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
Karadzic 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 Petrovic
Njegoš (1813–1851), whose libertarian Gorski vijenac/Mountain Garland 1847 was
immensely popular, and the patriotic romantic Branko Radicevic (1824–1853).
Croatian literature was long dominated by the epic Osman by the Dubrovnik poet
Ivan Gundulic (1589–1638), influenced by Torquato Tasso and the Italian
Renaissance. In the 19th century the leading poets were Ivan Mazuranic (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 Krleza (1893–1981), the novelists
Miodrag Bulatovic and Ivo Andric, and the poets Augustin Ujevic (1891–1955) and
Vasko Popa (1922– ). The leading Macedonian poet is Gane Todorovski.