SERBIAN LITERATURE

the literature of the Serbs, a Balkan people speaking the Serbo-Croatian language. Serbian literature developed primarily from the 12th century, producing such religious works as the illuminated Miroslav Gospel, biblical stories, and hagiographies. After the Turkish occupation of Serbia in 1459, literature declined. The most important Serbian representative of the Enlightenment period was Dositej Obradovic, whose writings greatly influenced Serbian literary development. Many characteristics of European Romanticism could be observed in the literature of the period 182070, especially the cult of folklore and national self-assertion. A central figure was Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, a reformer of literary language who wrote a Serbian grammar and dictionary and collected Serbian folk poetry and stories. The lyric verses of Branko Radicevic contributed to the break with earlier didactic-objective poetry. Notable Romantic writers included Radicevic, Jovan Jovanovic (known as Zmaj), ura Jakic, and Laza Kostic. From 1870 to 1900 there was a tendency toward realism, reflected in the fiction of Laza Lazarevic, Simo Matavulj, and Stevan Sremac, a satirist and humorist. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Serbian literature was influenced by European currents, particularly French Symbolism and the psychological novel. Serbian writers between World Wars I and II continued to follow major European literary movements. The Belgrade Surrealist group introduced a note of radical, left-wing politics, and some of its members later turned to the style of Socialist Realism. The literature of the 1930s was shaped by the focus on political and social themes. Among the major writers of the period was Ivo Andric, whose novel Na Drini cuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina) reflects the history of his homeland of Bosnia. Andric was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. The postwar period initially saw the continuation of realism, but by the 1950s more original forms of expression had been introduced into prose, as in the work of Oskar Davico and Miodrag Bulatovic. In poetry Serbia was represented by Desanka Maksimovic, Vasko Popa, Stevan Raickovic, Miodrag Pavlovic, and Ivan Lalic. Later developments included novels with greater social and political comment, such as Danilo Ki's Grobnica za Borisa Davidovica (1976; A Tomb for Boris Davidovich), and experiments with literary forms by the Klokotrizam group, whose apparent intention was to defy the canons and aesthetic norms of art.