Juraj Baraković (; 1548 – 1 August 1628) was a Croatian

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poet from

Zadar Zadar ( , ), historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian, ; see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Croatia. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar ...

. Baraković was born in the village of Plemići, Rtina. He wrote several distinguished pieces (''"Jarula"'', Venice 1618 – Old and New Testament in storytelling form; ''"Draga, rapska pastirica"''), but one work excels in his literary opus: complicated and the most explicitly manneristic epic in 13 books ''"Vila slovinka"'' (Venice, 1613). Most of Baraković's poetry was dedicated to the glory of Zadar, with firm reliance on his co-citizen Petar Zoranić that already left a notable mark on

Croatian literature Croatian literature refers to literary works attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats, Croatia, and Croatian language, Croatian. Besides the modern language whose shape and orthography were standardized in the late 19th centu ...

. ''Vila slovinka'', an epic written in the glory of Zadar, has two especially notable features: in the eighth book the eleven octosyllabic sonnets are listed, which are, beside a few anonymously written ones in Ranjina's Miscellany, the only sonnets in Croatian poetry before the

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. The same book contains perfectly stylised ''bugarščica'' about Mother Margarita, which astonishes both readers and philologists for centuries, still leaving to be determined whether is it a folk song that Baraković incorporated into his own work following the model of Petar Hektorović, or is it his own song adapted to the stylistic features of the folk poem stanzas, or the folk song enhanced by Baraković's skillful poetical and artistic genius. Baraković died in Rome, the city he visited three times in his life.

Sources

* 1548 births 1628 deaths 17th-century Croatian poets 16th-century Croatian poets Writers from Zadar Republic of Venice poets Venetian Slavs Croatian male poets 17th-century Italian male writers {{Croatia-poet-stub