Croatology, Vol. 14 No. 2, 2023.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.59323/k.14.2.10
Tomislav J. Šagi-Bunić's Care for the Croatian Language. I Speak My Mother's Language
Anto Barišić
orcid.org/0000-0001-6118-7233
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate and present the hitherto unexplored topic of cultural creativity in the field of Croatian language by the prominent Croatian theologian, thinker, cultural practitioner, Capuchin monk, presbyter, professor and dean of the Catholic Faculty of Theology of the University of Zagreb, Tomislav Janko Šagi-Bunić. Our research covers the period from his elementary and high school days, more precisely, the summer of 1934, until 1989. We borrowed the subtitle for this paper from Šagi-Bunić, who used that wording in a "marathon" letter consisting of 19 densely typewritten pages that he had sent to Rome, i.e., to his fellow man of faith, prof. Hadrian Borak, PhD, on 9-10 June 1958. The thoughts from that letter serve as an inspiration for the research and study of his relationship towards the Croatian language. In this endeavour, we will start from his elementary and high school certificates, followed by the correspondence he kept up over many years with Hadrijan Borak, who was then living and working in Rome, Italy. After that, we will touch upon his translation activity in the domain of liturgical texts, which he translated from Latin into the Croatian language in the wake of the liturgical renewal that ensued after the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. And finally, we will observe his attitude towards the Croatian language through the perspective of his public appearances in the then socialist and communist Croatian society, during discussions about the position of the Croatian literary language in the multilingual and multinational state formation that today's Republic of Croatia was a part of.
Keywords
Croatian language; correspondence; Šagi-Bunić; Hadrijan Borak; history
Hrčak ID:
312161
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2023.
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