Her authorial attribution is her name as a nun - we do not have this category
Nun, skilled craftswoman, called "woman of wisdom", well-educated lady
Jelena, the wife of Despot Ugljesa, born c. 1349, has the distinction of being the first Serbian authoress and the best known embroiderer. A member of the royal family, she had the opportunity to acquire education, learn Greek and enjoy the company of learned clerics. It is evident from the texts she wrote that she had used her potential to the full. At twenty two Jelena suffered a great personal loss and family tragedy when her husband was slain in a battle against the Turks in 1371. Some time before she had lost her infant son. Bereaved, she took the veil and chose the monastic name of Jefimija. Her important contribution to Serbian medieval literature consists of three poetic works of high artistic merit, preserved in the medium of embroidery and valuable not only as literature but also as works of applied-decorative art. These pieces of embroidery were gifts to monasteries, and "first person singular in all three texts emphasises Jefimija as donor and author." Jefimija's first text, "Lament for the Infant Ugljesa", was composed on the occasion of the death of her son. It was wrought in silver on a small double icon and presented to the monastery of Hilandar by Jefimija herself. The lament, written between 1368 and 1371, is imbued with "as much pain and wisdom as tender emotions." Her prayer "is not conventional or abstract, as it tends to be in the hagiographies of medieval saints; it is personal and concrete... The young mother confesses that, despite all her piety, she cannot help grieving for her child, and admits that, like with all mothers, her grief is stronger than her fortitude". "A Christian mother ought not to be impassioned with the sorrow for her lost child, but nevertheless, her courage is feeble because the nature... of a mother is stronger and it prevails.". "This was the first instance in the old Serbian literature that a woman spoke openly and directly of motherly love and her child. There had never been written more personal words than hers.
As a nun Jefimija lived at the court of Duke Lazar, the ruler of Serbia. After his death in the Battle of Kosovo, she composed an praise-song to Duke Lazar and embroidered the text with golden thread on a length of silk which she intended for the shroud over the casket with the relics of St. Lazar. "The coupling of the sentiment of personal and national tragedy, in perfect harmony with restrained expression and composition elevates this text to the rank of the most beautiful works in Serbian literature." All Jefimija works were written "in first person singular as direct address to God or a Saint, a characteristic which gives them a warmhearted and intimate tone. Another characteristic is that they contain not abstract emotions or ethical deliberations, but sorrow and pain, personal grief, anxiety about one's own and the fate of the whole nation... The first woman in Serbian literature "whose writings we know of, wrote not about someone or something else, but about herself, and who did it in a clearly confessional and direct manner.
She belonged to the medieval Serbian royal family and was a daughter of the knight (Serb. "ćesar'') Vojihna, nephew of King (Tsar) Dusan, and the wife of Ugljesa Mrnjavčević (married in 1365), the despot (it was a Byzantine title). When her baby son Ugljesa died (probably in 1368 or 1369) and her husband was killed in the Battle on Marica river (in 1371) she entered a convent, became a nun and took the name Jefimija. She learned to read and write both Serbian and Greek, moved in the circles of Byzantine and Serbian nobles and church leaders.
NOT MENTIONED IN:
- Buck, Guide to Women's literature, 1996.
mk 12th Oct. 2010