Musa Ćazim Ćatić ( sr-Cyrl, Муса Ћазим Ћатић; 12 March 1878 – 6 April 1915) was a Bosnian poet of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Renaissance at the turn of the 20th century.

Life

Ćatić completed

Sharia Law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, inta ...

studies in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

. He worked as the editor of Behar and Biser magazines and in the Muslim Library of Mostar. He is today featured on the 50 convertible mark banknote of

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

Poetic style and influence

Esoteric

Ćatić was a poet by vocation and emotional structure who poetically experienced and imaginatively sublimated everything he came into contact with. Ćatić's poetry was life, the meaning of existence, the atmosphere of reality, and the medium in which his spirit ranged.

Mystic

The poetic theme of Ćatić is situated, mainly, between two poles: eroticism by instinct and

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute (philosophy), Absolute, but may refer to any kind of Religious ecstasy, ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality, spiritual meani ...

by spiritual endeavor, respectively. The combination of these motives sometimes occurred with a certain sense of spiritual distress, while sometimes sublimated in the form of sin, life and repentance as visioned by

Epicurus Epicurus (, ; ; 341–270 BC) was an Greek philosophy, ancient Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy that asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain tranqui ...

and Khayyám. Mysticism though never separates Ćatić from reality and life; his mysticism, which draws on that of Turkish and Persian poets, rejects the pessimistic escapism of the spirit, similar to Baudelaire on whom Ćatić likewise draws.

Impact

Ćatić began in the style of his predecessor Safvet-beg Bašagić, standardized, with conventional instruments of versification and metrics, and a limited fund of metaphors from female folk songs and Eastern poetic symbols. But he soon made ground in the limited and underdeveloped poetic heritage surrounding him, spurring a small school of literary followers who would represent the second phase in the development of modern Bosnian poetry.

Works

*''Pjesme od godine 1900.-1908.'' (1914, compiled 1900-1908) *''Izvorna poezija'' and ''Izvorna i prevedena proza'' (1962, as "Sabrana dijela")

References

External links

Musa Ćazim Ćatić
{{DEFAULTSORT:Catic, Musa Cazim 1878 births 1915 deaths Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims People from Odžak Bosnia and Herzegovina writers Bosnia and Herzegovina poets Poets from Austria-Hungary