Matija Divković was a Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

n writer, the founder of the Croatian literature

Croatian literature

Croatian literature is a definition given to the compilation of novels, dramas, short stories, poems and other various work of written kind entirely attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats and the Croatian language....

 in Bosnia

Bosnia Province, Ottoman Empire

The Bosnia Vilayet was an Ottoman vilayet, mostly based on the territory of the present-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as most of Slavonia, Lika and Dalmatia in present-day Croatia. It bordered Kosovo Vilayet to the south. Before the administrative reform in 1864, it was called the...

.

Life

Divković was born in Jelaške near Vareš

Vareš

Vareš is a town and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, famous for the local mining activities and production of iron. It is part of the Zenica-Doboj Canton and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-About Vareš:...

 in Bosnia

Bosnia Province, Ottoman Empire

The Bosnia Vilayet was an Ottoman vilayet, mostly based on the territory of the present-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as most of Slavonia, Lika and Dalmatia in present-day Croatia. It bordered Kosovo Vilayet to the south. Before the administrative reform in 1864, it was called the...

. He probably joined the Franciscans in the nearest monastery in Olovo

Olovo

Olovo is a town and municipality situated about northeast of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.-About Olovo:The town Olovo is on Sarajevo-Tuzla highway and is located 50 km northeast Sarajevo. Olovo is a part of the Zenica-Doboj Canton...

 and was schooled there. He continued his studies in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, but then returned to Bosnia to work there. In 1609 he was a chaplain in Sarajevo

Sarajevo

Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....

. It is plausible that he also performed other duties, since the monasteries of that age usually had schools. It was there that Divković wrote his first work, Christian Doctrine for the Slavic People, and started to translate One Hundred Miracles or Signs of the Blessed and Glorious Virgin. In 1611 Matija Divković traveled to the Republic of Venice

Republic of Venice

The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, where he first had the letters of Bosnian Cyrillic

Bosnian Cyrillic

Bosnian Cyrillic or Croatian Cyrillic, widely known as Bosančica, is an extinct Cyrillic script, that originated in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was widely used in Bosnia and Croatia . Its name in Bosnian and Croatian is bosančica or bosanica, which can literally be translated as Bosnian script...

 molded, and then printed both works.

In 1612, Divković came to the monastery of Kreševo

Kreševo

Kreševo is a town and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity.-Settlements:• Alagići• Bjelovići• Botunja• Bukva• Crkvenjak• Crnički Kamenik• Crnići• Deževice...

 and started writing his greatest and most important book, Divković's Words on Sunday Gospel All Year Round, completed in Olovo (1614). It was also printed in bosančica in Venice 1616 (2nd edition in 1704), as well as Christian Doctrine with Many Spiritual Matters (1616, several later editions).

Matija Divković published his works with the advice and support of Bartul Kačić-Žarković, bishop of 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....

 (1615-1645), who managed some parishes in Bosnia. There were also links between Bosnian Franciscans

Bosnian Franciscans

Franciscan Province of Bosna Srebrena is a province of the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina...

 and the Franciscan monasteries around Makarska (Živogošće

Zivogosce

Živogošće is a tourist locality in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, located between Makarska and Drvenik....

, 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...

, Makarska). Unfortunately, nothing else is known about Divković's life. He died in Olovo on August 21, 1631.

Analysis of his work

Divković wrote his books to meet the needs of the Catholic folk. The Big Christian Doctrine from 1611 was intended for clerics, while the Small Christian Doctrine from 1616 became a textbook for the people. The former is made up of several unidentified Latin works

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

 (the sermons of John Herolt, Bernardine Bastio etc.). The latter looks like a dialog between a teacher and a student, mixing verses and prose, with various religious and educational themes. The Small Doctrine was one of the most popular books in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

 and widely used in neighboring Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

.

The Small Doctrine had as many as eight editions. Divković had its content "made into one from Ledezmo's and Bellarmino's learning". More precisely, Divković used the Croatian translation of the catechism

Catechism

A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...

 of James Ledezmo (1578), the Italian original of Roberto Bellarmino and the Croatian translation of his book (by A. Komulović). The Small Doctrine includes the Tears of the Blessed Virgin Mary in eight-syllable verses, written as a variation on the "crying" literature from the age of Croatian glagolitic

Glagolitic alphabet

The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...

 literature. Verses on Abraham and Isaac are a paraphrase of the Abraham of Mavro Vetranović

Mavro Vetranovic

Mavro Vetranović was a prolific Croatian writer and Benedictine friar from Dubrovnik.Born in Dubrovnik in 1482, he entered the Benedictine Order in 1507 on the island of Mljet, and after a period of education in Monte Cassino in Italy returned to Mljet as the abbot of the monastery...

; the life of St Catherine, also in verses, is a paraphrase of an older Croatian legend.

One Hundred Miracles… is a loose translation of the medieval legends of John Herolt (Promptuarium discipuli de miraculis B. M. Virginis, Venice, 1598). Words... is a collection of sermon

Sermon

A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...

s for priests and nuns, mostly after the collections of Herolt (Sermones discipuli de tempore et de Sanctis) and some other Catholic authors.

Meaning and legacy

Matija Divković is distinguished with the historical title of the founder of the Croatian literature

Croatian literature

Croatian literature is a definition given to the compilation of novels, dramas, short stories, poems and other various work of written kind entirely attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats and the Croatian language....

 in Bosnia

Bosnia Province, Ottoman Empire

The Bosnia Vilayet was an Ottoman vilayet, mostly based on the territory of the present-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as most of Slavonia, Lika and Dalmatia in present-day Croatia. It bordered Kosovo Vilayet to the south. Before the administrative reform in 1864, it was called the...

. This does not mean that he was the first Bosnian who wrote in Croatian. Most medieval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 writings in the region of old Bosnia and Hum

Zahumlje

Zachlumia or Zahumlje was a medieval principality located in modern-day regions of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia...

, like Gršković's Apostle, Hrvoje's Missal

Hrvoje's Missal

The Hrvoje's Missal is a 15th century Croatian Glagolitic missal, often considered the most beautiful and the most interesting Croatian Glagolitic book....

, the Hval Collection or the Venetian Apocalypse, also belong to the Croatian written heritage, but not to literature in the strict sense.

The above analysis shows that Divković was not an original writer, but a translator and compiler. 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 idiom of the Eastern-Bosnian Štokavian dialect of mixed Ikavian-Ijekavian variant spoken between Olovo and Kreševo in Bosnia.

Considering the sources he used within the Counter-Reformation

Counter-Reformation

The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

, his choice was already obsolete in his age, since during the Catholic Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 period, he found his models in Catholic literature of the late Middle Ages. Does it mean that he was not well versed in the literature of his time? Actually, researchers believe that Divković was very interested in his local public, so he chose those works that would have the strongest effect for the overall goal of Counter-Reformation. It would explain why Divković had such great success and became so popular that only Andrija Kačić Miošić

Andrija Kacic Miošic

Andrija Kačić Miošić was a Croatian poet and Franciscan monk.Born in Brist near Makarska, he became a Franciscan monk. He was educated in Zaostrog monastery and Buda...

 could supersede him. While the other Counter-Reformers went along with the times, using rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 to lure people, Divković went back to the Middle Ages to attract his public. His retelling of the biblical

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 stories and ancient legends exemplify medieval imagination: Divković's didactic prose is saturated with fiery images of hell and purgatory for sinners and paradisical bliss for the just; also, his sermons abound with the tales of the miraculous and the supernatural.

Divković and his style had a large following of Croatian writers, who all contributed to the eventual victory of the Štokavian dialect in Croatian literature. Some of them were Stjepan Margitić and Stjepan Matijević in Bosnia, Toma Babić in Skradin

Skradin

Skradin is a small town in the Šibenik-Knin county of Croatia it has a population about 3,986 . It is located near the Krka river and at the entrance to the Krka National Park, from Šibenik and from Split...

, Pavao Stošić in Lika

Lika

Lika is a mountainous region in central Croatia, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by the Malovan pass...

, Antun Depope on Krk

Krk

Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county....

 and Đuro Matijašević in Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...

. Finally, Divković was one of the reasons why Croats finally accepted Štokavian-Ijekavian as the dialectal basis of the standard language

Illyrian movement

The Illyrian movement , also Croatian national revival , was a cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of 19th century, around the years of 1835–1849...

in the 19th century.

Works

• Nauk krstjanski za narod slovinski (Christian Doctrine for the Slavic People, 1611)
• Sto čudesa aliti znamenja blažene i slavne Bogorodice (One Hundred Miracles or Signs of the Blessed and Glorious Virgin, 1611)
• Beside Divkovića vrhu evandelja nedjeljnieh priko svega godišta (Divković's Words on Sunday Gospel All Year Round, 1616)
• Nauk krstjanski s mnoziemi stvari duhovniemi (Christian Doctrine with Many Spiritual Matters)