In the first period of the Croatian Literary Romanticism, during the so-called Illyrian Movement, the whole literary production was permeated with patriotic feelings. Reading the travel-books written in the period, one has the impression that their authors travelled very extensively, chiefly outside Croatia, with the sole purpose of expressing their patriotic feelings and meditations. Their patriotism is of specific romantic-illuslonistic and nationalistic-liberational character and is expressed in the from of love for the Native country as territory rather than for the People as national category. Having sprung from a political movement with a non-national name (Illyrian Movement) with the aim of achieving the national and political liberation of the South Slav peoples, the patriotism acquired a militant component relying on the collectlvistic force of its people with an appeal for common Slavophilic links and harmony of all Slavic nations and people. Thus in the travel-books, patriotism appeared in a specific, rather realistic than romantic, variant: the patriotic spirit and the manner of writing are to such a degree realistic in the actual details that, generally speaking, the writers oould be considered realists, not romantics.
