Oral creativity in 19th century Zadar periodical magazines (Zora dalmatinska)

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem of oral creativity on the pages of the Zadar magazine Zora dalmatinska (1844—1849), the first Croatian literary magazine in Dalmatia. About sixty oral poems (chiefly lyric), about twenty oral stories, plus a large number of different shorter prose works (proverbs, riddles, rhetorical expressions and such) were published in this magazine of the Illyrian movement. Even for today’s readers a harmonious collection of anthological merit could be made of these poems, stories and proverbs. The editors of the magazine chose these works both according to their artistic criterion and because they belonged to the spirit of the Illyrian movement. The Italo-Croatian writer Nikola Tommaseo (1802—1874) in his articles printed in Zora dalmatinska which dealt with oral creativity among the Southern Slavs was the first literary historian and critic to systematically review this specific literary production and by so doing, along with the journal, assumes a prominent position in the history of Croatian literature.