August Šenoa
Encyclopedia
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
novelist, critic, editor, poet, and dramatist.
He was a transitional figure, who helped bring Croatian literature
Croatian literature
Croatian literature is a definition given to the compilation of novels, dramas, short stories, poems and other various work of written kind entirely attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats and the Croatian language....
from Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
to Realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
and introduced the historical novel to Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. He wrote more than ten novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s, among which the most notable are:
- Zlatarovo zlato (Goldsmith's gold; 1871)
- Čuvaj se senjske ruke (Pirates of SenjSenjSenj , German Zengg, Hungarian Zeng and Italian Segna) is the oldest town on the upper Adriatic, and it was founded in the time before the Romans some 3000 years ago on the hill Kuk. It was the center of the Illyrian tribe Iapydes. The current settlement is situated at the foot of the slopes Mala...
; 1876) - Seljačka buna (Peasants' revolt; 1877)
- Diogenes (1878)
Šenoa was one of the greatest Croatian novelists and the author of the popular patriotic song "Živila Hrvatska
Živila Hrvatska
"Živila Hrvatska" is a Croatian patriotic song. The lyrics were written by August Šenoa, while the melody was composed by Ivan Zajc.It was recorded in the 1893 "Hrvatska pjesmarica" by Vjekoslav Klaić.-Lyrics:...
".
Life
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Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, then part of the Habsburg Empire, into a family of Czech-German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
origin. His surname was originally spelled Schönoa. His father was Alois Schönoa, and mother was Terezija Rabacs, a Slovak woman from Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. He studied law in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. He also lived in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
for a while, but returned to Zagreb in 1866. He died in Zagreb at the age of 43.
From 1874 to 1881, he edited the literary journal Vijenac
Vijenac
Vijenac is a biweekly magazine for literature, art and science, established in December 1993 and published by Matica hrvatska, the central national cultural institution in Croatia.-Historical background:...
("Wreath").
He died from disease picked up after the 1880 Zagreb earthquake
1880 Zagreb earthquake
The 1880 earthquake which struck Zagreb was a 8.0 magnitude earthquake which occurred on 9 November 1880. Its epicenter was in the Medvednica mountain north of Zagreb...
.
Work
In his novels, he fused national romanticism characterized by buoyant and inventive language with realistic depictions of the growth of the petite bourgeoisPetite bourgeoisie
Petit-bourgeois or petty bourgeois is a term that originally referred to the members of the lower middle social classes in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
class.
This "father of the Croatian novel" (and modern national literature) is at his best in his mass Cecildemillean scenes and poetic description of oppressed Croatian
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
peasantry, nobility struggling against foreign rule (Venetians, Austrians/Germans and Hungarians) and romanticised period from the 15th to the 18th century. It has become a commonplace phrase that "Šenoa created the Croatian reading public", especially by writing in a popular style.