Andrija Kacic Miošic
Encyclopedia
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
poet and Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
monk.
Born in Brist near Makarska
Makarska
Makarska is a small town on the Adriatic coastline of Croatia, about southeast of Split and northwest of Dubrovnik. It has a population of 13,716 residents. Administratively Makarska has the status of a town and it is part of the Split-Dalmatia County....
, he became a Franciscan monk. He was educated in Zaostrog
Zaostrog
Zaostrog is a tourist town and harbor along the Adriatic Sea in southern Dalmatia, Croatia. It is located between Makarska and Ploče. It consists of two parts, an older part below a steep limestone section of the Biokovo mountain range, and a newer coastal zone...
monastery and Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
. He used to teach philosophy in Zaostrog and Sumartin
Sumartin
Sumartin is a port village in Croatia on the island of Brač. It is connected by the D113 highway and by ferry....
on Brač
Brac
Brač is an island in the Adriatic Sea within Croatia, with an area of 396 km², making it the largest island in Dalmatia, and the third largest in the Adriatic. Its tallest peak, Vidova Gora, or Mount St. Vid, stands at 778 m, making it the highest island point in the Adriatic...
.
His most important work is Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskog (Pleasant Conversation of Slavic People, 1756), a history in verse, in which Kačić Miočić, influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, tried to spread literacy and modern ideas among common people. It was the most popular book in the Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
-speaking lands for more than a century. It also played a key role in the victory of the Shtokavian dialect
Shtokavian dialect
Shtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
as the standard Croatian language. It contain poems about Skanderbeg
Skanderbeg
George Kastrioti Skanderbeg or Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu , widely known as Skanderbeg , was a 15th-century Albanian lord. He was appointed as the governor of the Sanjak of Dibra by the Ottomans in 1440...
which were basis for tragedy Skenderbeg written by Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski
Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski
Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski was a Croatian historian, politician and writer. Most famous for the first speech delivered in Croatian before the Parliament, this patriot and cultural figure did some pioneering work in Croatian historiography and bibliography...
in 19th century. They were also basis for Život i viteška voevanja slavnog kneza epirskog Đorđa Kastriota Skenderbega written by Jovan Sterija Popović
Jovan Sterija Popovic
Jovan Sterija Popović was a Serbian playwright, poet and pedagogue who taught at the Belgrade Higher School. Sterija was recognized by his contemporaries as the one of the leading Serbian intellectuals...
in 1828.
Using the ten-syllable verse of folk poetry and relying on Mavro Orbini
Mavro Orbini
Mavro Orbin was a writer, ideologue and historian from the Republic of Ragusa...
and Pavao Ritter Vitezović
Pavao Ritter Vitezovic
Pavao Ritter Vitezović was a noted Croatian writer, historian, linguist and publisher.-Early life:Pavao Ritter Vitezović was born in Senj to a family of a frontier soldier. His father was descended from a German immigrant from Alsace, and his mother was Croatian...
, Kačić Miošić narrates and sings about the history of the Slavic peoples
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
from the antiquity to his age. He, like Ivan Gundulić
Ivan Gundulic
Ivan Franov Gundulić is the most celebrated Croatian Baroque poet from the Republic of Ragusa. His work embodies central characteristics of Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation: religious fervor, insistence on "vanity of this world" and zeal in opposition to "infidels." Gundulić's major...
, describes the Slavic peoples from the Adriatic to the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
as one people. The book exalts many heroes from the famous Croatian families of the age of the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
wars. Since the book includes some important folk poems, many readers considered it a folk songbook.
Pleasant Conversation is mostly didactic in tone and of little artistic value, but later it served as a valuable source of historic data. It gave inspiration for future Croatian writers.
His other works are a philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
study in Latin and a chronicle called Korabljica (1760), where he used passages from other writers, including Vitezović.