engleski

Modernist movement of “the Youth” in fin de siècle Croatia - between cultural imitation and appropriation

Historiography has often emphasized that one of the key features of the modernist movement of “the Youth” that had emerged in Croatia in the late 1890s was the “turn to Europe”, i.e. the appropriation of contemporary European cultural trends, especially in arts and literature. Yet, at the same time, “the (Progressive) Youth” saw themselves as faithful heralds of the Illyrian tradition. They chastised “the elders”, the dominant political and cultural Croatian elites, for abandoning in practice the goals and ideals of the Illyrian movement that they had proclaimed so passionately in words. In that regard, the anti-German sentiment they espoused, the fear of “the Drang” and the so-called “reverse antemurale” can be read both as a novelty in a changed political context and as a continuation in terms of cultural affiliations, for the German language and literature had been seen as the main threat to the Croatian national project ever since the times of the Illyrian movement. The same goes for the revived “Slavophile” sentiments and concepts of “the Youth”. This paper will thus pose the relationship between cultural imitation and appropriation as a fundamental problem. Through the analysis of the ideological and imagological matrix of the fin de siècle Croatian modernist movement of “the Youth”, the modes of cultural and intellectual appropriations in diverging social contexts will be explored. It will try to clarify the degree to which the modernist trends in late 19th century Croatia were merely reflections of broader European currents and in what measure did they continue the well-established national ideological and cultural traditions.

modernism ; fin de siecle ; youth movement ; imitation ; appropriation

nije evidentirano