’s attitudes and feelings toward her own national belonging, other ethnicities and circulating languages. Through the analysis of both social relationships and cultural aspirations of the author and her plurilingual practices, the paper has attempted to approach the teenage diary of Ivana Mažuranic as an example of seemingly contradictory, but actually quite common co-existence of cosmopolitan attitudes and practices and strong national loyalty or even nationalism in the bourgeoisie of the late Austro- Hungarian Empire, which might be termed as cosmopolitan nationalism.