Literary Magazines of Austro-Hungarian Period as a Place Where Bosnian Oral Tradition and Written Literature Meet

Abstract

The question of the place and the role of magazines in the literary life of Bosnia and Herzegovina is especially important during Austro-Hungarian period, when literary editions in the form of monographic publications (the book) were rare. Therefore, the magazines represented the dominant space of literary life and movements. The magazine market played the crucial role in the literary and cultural revival, that is in the transition period of Bosnian literature during the Austro-Hungarian rule. At that time, Bosnian writers - who restored tradition of literary creation in native/Bosnian language - published their literary works mainly in some of existing eighteen magazines. This dissertation assesses the impact of the oral tradition on literary composition of Bosnian writers in Austro-Hungarian period. It also examines the way oral tradition and written literature interweaved in the texts published in the magazines of that time, and how those magazines provided opportunity for Bosnian writers to be engaged in contemporary streams of South Slavic written literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina.