Professional paper

Franjo Benešić’s “Razmatranja” (“Reflections”) and the Croatian Language

Marija Zinka

Abstract

The paper analyses Franjo Benešić’s work Razmatranja (Reflections) from the language point of view. Benešić’s work was reprinted in 2009 with all censors’ interventions because of which it was banned in 1929.
Benešić’s style is characterized by pungency and clarity of expression, terseness in addressing both all-time human topics in general and the society and relations in which he had lived and worked and which he observes and judges very attentively and critically.
The language analysis shows that F. Benešić, as an educated and versatile person, also paid attention to the language in which he wrote his work. In his language one can observe, from the present-day point of view, some aberrations from the standard Croatian language
- aberrations with which language editors are battling even today. On the other hand, Benešić’s work also contains elements of the Slavonian home type of speech as it existed in his home town of Ilok when he was a child. His education in Osijek, Zagreb and Vienna left its mark in the form of occasional use of carefully chosen words and the so-called ‘educated’ lexicon. Departures from the norms of the standard Croatian language under the influence of the then social environment are significantly smaller than expected, which proves that
the author actively belongs to the Croatian language corpus.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

175448

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/175448

Publication date:

1.5.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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