The First Sephardic Woman Writer in Serbia - Estira Ruso from Belgrade

The literary creation of Sephardic Jews in the Serbian ethnic areas dates back to the period of their more massive presence in the Balkans. In the pre-modern times, under Ottoman rule, Sephardic authors were exclusively scholars, men who were rabbis, the creative work of whom was of a religious nature. A big shift in production, approach and topics occurs with the de-Ottomanization of the Serbian territories and the emerging modern Serbian state. The new statehood framework and social ambience offered more space for the more massive inclusion into the intellectual creative work. The gradual modernization and westernization which took over the young Serbian society which was just liberated from the Turkish despotism had positive effects on the Jewish subjects and their engagement in education and literature. The worldly education became open to the first women who are willing and materially capable of attending school, which is where the first creators of literature are being born of. One such, unjustly marginalized and lost out of sight by the historians of Serbian literature, was Belgrade resident Estira Ruso, teacher of the Jewish School and woman writer, the creative work of who is only partly known, but permanently lost. Due to the non-existence of her works today and the impossibility to have access to them, this paper will reconstruct and state the biographical characters of this writer who unselfishly helped the poor Jewish youth during their schooling, in the course of which she came into being as a good doer.