Croatian Latin Writers - an International Nationalist Phenomenon in a Socialist Republic

Jovanović, Neven. (2016). Croatian Latin Writers - an International Nationalist Phenomenon in a Socialist Republic. In: Classics and Class: Greek and Latin Classics and Communism at School. Faculty of Artes Liberales, Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, Warsaw, Ljubljana, pp. 193-212. ISBN 9788371819438

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Abstract

This is a sketch of the history of reception of Croatian Neo-Latin literature in Croatia (and Yugoslavia) from the end of the World War Two until the late 70's. For a number of political and cultural reasons, Croatia – similarly to other countries of East Central Europe, such as Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland – has produced a rich corpus of writings in Latin. Such extent and continuity make the Neo-Latin corpus a notable research theme in Croatian literary history. The corpus was, indeed, granted a certain restricted place already from the beginnings of modern literary scholarship in the 1870s and 1880s until the Second World War. The authors and works were, however, treated with an apparent reserve. They lacked an essential building block of romantically perceived national identity – the national language. Neo-Latin literature is undoubtedly a product of the elite, aimed at the elite. In Croatia, this literature is additionally marked by its close connection not only to the feudal state (as the official language of the Kingdom of Croatia, Latin was used primarily by the nobility and the prelates), but to the Roman Catholic Church as well (many texts from the corpus of Croatian Latin belong to genres of religious literature). For these reasons, it may come as a surprise that the study of Croatian Neo-Latin saw a relative flowering in socialist Yugoslavia.

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