A Past Rescued From Oblivion

This book is written in the form of a memoir and covers the events in the life of its author, Vilma Vukeli─ç from her earliest childhood (she was born in 1880) to 15 August 1904, the day her first child, Branko was born.
It is a contribution to women''s history in the form of a portrait of an intelligent young woman and a burgeoning feminist resisting social norms imposed on women of her generation.
It is a contribution to the history of central and southeastern Europe with its spirited descriptions of the bourgeois life in Osijek, a small provincial town by the River Drava close to the Hungarian-Croatian border, at the outskirts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is a contribution to Jewish history, with the specific emphasis on the life in various Jewish settlements in central and eastern Europe. The author describes late nineteenth-century Jewish optimistic attempts towards social integration and full acceptance by the surrounding society-hopes and expectations tragically shattered soon after.

It is a lively account of a happy childhood, full of colourful descriptions of a little girl''s discoveries of the wonderful as well as bleak aspects of life. There is also an account of life in an elite boarding school in Vienna and a romantic love story.
www.vilmavukelic.com