Original scientific paper
THE GREAT WAR IN THE 1910 – 1924 PUBLICATIONS OF THE CLUB OF CROATIAN WRITERS AND ARTISTS IN OSIJEK
Siniša Bjedov
; Croatian State Archive in Osijek
Abstract
The Club of Croatian Writers and Artists in Osijek was active from 1909 till 1941. During thatperiod it has published four literary publications. In the two of them, Književni prilog (1910 -1915) and Jeka od Osijeka (1918 – 1924), we can follow reactions on the World War I. It is the period in which the crisis of the monarchy became more and more apparent. As it is well known, with the end of the World War I the monarchy will disappear. At the same time that is the time of massive imigrations of the Croats to America. The culmination of these imigrations happened between 1907 and 1911 – fifteen thousand people in average were leaving the country in a year.
In this period we have an intensive settling of Germans and Hungarians in Slavonia, which, for a small country like Croatia, was definitely a social shock. Since the club was active in that very
turbulent period, in which several states and social systems both came into being and disappeared, it is interesting to research how literature reacted to the modern social changes. Texts with the war
themes can be followed and researched in some publications. In this way we can talk about the relation between poetics and politics in a local surrounding. Furthermore such texts point to a parallel world-view paradigm which finds its way to the public. As newhistorians would say – they point to the disorder in an ostensibly united epoch. Also those are texts in which „a process of creating subversive insights in ostensibly ortodox texts (Greenblatt) becomes possible. For the purpose of this paper a research of documents was done in the National Archives in Osijek and in the Museum of Slavonia in Osijek. The National Archives in Osijek keep the works of some members and
associates of the Club of Croatian Writers in Osijek as well as the works by the Club (signature HR-DAOS-422). Periodicals, that follow the above mentioned period when the Club was active, is kept in the Museum of Slavonia in Osijek: Hrvatski list, Narodna obrana, Die Drau, Vijenac, Suvremenik, etc. In the Museum of Slavonia there are also exemplars of the Club’s publications: proceedings Mi, journal Književni prilog, magazine and calendar Jeka od Osijeka and Jubilarni
almanah. The results of the research show that the Club of Croatian Writers and Artists in Osijek in the 1909 – 1941 period acted mostly timeservingly trying to get close to every government. Literary and non-literary texts with the war theme witness about absence of critical awareness and critical attitude towards the war.
Keywords
the Club; the Great War; poetics/politics; publications
Hrčak ID:
170896
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2016.
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