Cultural and Linguistic Development

The first Croatian school books, from the years 1746 and 1747, were the result of private initiatives. In 1806 the first proper school book for Croatian schools in Western Hungary appeared. The book, "Slabikar aliti jimen knyizicza", was written by Father Johann Sigismund Karner. During this time contact with Croatians in “the old country” also decreased.

A milestone in the development of a distict standard language was without a doubt the translation of the New Testament into Gradisce Croatian in the beginning of the 19th century, although it was never published. The Croatian folklorist and folksong collector Fran Kurelac researched the wealth of Gradisce Croatian folksongs between 1846 and 1848. Particularly beloved was the annual calendar, which appeared since 1805, and contributed to the spread and solidification of the Gradisce Croatian written language.

The development of a self-contained Gradisce Croatian culture in the second half of the 19th century was supported by Vienna’s central government. Because of the 1848 Hungarian revolution Vienna’s central departments tried to weaken the liberal, anti-Hapsburg camps in Hungary, and began to advocate the independent cultural development of non-Hungarian minority groups. The Catholic priesthood was the primary source of help, and it was under their watch, that elementary school education in Hungary came to be.

In 1853 a school primer appeared, which had to be especially adapted for the Gradisce Croatians. The Elementary School Law of 1868 institutionalized instruction in the population’s mother-tongue, and the increasing demand for school books led to a solidification of the written language, based on the principles of Cakavischen and Ikavischen dialect, as well as the acquisition of modern Croatian spelling. Countless songbooks by Michael Nakovich, Johann Vukovich and Jakob Dobovich have preserved until present the multifaceted Gradisce Croatian folksong tradition. A Gradisce Croatian tune, the folksong “Jutro rano sam se ja stao” (“Early in the morning I arise”), was possibly a model for Joseph Haydn’s composition, which first served as the Kaiser’s anthem “Gott erhalte” (“God sustain me”), and later Germany’s National Anthem "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" (“Germany, Germany above all else”), which is now known worldwide under the title “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” (“Unity and Justice and Freedom”).

The Gradisce Croatian literature had its heyday at the turn of the century with the works of priest Mate Meršic-Miloradic. In his farmer’s almanac "Kalendar Svete Familije" (Calandar of the Holy Family), which was first published in 1903, he developed a unique and until then unmatched poetic style and became the Gradisce Croatians’ poet par excellance. He also penned the Gradisce Croatian hymn "Hrvat mi je otac".

For a long time the cultural development remained connected to the religious development. Because of the absence of a Croatian political and economic center, the village and its community became the foundation of the Croatian peoples’ lives. Because these village settlements were cut off from the societal and cultural impulses of the cities, they couldn’t develop any professional clubs or societies with a national scope. It was rather groups with a religious cultural focus, which Croatians in Gradisce founded.

Magyarisation, Economy, Assimilation

by Johannes Graf
courtesy by http://www.hrvatskicentar.at/

2010.12.17