Andrija Kačić Miošić (; 17 April 1704 – 14 December 1760) was a Croatian poet and

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

friar, descendant of one of the oldest and most influential Croatian noble families -

Kačić Kȁčić () is a Croatian surname. It is chiefly distributed in the city of Split, and the area of southern and central Dalmatia. Etymologically it derives from the word ''kača'' "snake". It may refer to: * Kačić noble family, which includes m ...

Biography

Born in Brist near Makarska, he became a Franciscan friar. He was educated in

Zaostrog Zaostrog () (Italian:Rastozza) is a tourist town and harbor along the Adriatic Sea in southern Dalmatia, Croatia. It is located between Makarska and Ploče. It consists of two parts, an older part below a steep limestone section of the Biokovo m ...

monastery and

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

. He used to teach philosophy in Zaostrog and Sumartin on

Brač Brač is an island in the Adriatic Sea within Croatia, with an area of , making it the largest island in Dalmatia, and the third largest in the Adriatic. It is separated from the mainland by the Brač Channel, which is wide. The island's tall ...

. His most important work is ''Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskog'' (''Pleasant Conversation of Slavic People'', 1756), a history in verse, in which Kačić Miočić, influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment, tried to spread literacy and modern ideas among common people. It was the most popular book in the Croatian-speaking lands for more than a century. It also played a key role in the victory of the Shtokavian dialect as the standard Croatian language. It contain poems about

Skanderbeg , reign = 28 November 1443 – 17 January 1468 , predecessor = Gjon Kastrioti , successor = Gjon Kastrioti II , spouse = Donika Arianiti , issue = Gjon Kastrioti II , royal house = Kastrioti , father ...

which were basis for tragedy ''Skenderbeg'' written by

Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski (29 May 1816 – 1 August 1889) was a Croatian historian, politician and writer, most famous for the first speech delivered in Croatian before the Parliament. Considered a renowned patriot, Kukuljević was a proponent of ...

in the 19th century. They were also basis for ''Život i viteška voevanja slavnog kneza epirskog Đorđa Kastriota Skenderbega'' written by

Jovan Sterija Popović Jovan Sterija Popović (; sr-cyr, Јован Стерија Поповић; 13 January 1806 – 10 March 1856) was a Serbian playwright, poet, lawyer, philosopher and pedagogue who taught at the Belgrade Higher School. Sterija was recognized by ...

in 1828.

Using the ten-syllable verse of folk poetry and relying on

Mavro Orbini Mavro Orbini (1563–1614) was a Ragusan chronicler, notable for his work ''The Realm of the Slavs'' (1601) which influenced Slavic ideology and historiography in the later centuries. Life Orbini was born in Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), the capital o ...

and

Pavao Ritter Vitezović Pavao Ritter Vitezović (; 7 January 1652 – 20 January 1713) was a Habsburg-Croatian polymath, variously described as a historian, linguist, publisher, poet, political theorist, diplomat, printmaker, draughtsman, cartographer, writer and print ...

, Kačić Miošić narrates and sings about the history of the

Slavic peoples Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic language, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout ...

from the antiquity to his age. He, like

Ivan Gundulić Dživo Franov Gundulić ( it, Gianfrancesco Gondola; 8 January 1589 – 8 December 1638), better known today as Ivan Gundulić, was the most prominent Baroque poet from the Republic of Ragusa (now in Croatia). He is regarded as the Croatian nat ...

, describes the Slavic peoples from the

Adriatic The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) ...

to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

as one people. The book exalts many heroes from the famous Croatian families of the age of the Ottoman wars. His most important work also contained a lot of references and praise for the Bosniak nation and its historical events. Since the book includes some important folk poems, many readers considered it a folk songbook. ''Pleasant Conversation'' is mostly

didactic Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is an emerging conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to ...

in tone and of little artistic value, but later it served as a valuable source of historic data. It gave inspiration for future Croatian writers. His other works are a

philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

study in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and a chronicle called ''Korabljica'' (1760), where he used passages from other writers, including Vitezović.

References

External links

Short biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miosic, Andrija kacic 1704 births 1760 deaths Croatian Franciscans 18th-century Croatian poets Kačić People from Dalmatia