Mara Matočec

Mara Matočec (, 12 September 1885 – 8 May 1967), also known as Marija, was a Croatian folk writer, poet and playwright. She was also a women's inheritance rights activist, suffragist, and member of the peasant movement. She was a political campaigner for the Croatian Peasant Party (, HSS) and organised local branches of Seljačka sloga, the HSS cultural organisation.

Biography Matočec was born on 12 September 1885 in Drnje, then part of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Her parents were Luka Jendrašić and Mara Vrbančić. She graduated from public school in Đurđevac in 1896. She later wrote that peasant women in the countryside had an advantage over women living in cities, as peasant women lived on their own land, had bread to eat and were with their children every day. She organised local branches of Seljačka sloga [ hr] (Peasant harmony), the cultural organisation associated with the HSS. and recorded folk poems, proverbs and sayings. She was impressed with Bosniak hospitality and Islamic culture and wrote a poem about this in 1939.

Matočec died on 8 May 1967 in Korija, Socialist Republic of Croatia, Yugoslavia, aged 81. Two books have been written about her by Mira Kolar-Dimitrijević and Vlatko Smiljanić.