Maja Bošković-Stulli


Maja Bošković-Stulli was a Croatian slavicist and folklorist, literary historian, writer, publisher and an academic, noted for her extensive research of Croatian oral literature.

Early life

Bošković-Stulli was born in Osijek to a Jewish family of Dragutin and Ivanka Bošković. She joined the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia – SKOJ during Gymnasium education. In 1943, after the capitulation of Italy and liberation of the Rab concentration camp, she joined the Partisans. Many members of her family have perished during the Holocaust, including her parents and sister Magda.

Education and later years

Bošković-Stulli finished elementary and secondary school in Zagreb. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb and received her PhD in 1961. She took part in many national and international conferences and symposiums, including the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik. For many years she was chief editor, and afterwards a regular member, of the editorial board for the journal Narodna umjetnost. She worked at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and from 1952 until her retirement in 1979 she worked at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb. From 1963-73 she was the Director of the Institute.
Bošković-Stulli wrote around twenty books and a large number of papers in national and international academic journals. She has received a number of awards for her research work, the annual award in 1975 and the Croatian lifework award in 1990, the Herder Prize in Vienna 1991, and Pitre Salomone Marino prize in Palermo 1992. She was a regular member at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
In 2005 Bošković-Stulli was named among 35 Croatia's most important women in history. Bošković-Stulli died on 14 August 2012 in Zagreb and was buried at the Mirogoj Cemetery.

Works