Jelka Radauš Ribarić was born in Maribor, Slovenia, in 1922. She went to elementary and Women’s Real High School in Maribor and Sušak respectively. After the family moved to Zagreb, she went on at the 2nd Women’s Real High School, graduating in 1940. She enrolled in the ethnology group in the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb - ethnology, Yugoslav literature, Croatian language and archaeology. She took her degree in 1944. After that she worked in the National and University Library and from 1945 to 1975, her retirement year, she was employed in the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, as curator, senior curator and finally director.
She spent a great deal of time on field research, resulting in her doctoral thesis on the Women’s Folk Costume of Istria, 1965.
As well as Istria, she also explored the regions of the Adriatic, the Dinarides and Pannonia, as well as the ethnography of Croats abroad (Burgenland, Mohacs, in Hungary).
She was a member of many professional associations, commissions and committees - from the International Folklore Festival to the Vinkovci Autumn. She went on frequent sabbaticals abroad (Italy, Austria and Hungary). She was a scientific adviser of the Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Studies n Zagreb. She wrote two books and many articles, papers, forewords to catalogues and texts accompanying exhibition. Radauš Ribarić was given numerous certificates of appreciation, prizes and recognitions, including the Order of the Croatian Daystar with Figure of Marko Marulić, in 1996
Since 1993 she has been a corresponding fellow of the Papal International Marian Academy.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on February 7, 2002.