A HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF LITERARY CROATIAN / THE GLAGOLITIC HERITAGE OF CROATIAN CULTURE by Branco Franolic and Mateo Zagar

Book Review by Brian Gallagher. Originally featured in issue 2 of Most/The Bridge, published by the Croatian Chaplaincy, London.

 

In 2007, Charles Tannock, a British member of the European Parliament suggested that the languages used for Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbian and Montenegro when they join the European Union should all be one - i.e. the return of 'Serbo-Croat'. Predictably, this caused outrage in Croatia, which Tannock passed off as being from 'Croatian nationalists'. Mr Tannock would do well to read this book consisting of two essays by the internationally noted scholars Branko Franolic and Mateo Zagar - in particular Franolic's essay on literary Croatian. Tannock would not only be informed about the historic reality of the Croatian language, but also why adopting some version of 'Serbo-Croat' would actually create practical problems for the EU.

Franolic's essay takes us right back to the beginning of the Croatian language, and includes material in regard to such major figures such as Ljudevit Gaj and works such as Faust Vrancic's 1595 Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae Linguarum. Mr Tannock might be interested to note that the Dictionarium, which ranks Croatian as one of the five 'noble' languages of Europe, predates the first English dictionary by nine years.

Franolic makes clear the strong differences between literary Croatian and Serbian - there are numerous different words such as for bread, air, wave, spoon, electric bulb and so on. Furthermore, technical terms - scientific and legal - are different. This should give those who want a standard to be used for EU purposes pause for thought - it could cause serious legal problems given the many laws and regulations the EU is in the habit of formulating. It would avoid many problems of legal interpretation to simply use Croatian, Serbian etc.

It is perhaps the more recent history of the Croatian language that will be of interest in light of efforts to maintain Serbo-Croat. Articles appear now and again implying that Croatian is some kind of nationalist fall out from Yugoslavia which had peacefully used 'Serbo-Croat'. Not so - Franolic relates how in actual fact Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian and Slovenia were given equality of status in 1944 by a Yugoslav declaration of intent but then a process of imposing Serbian was developed.

Croats responded in 1967 with academics and cultural institutions signing a declaration asking for full constitutional recognition of the aforementioned four languages and accused Belgrade of imposing Serbian as the official language in order to repress Croatian identity.

In 1971, the Belgrade authorities launched a major attack against the Croatian language. In that year, the Croatian Orthography for schools was published in Zagreb. Belgrade rounded up 40,000 copies of it before it could be distributed and incinerated the lot. One copy survived - smuggled to London in 1972. It was reprinted and has since become the standard school textbook. Other similar works were also banned.

In light of such history, it is unsurprising that Mr Tannock only mentioned complaints from 'Croatian nationalists' rather than complaints from Serbs. Book burning and so on is also a taboo subject when Yugo-nostalgics talk of Serbo-Croat fondly and Croatian not so fondly. The enquiring mind would no doubt ask why if there is only one language called Serbo-Croat why such barbaric measures are required to suppress works such as the Croatian Orthography.

Mr Tannock and others may point to the usage of BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as a precedent. BCS was imposed on the countries of the region. A defence lawyer at the tribunal has informed me that there are substantial problems with differing translations, largely to do with words that mean different things in each language - BCS is hardly a good precedent.

The second, shorter, essay by Mateo Zagar is history of the Glagolitic alphabet in Croatian history and culture - it is fascinating and provides a full background to those intrigued by this aspect of Croatian history.

The book itself is produced on quality paper, with a section of illustrations of the glagolitic and literary items mentioned within the essays.

For those who want to know why the Croatian language is distinct and has a long history all its own, this is the book to read and to give as a gift to others. The book itself can be bought from CSYPN via www.amazon.co.uk from anywhere in the world.

 

Publisher: Erasmus Publisher Ltd & CSYPN (2008) ISBN: 9789536132805 111 pp

Brian Gallagher is a long serving committee member of the Croatian Students and Young Professionals Network (co-publishers of the reviewed book) and is editor of Croatia Business Report www.croatiabusinessreport.com.