The Critical Thought of Serbian Socialists (1868–1914)
Matović, Vesna
|
Publisher:Beograd: Institut za književnost i umetnost; Cataloguing data: |
Summary:
This monograph, on the basis of studying leftist literary periodicals published towards the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century (Rad [Work], Straža [Guard], Pobratimstvo [Brotherhood], Gusle [a one-string folk instrument often accompanying epic poems], Omladina [Youth], Misao, Čas [Hour], Zanatlijski savez [Craftsmen’s Union], Radničke novine [Workers’ Newspaper], Social-demokrat [Social-Democrat], Borba [Struggle]), traces the line of development of socialist and socially engaged critical thought in Serbian literature. The beginnings of this critical thought are linked to the movement of Svetozar Marković, and continue through Pera Todorović, Mita Cenić and Jaša Tomić, reaching the young Jovan Skerlić and Dušan Popović; this is the path leading from the so-called “student socialism”, from bourgeois reformist ideas to Marxist approaches to literature and art. The literary left from the period between the great wars is the inheritor of that heritage, and conflicts within its framework bear the mark of aporias from the literary life before World War Two.
Keywords:
Serbian literary criticism, literary periodicals, ideology, socialism, social-democracy, social engagement, tendency
