WAY OF DRESSING “IN PICTURE AND WORDS” AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY:

Foreign travel writers, painters and architects of the Land Government who stayed in Bosnia at the turn of the 20th century expressed a great interest in a distinctive phenomenon of Bosnian culture, which was reflected in the encounter and interweaving of traditional forms and customs (alaturka) with then contemporary trends arriving from European centers (alafranga), which were in turn manifested in the architecture of the pavilions of Bosnia and Herzegovina at world exhibitions (Budapest, 1896; Brussels, 1897; Vienna, 1898, Paris, 1900) and in new forms of spending leisure time and the way of dressing.

A particular significance in recording and observing these phenomena is attached to pictorial contributions published in Nada, a magazine for edification, entertainment and arts, which was published as an illustrated magazine from 1895 to 1903 by the Land Government, Kosta Hörmann being its first editor-in-chief. The quality of its literary and pictorial contributions matched standards of the best magazines in the Empire and the magazine thus revealed the obvious ambitions of the authorities to use carefully designed publishing projects to underscore the cultural and civilizational mission of Austro-Hungarian administration in these regions.

A comprehensive report by government advisor Kosta Hörmann about launching the illustrated magazine Nada, submitted to the Minister of Finance B. Kallay, included both a detailed list of planned contents and topics, and the planned contents of illustrations, which predominantly included: scenes of cities, large plants, selected landscape views, folk motifs and scenes (scenes of weddings, markets, festivities and folk dances, hunt, etc.), scenes from the life of military troops, historical scenes and portraits of dignitaries, and particularly illustrations of local population's costumes (Besarović, 1968: 74-91). The selection of the topics of illustrations was evidently in line with the planned intention of the magazine which would, as stated in Kallay's letter to the Land Government, use “picture and words”, a “strictly objective and worthy form” and “Bosnian language” to offer “on the one hand, to local readers, readings in all field of knowledge appropriate for them” and, on the other, which would publicize the “accelerated cultural development of Bosnia and Herzegovina” (Besarović, 1968: 91). Hörmann's influence on all the aspects of the magazine's concept is illustrated by data from a letter of 1895 addressed to an associate of Nada, Croatian painter Leo Anderle, pertaining to the need to “additionally arrange” his composition with the scene of a walk along Vrelo Bosne (spring of the River Bosnia), where he should include, in the spirit of Orientalism, some “ethnographic corrections” and supplement the scene with a few Bosniak men and women and at least one Turk. In the appendix to the letter, Hörmann also sent him a typology of appropriate folk costumes (Ćorić, 1978: 761).

When looking at all folk costumes in Bosnia and Herzegovina during Ottoman administration, one can first of all observe a difference in the way of dressing between urban and rural population, which primarily resulted from different economic power, rather than a difference in the way of dressing between different religious groups, although there were strict requirements in this respect, particularly from the 18th century on. Together with travelogues and chronicles, sevdalinkas are a significant source for studying urban costumes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, e.g. songs such as Prošetala Hana Pehlivana (Hana Pehlivana took a walk) and Ja kakva je Đulbegova kaduna (How lovely Đulbey's lady is).

Art contributions by painters of the Sarajevo painters' club, associates of the magazine Nada, above all Leo Arndt, Ewald Arndt Tscheplin, Maximilian Liebenwein and Ivana Kobilac also revealed a great interest in the phenomena of local population's dressing, which was in line with strivings of the newly established National Museum (1888) to classify and systematize ethnographic material. As early as in 1891, the Museum organized a Grand Exhibition of folk costumes in Vienna, and the first permanent exhibition of the Ethnographic Department opened in 1913 and included original rooms with figures in folk costumes distributed by geographic areas. Urban, particularly female costumes in Bosnia and Herzegovina preserved Oriental influences until the second half of the 19th century, both in cuts and in the choice of fabrics. Fabrics were imported both from the East and from the West, mostly from Venice. Besides locally produced fabrics, those made in manufactures and factories, typically delivered through Dubrovnik merchants, can also be observed in folk costumes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 19th century. Since Oriental influences were present in the way of dressing until the second half of the 19th century, women of all ethnic groups wore black dimiye (baggy trousers) made of satin, while Bosniak women wore dimiye in light, pastel colors. Beys' wives wore dimiye made of expensive silk, embroidered with gold. When going out, Muslim women always wore the feredža (cloak) or the zar (veil), which were worn over the whole body, as a cloak which covered the head, shoulders and bust, like a wide coat. Beys' wives also wore a peča, a piece of black padded cloth tied with silver thread, with slits for the eyes. Women covered palms with thin gloves. Poor village women wore boščas – rectangular cloths made of flax or hemp. In the late 19th century zars began to take precedence over feredžas. The zar was made of cotton, various kinds of silk, called “damaska” and later on, upon the arrival of Austro-Hungary, mostly of poplin for summer and broadcloth for winter. The zar was not a tailored apparel, but a cloak made of one piece of fabric, the lower part of which was gathered into folds at the waist and served as a skirt, while the upper, open part would be slung over the head and wrapped around the shoulders.

 At the turn of the 20th century, long skirts and blouses in Vienna fashion increasingly replaced dimiyes and vests, and men also increasingly dressed alafranga. In this transition period, scarf, zar, fez, feredža and dimiye, as well as hats, long skirts, jackets, bodices, bowler hats, blazers and ties could be seen in the streets of bigger cities at the same time. Thus, an article about Grand Horse Races at Butmir in an 1895 issue of the magazine Nada (Nada, no. 14, 15. 7. 1895), says as follows: “(…) the whole tide and flow of multicolored stripes, fezes and hats, eastern and western costumes”.

The photographs showing His Majesty Belgian king Leopold II during the reception of the representative of Bosnian pavilion in Brussels in 1897, as well as those from Vienna (1898) and Paris exhibition (1900) published in the magazine Nada show men in the characteristic combination of alafranga suits, with a bow-tie or necktie, but with a fez on the head. At the turn of the century renowned citizens dressed in this way regardless of their ethnicity or religion; one of them was Ibrahim-bey Kapetanović, mayor of Mostar, who wore a suit of western cut but with a fez, or a writer and editor-in-chief of Nada Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević, who wore the traditional Herzegovinian costume with a vest and broad belt, supplemented with a necktie, during his first term of office in Mostar.

The first decades of the 20th century witnessed fiery discussions about the way of dressing, particularly of Muslim women, as well as about some issues related to men's dressing. The Muslim women's issue included discussions about the zar and the feredža, and they were the most intensive between the two wars and opened the painful question about the low degree of Muslim women's inclusion in public life, in new socio-political and economic frameworks. In a way, it can be claimed that the issue of wearing the zar and the feredža was the most prominent social issue in the Bosnian society from the arrival of Austro-Hungary to the enactment of the law on the prohibition of wearing them in 1950.

The discussion was also aroused by men's dressing, particularly by the issue of wearing the fez or the hat. The renewed interest in the way of dressing and the role of apparel as a symbol and holder of identity at the turn of the contemporary 21st century in works by authors of younger and middle-aged generation (Maja Bajević, Damir Nikšić, Asim Đelilović, Dalida Karić-Hadžiahmetović, Kurt & Plasto, Alma Suljević, Gordana Anđelić-Galić and others) has revealed the potent formative-problematic potentials of understanding and interpreting the contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian society and its reality, exactly through the prism of the way of dressing in now new and changed political and socio-historical frameworks, where the issue of the choice (and freedom) of dressing also reveals a complex reality of the European political and cultural integrations and attitudes towards others and where one can hear the echo of questions and dilemmas which dynamized Bosnian and Herzegovinian public as early as a hundred years ago.

References:

• Besarović, Risto (1968), Kultura i umjetnost u Bosni i Hercegovini pod austrougarskom upravom, Sarajevo: Građa – archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, volume IV.

• Ćorić, Boris (1978), Nada: književnohistorijska monografija 1895-1903, Sarajevo: Svjetlost.

• Nada, no. 17, 1.9.1897., p. 338.

• Nada, no. 4, 15.2.1897., p. 79.