Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.22210/jezik.2022.69.26
Stjepan Babić’s Linguistic Polemic in the Magazine “Front” in 1971
Nataša Bašić
orcid.org/0000-0003-3328-4743
; Hrvatski
*
* Dopisni autor.
Sažetak
In 1970, a language series by editor Sava Stajčić was published in ten sequels in the
military magazine “Front” with a historical construct of Croatian-Serbian attempts to create
a common language in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The author of the series set
out from the wrong assumption that Croatian and Serbian are in fact a unique language that
therefore they should not be divided by the polarization of the republics’ variants. The series
was directly inspired by the observed growing Croatian language and linguistic independence,
which was, according to Stajčić, carried out in silence in the Croatian professional circles,
and which is based on the Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary
Language, in spite of its all-Yugoslav political condemnation. The author names professors
Ljudevit Jonke and Sjepan Babić as co-creators of such a language policy. Conceptually,
the series of texts was aimed at the introduction of an institutional state political body that
would exclude the scientific linguistic approach, conduct a unique-language policy in the
spirit of the Novi Sad Agreement. This language was to be based on the model proposed by
Mitar Pešikan, who suggested that this common language should be created by “mixing and
crossing, and by taking from all four ‘sacks’: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin.”
Professor Babić responded and in a short polemic defended Croatian linguistic identity,
basing it on centuries-old autochthonous development of the Croatian language as the
highest expression of Croatian spirituality and culture. As the political life in Yugoslavia
democratized after the fourth Brijuni Plenum in 1966, in which period the Declaration
was also produced, Croatian linguists gained new momentum, carried by the currents
of the Croatian Spring. The amendments proposed by the republics to the constitution of
the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) affirmed the national languages and
directed the language policy from the federal level to the level of the republics, so that the
Croatian efforts to gain orthographic, dictionary and grammatical independence were not
the only ones.
Thus, the Slovenian demand for the affirmation of the Slovenian language in the Yugoslav
People’s Army (YPA) was based on the proclaimed constitutional equality of all the
languages of the peoples and nationalities in the SFRY. At the same time, the rigid position
of the military leadership insisting on the preservation of Serbo-Croatian (in fact, Serbian)
was considered as favoring the majority nation, whose members in the officer structure
were significantly more numerous than members of other nations and who protected their
acquired privileges.
Based on the Slovenian request, Babić also boldly raised the issue of the use of the
Croatian language in the YPA.
Ključne riječi
Stjepan Babić; Front (magazine); Croatian literary language; Croatian-Serbian language; Serbo-Croatian language; language system; orthographic norm; Novi Sad Agreement; Novi Sad orthography; Slovenian language; multilingualism; Yugoslav People’s Army; Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language
Hrčak ID:
311107
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.12.2022.
Posjeta: 649 *