Literature of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Depending on the period in history, it is written in Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian languages, and uses both Latin and Cyrillic scripts, and historically, it used Ladino, Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish, with a use of peculiar form known as Aljamiado and Arebica.
The most important representatives of modern literature are writers such as Ivo Andrić, Meša Selimović, Branko Ćopić, poets such as Mak Dizdar, Aleksa Šantić, Antun Branko Šimić, essayists such as Hamdija Kreševljaković, and present-day contemporaries such as poet Marko Vešović, playwright Abdulah Sidran, novelists Aleksandar Hemon, Miljenko Jergović, Saša Stanišić, and Andrej Nikolaidis, essayist Ivan Lovrenović, Željko Ivanković, Dubravko Lovrenović, Predrag Matvejević, and many others.
Depending on the period in history, it is written in Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian language, and uses both Latin and Cyrillic scripts, and historically, it used Ladino, Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish, with a use of peculiar form known as Aljamiado and Arebica.
The cultural traditions of the Bosnia and Herzegovina peoples are in a specific relationship, which is characterized by a constant oscillation between integral Bosnian identity and national peculiarities.
Also, the three largest religions (Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism) began solidifying toward ethnic identity during the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, which pushed the literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop in three directions, all linked to church texts and institutions, but despite differences, the three orientations remained similar in character.
[20] The text of the tablet tells the story about the act of building a church by Krsmir (also rendered Uskrsimir or Krešimir) and his wife Pavica, which was dedicated to the Archangel Michael.
The peculiarity and particular value of the Hrvoje's Missal lies in its combination of eastern and western principles in terms of composition and contents, thus making it a truly invaluable work with a place in the regional and transregional history of art.
The codex is one of the most famous manuscripts belonging to the Bosnian Church, in which there are some iconographic elements which are not in concordance with the supposed theological doctrine of Christians (Annunciation, Crucifixion and Ascension).
The exact dating has never been determined because interruptions and gaps the manuscript, with a missing the colophon, which probably existed, which means that both the writer or the patron remain unknown.
[53] As a translator, he was not meticulous about being faithful to his sources, which means that he modified them to bring them closer to the folk mixed idiom of the Eastern-Bosnian Štokavian dialect and Ikavian–Ijekavian accent, spoken between Olovo and Kreševo in Bosnia.
the Mourning Song of the Noble Wife of the Asan Aga), written in "narodni jezik" before 1646, translated into European languages by figures such as Goethe, Walter Scott, Pushkin and Mérimée.
Safvet-beg Bašagić was a Bosnian intellectual and erudite, who was a collector, writer, journalist, poet, translator, professor, bibliographer, curator of a museum, politician.
In the turmoil of the turbulent development of Balkan nations in 19th and 20th centuries, his valuable collection eventually ended in the funds of the University Library in Bratislava.
[67][68] who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961 at age 69, for his "Bosnian trilogy" which includes novels Na Drini ćuprija (1945) The Bridge on the Drina, Travnička Hronika (1945) (transl.
[72] Meša Selimović is another prominent Bosnian novelist,[73] whose novel the Death and the Dervish is one of the most important literary works in post-World War II Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia.
The motives of the writers' turn to the past rested in an effort to tell the truth about the present age and its dramas, through the lens and decor of bygone historical era as allegorical backdrop.
Mak Dizdar, as a young poet, showed a distinct social charge with a collection of poems "Vidovopoljska noć", for which it was censored by the regime in Yugoslavia during interwar period.
As a translator, he was not meticulous about being faithful to his sources, which means that he modified them to bring them closer to the folk mixed idiom of the Eastern-Bosnian Štokavian dialect and Ikavian–Ijekavian accent, spoken between Sarajevo, Olovo and Kreševo in Bosnia.
Divković wrote his first work, Christian Doctrine for the Slavic People, while serving as a chaplain in Sarajevo and started to translate One Hundred Miracles or Signs of the Blessed and Glorious Virgin.
His position and doctrine clearly reflected in his literary works was that all Bosnians or Bosniaks are one people of three faiths, and that up to the late 19th century no Croats and Serbs lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Relying on modest educational resources, together with discontinuity of Bosnian Muslim literacy in relation to medieval legacy and isolation of cultural background from local and foreign language traditions, makes Aljamiado authors autodidacts.
The earliest Bosnia and Herzegovina woman author, whose work survives to this day, was Umihana Čuvidina (c. 1794 – c. 1870), a Bosnian Muslim poetess of the Ottoman period.
The only full poem that can be attributed to Čuvidina without doubt is the 79-verse-long epos called "Sarajlije iđu na vojsku protiv Srbije" (transl.
Notable poets such as Osman Đikić, Antun Branko Šimić, Aleksa Šantić, Jovan Dučić, Hasan Kikić, Veselin Masleša, Mak Dizdar.
Other prominent authors include Mehmed Kapetanović, Safvet-beg Bašagić, Petar Kočić, Skender Kulenović, Enver Čolaković, Kalmi Baruh, Svetozar Ćorović, Zaim Topčić, Zlatko Topčić, Midhat Begić, Rade Uhlik, Alija Isaković, Branko Ćopić, Avdo Humo, Hamza Humo, Isak Samokovlija, Vitomir Lukić, Zuko Džumhur, Duško Trifunović, Abdulah Sidran, Ivan Lovrenović, Predrag Matvejević, and Nedžad Ibrišimović.
The new wave of authors include names such as Marko Tomaš, Ivica Đikić, Saša Stanišić, Miljenko Jergović, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Nenad Veličković, Andrej Nikolaidis, Aleksandar Hemon, Muharem Bazdulj, and others.
Prominent women writers include Umihana Čuvidina, Staka Skenderova, Laura Papo Bohoreta, Jagoda Truhelka, Nafija Sarajlić, Milena Mrazović, Nasiha Kapidžić-Hadžić, Ljubica Ostojić, Ognjenka Milićević, Bisera Alikadić, Nura Bazdulj-Hubijar, Aleksandra Čvorović, Tanja Stupar-Trifunović, Alma Lazarevska, Jasmila Žbanić, Zlata Filipović, Lejla Kalamujić, Senka Marić, Lana Bastašić, and others.
The current Museum of Literature and Theater Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina was opened, in a way, thanks to Ivo Andrić's wish that the original manuscript of his novel The Bridge on the Drina be kept in Sarajevo.
The center serves on the association and for the benefit of its members – writers, journalists, editors, publishers, publicists, literary critics and historians, literary translators, and other intellectuals and authors, representing their interests in cooperation with an authorities and organizations in the country and abroad, with the aim of "affirming and promoting literature, tolerance, culture of dialogue and freedom of expression in accordance with the Charter of the International P.E.N.
Significant scholarly projects, under the patronage of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, include : Istorija književnosti Bosne i Hercegovine (transl.
