Review article
https://doi.org/10.31337/oz.74.1.6
The Reception of G.K. Chesterton in Croatian Catholic Periodicals 1921–1945
Vladimir Lončarević
; Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Since 1903, when the Croatian Catholic Movement was developing under the auspices of the Bishop of Krk, Antun Mahnić, it was accompanied by a proliferation of Catholic publications, the first of which was The Croatian Guard for a Christian Educational System (Hrvatska straža za kršćansku prosvjetu), issued in 1903, the first Croatian journal of philosophy. This movement promoted the rechristianization of Croatia, and so, converts to Catholicism among the European intelligentsia, whose numbers steadily rose since the beginning of the 19th century, were frequently highlighted in Croatian Catholic publications. Namely, they were to be a sign and message of the spiritual renewal of Catholicism in Europe. Moreover, Catholicism was found palatable to the intellectual elite which fact was often disputed within various circles of the liberal or socialist i.e. communist intelligentsia. Among the aforementioned converts were a number of English–speaking intellectuals, one of whom was Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Articles were published about him between 1921 and 1945 when, due to communist repressive measures, the issuing of Catholic publications was suspended. Texts can be divided into two corpuses: a) articles on Chesterton (biographies, interpretations, book reviews) and b) translations into the Croatian language (novellas, essays, excerpts from books). Chronologically, articles are grouped mostly around two key events, and these are Chesterton’s conversion and his death.
Keywords
G. K. Chesterton; reception; conversion; Catholic periodicals; 1921–1945
Hrčak ID:
215997
URI
Publication date:
19.1.2019.
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