The 2026 University of Zadar Croatian Studies Days concluded on April 28 with the presentation of the project Women and the feminine in mediaeval and early modern Glagolitic culture (FEMIGLA), which featured project lead Dr. Ana Šimić and collaborator Dr. Igor Medić.

In the first section, Dr. Šimić discussed the project’s topic, its scientific and social significance, as well as its corpus, methodology, and objectives.

In the second section, titled An old woman worse than the devil (Croatian: Baba gora od vraga), Dr. Medić presented his research on a 16th-century Glagolitic examplum about an evil old woman who, unlike the devil, managed to cause conflict between an otherwise harmonious married couple.

The lecture covered the earliest known European prototype of such a story, as well as an analysis of the story’s development in pre-modern written and oral literature and an examination of the evolution and characterization of the old woman (vetula) in late mediaeval written culture.

We are grateful to Associate Professor Dr. Ivana Petešić Šušak from the Department of Croatian Studies at the University of Zadar for the initiative and invitation to present the FEMIGLA project in Zadar.