Dragutin Domjanić

Dragutin Domjanić (12 September 1875 – 7 June 1933) was a Croatian poet.^[1]

Domjanić was born in Krče, Adamovec. He became the first writer in Croatian literature to achieve complete and artistically mature melodiousness and rhythmicity of the Croatian Kajkavian expression. Having graduated law, he served as a judge in Zagreb and as a counsellor for Ban's Bench. He was a member of Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts and the president of Matica hrvatska (1921–1926). In a struggle between the "old" and the "young" in the framework of Croatian Modernism, he sides with the "young". He versified motifs such as spiritual love, intimacy of the nobility mansions, marquises and cavaliers of the past days. He fears the brutality of the present, mourns the world dying off, he is incredulous of new ideas.

His affection for the past directs him towards his mother tongue - Kajkavian language. The most notable work of Domjanić is thus Kajkavian poem collection Kipci i popevke, and the poems "Fala" and "Popevke sam slagal", both set to music by Vlaho Paljetak. Croatian composer Ivana Lang has in a similar manner set to music several Domjanić's poems. His lyrical expression, idyllic and sentimental, abounds both by the picturesqueness and musicality.

All of his poems were written in Kajkavian literary language, although his vernacular was Kaikavian dialect of Adamovec. He also wrote a number of literary accounts, and a few prosaic notes, chiefly in the spirit of his lyrical interests and stylistic manière.

He is also the other of less known "string puppet play" Petrica Kerempuh i spametni osel, in which he provides a critical and satirical account of Croatian intellectuals in the 1920s.

He died in Zagreb.

Works

• Kipci i popevke (1917)
• V suncu i senci (1927)
• Po dragomu kraju (1933)

See also

• Croatian Literature
• Kajkavian

References