Yugoslav literature: Medieval and Renaissance Literature

Ecclesiastical works in Old Church Slavonic were produced in the Middle Ages. Under Turkish and later Austrian domination a large body of orally transmitted folk poetry of great richness developed. The remarkable 16th-century flowering of learning and literature in the Adriatic trading city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) was a reflection of the Italian Renaissance, spread by commercial contacts and by Slavic youths educated at Padua. It reached its apogee in Osman, the Croatian epic by Ivan Gundulić, and in the plays of Marin Držić (1508?–1567) and Junije Palmotić (1606–57).

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The Twentieth Century: A Variety of Literary Movements
• The Late Nineteenth Century: Realism and Psychological Interest
• The Nineteenth Century: Nationalism and Romanticism
• The Eighteenth Century
• Medieval and Renaissance Literature
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: Russian and Eastern European Literature