Yugoslav literature

Prose and poetry from the region historically known as Yugoslavia. There are different languages and cultural traditions, of which the most important are Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, and (more recently) Macedonian. They have in common strong oral poetic traditions.

Languages Published collections of oral material in the mid-18th century stimulated the development of the literary languages. Serbian traditionally used the Cyrillic alphabet and Croatian the Latin, reflecting religious differences, although the languages are basically the same. A meeting of intellectuals such as the Serbian Vuk Karadžić and the Croatian language reformer Ljudevit Gaj (1809-1872) in Vienna 1850 brought agreement to work for a common literary language. This was challenged by the controversial declaration of Croatian writers 1967 that the Croatian literary language had a distinct identity, heralding a brief ‘Croatian spring’ of national literary revival. Slovene survived as a separate literary language largely because of the immense popularity of the Slovenian national poet Francé Prešeren (1800-1849). Macedonian emerged as a distinct literary language after World War II.

Writers The dominant Serbian writers are the Montenegrin poet Bishop Petar II Petrović Njegoš (1813-1851), whose libertarian Gorski vijenac/Mountain Garland 1847 was immensely popular, and the patriotic romantic Branko Radičević (1824-1853). Croatian literature was long dominated by the epic Osman by the Dubrovnik poet Ivan Gundulić (1589-1638), influenced by Torquato Tasso and the Italian Renaissance. In the 19th century the leading poets were Ivan Mazuranič (1814-1890), who completed Osman, and Stanko Vraz (1860-1932).

In the politically troubled 20th century there has been an unresolved literary debate in the whole region between regionalism and more universal themes, between socialist realism and modernist experiment. Among the most important writers are the satirical novelist and playwright Miroslav Krleža (1893-1981), the novelists Miodrag Bulatović and Ivo Andrič, and the poets Augustin Ujević (1891-1955) and Vasko Popa (1922- ). The leading Macedonian poet is Gane Todorovski.