Journal Article

Censor’s scissors in Croatian literature: Shaping a(n) (inter)national community

Štimec, Marina Protrka

2023

Overview

Using some of the best-known examples from Croatian literature, this article examines the influence of censors on shaping the literary field in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. It compares the role of educated censors who supported the development of the literary field in the first decades of nineteenth-century Habsburg Croatia with that of censors who implemented the regime’s strict guidelines in the 1840s by banning books that had already been published with permission of a censor. Both types of censorship gave rise to political resistance, either through political struggle and illegal publication, or by means of covert literary devices such as allegory or Aesopian literary strategies. Moreover, the article highlights the problems of deciphering political allegory in the literary history of small nations, which tend to orientalise their literary heritage. In contrast to these tendencies, a new interpretation of the canonical text of Croatian literature, Smrt Smail-age Čengića [The Death of Smail-Aga Čengić] by Ivan Mažuranić, is offered here, presenting it as an example of explicit political commentary and a hidden literary response to strict censorship. A comparative analysis of his literary and political writings reveals their great importance both for the history of the Habsburg monarchy in the nineteenth century and for today’s Europe built upon the vision of unity within diversity.

• Publisher: Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: 19th century / Allegory / Bans / Censorship / Croatian literature / Literary criticism / Literary history / Politics