Antun Barac ( Kamenjak, 20 August 1894 –

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

, 1 November 1955), was a Croatian historian.

Biography

Barac graduated at the

Faculty of philosophy A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

at the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, ; la, Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the largest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of ...

in 1917, and received his Ph.D. as a high school professor on Sušak in 1918, with the thesis on

Vladimir Nazor Vladimir Nazor (30 May 1876 – 19 June 1949) was a Croatian poet and politician. During and after World War II in Yugoslavia, he served as the first President of the Presidium of the Croatian Parliament (Croatian head of state), and first Sp ...

's poetry. Since 1930 he is a regular professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He was accepted as a regular member of

Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...

in 1947. He edited numerous scientific editions and anthologies, and has written high school handbooks together with Nazor. He served as a prorector of the University of Zagreb after his rectorship mandate expired (1950–1951). He was a significant contributor to modern Croatian literary theory, especially in the position of

Croatian literature Croatian literature refers to literary works attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats, Croatia, and Croatian. Besides the modern language whose shape and orthography was standardized in the late 19th century, it also covers t ...

in the European context. He published numerous monographies on top Croatian artists such as Nazor, Šenoa, Vidrić or Mažuranić, a number of critic-essayist writings on lesser known writers, as well as great syntheses on Croatian literary criticism of the 19th century, and the unfinished history of Croatian literature from

Croatian National Revival The Illyrian movement ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Ilirski pokret, Илирски покрет; sl, Ilirsko gibanje) was a pan-South-Slavic cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian inte ...

to the time of creation of

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

. A square in

Novi Zagreb Novi Zagreb () is the part of the City of Zagreb located south of the Sava river. Novi Zagreb forms a distinct whole because it is separated from the northern part of the city both by the river and by the levees around Sava. At the same time, it i ...

is named after him.

Literary criticism

Barac's valorisation of literature is based on the two tenets: the literature has to be an expression of a man in his totality, as an individual and social being, deeply covering the basic aspects of life. His other tenet is that the great art is born only out of the great pain. His studies were permeated by a specific national criterion, holding that every little literature to a more or less extent reflects the social life of its people, as opposed to the large national literature. This view is reflected in his well-known maxim on the greatness of the small.

References

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Antun Barac
University of Zagreb webpage {{DEFAULTSORT:Barac, Antun 1894 births 1955 deaths Rectors of the University of Zagreb 20th-century Croatian historians Croatian writers Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery Yugoslav historians