Poetika prostora u romanima bačkih Hrvata
Authors:   , Šimudvarac Mario 
Published: October 2023

In the introduction to the doctoral dissertation Poetics of space in the novels of Bačka Croats, the following question is raised: How could the regional literature of the Bačka Croats be included in the Croatian literature today? In doing so, some difficulties are observed. It is about the works of Croatian writers in the area of Bačka, but also in the whole region of Vojvodina, as well as about Croatian writers in the homeland who are linked to Bačka by their origins. After all, Bačka is an oustanding multicultural and multinational region situated outside the administrative and political borders of the Republic of Croatia, within which there is a crossover of several literary traditions, especially the Hungarian and Serbian ones. Although the literary works of the Bačka Croats have been mostly out of the focus of Croatian literary historiography, they have in some cases been given a lower artistic value. That is precisely why the idea that the Bačka Croats' literature can be included in the Croatian Pannonian literary corpus is put forward in the introduction. The problematic question is raised from the belief that among literary works there are inherent features which can connect them on a regional, national and transnational basis. In the second chapter, the theoretical fields of Polish geopoetics, regional poetics, geocriticism and literary geography are described. Paradoxically, the answer to the problem question about the Croatian literature integrity and inclusion of all its regional constituents in a unique literary system is found in Croatian literary regionalism, but also in the double racialisation of Croatian literature into northern or Pannonian and southern or Mediterranean literature. The Bačka Croats' literature can be spoken of as Croatian Pannonian literature if it turns out that there are general features of Pannonianism as found in the native Croatian literature, especially in Slavonia. It is assumed that one of the most important links is the Pannonian literary construct in both regional literatures. The third chapter is devoted to the novels of the Bačka Croats written between 1875 and the first quarter of the 21st century, from Bishop Ivan Antunović to the present day. We begin with the geographical and cultural features of the Bačka region. We look back at language studies in which language is understood as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, a means for the formation of regional and national identity. Although most of the novels of the Croats of Bačka are written and published in Croatian, only a few of them have been written and published in the Serbian ekavian dialect. At the same time, it is a great pity that the Šokadija and Bunjevac ikavian dialects are used only sporadically, less frequently than in poetic texts, most often in the speech of Romanesque literary characters, and sometimes not even then. We also turn our attention to the very scarce literature on the novels of the Bačka Croats. Here, two major works can be noted - Ante Sekulić's anthology selections and Milovan Miković's anthologies, essays and literary reviews. Some literary works provide misleading information about authors and their works, as well as vague, superficial, outdated statements and stereotypes. In some cases, literature tends to ignore parts of the oeuvre of some authors. Moreover, some of the novels of the Bačka Croats are still in manuscript form or excerpts of some of them are published in various newspapers. In the conclusion, a corpus of the Bačka Croats' novels is presented, with an emphasis on their distribution by place of publication. Given that other Vojvodina Croats also publish their novels and other literary works in Subotica as the cultural centre of the Bačka Croats and in Novi Sad, the situation is further complicated because the Bačka Croats' literature thus becomes a metonymy for Croatian literature from the Vojvodina region. However, in spite of all the difficulties, there is a hypothesis that literary works of the Bačka Croats have a distinct Croatian national character and that they originate from the Croatian cultural space. To further prove this, we observe the novels of the Bačka Croats from the perspective of shaping panonism. If it proves that the same, or at least similar concept of Pannonianism can be formed in the novels of the Bačka Croats as it has already been formed in Slavonian literature, then the literature of the Bačka Croats, in line with the dual regional dimension of Croatian literature, can be brought into close connection with Slavonian and, at the same time, with Croatian literature as a whole. Such a research perspective has value because regionalism is one of the fundamental features of Croatian literature. Then it is seen not only as part of the Croatian, but also of the wider Pannonian, European cultural and literary context. This is how the close link between a literary work and a geographical reality is created, which is certainly based on a number of literary conventions. The fourth and most extensive chapter focuses on the religious, historical, political, social and anthropological segments of Bačka Croats' novels on a thematic-motive level, as well as on the formation of the thematic Pannonianism concept. In line with this, four types of thematic Pannonianism concept are formed. These are religious, political, social and anthropological Pannonianism. Based on the formation of thematic Pannonianism, its characteristics are also produced from which, according to Stephen Greenblatt, culture might be comprehended. The characteristics of Pannonianism in Bačka Croats' novels should be aligned with the characteristics of Pannonianism in Slavonian literature. As for the stylistic Pannonianism in Bačka Croats' novels, which is discussed in Chapter 5, we discuss the poetics of the land that characterises the first, enlightenment-realistic phase and the poetics of the sky that characterises the second, (post)modern phase in the development of the novel in the Bačka Croat’s literature. In such a general and probably more widely applicable periodization of the novel, we notice in the Bačka Croat’s literature there is a very emotional relationship to one's own Pannonian space, which is perceived as a contrasting relationship between earth and sky, hence in a similar way as in Slavonian literature, so that - at least for now - we cannot speak of any special type of regionalism, as well as we cannot determine the Pannonian differentia specifica in the literature of Bačka Croats in relation to the Croatian literature in Slavonia. If the formed concept of Pannonianism in the novels of Bačka Croats is compared with the concept of Pannonianism as formulated in the Slavonian literary texts, it can be seen that they are very similar. Thus, the novels of Bačka Croats are rightfully included in the Croatian Pannonian literary corpus. This is also a proof that the Bačka Croats' literature is part of the Croatian literature, and that it can be considered Pannonian, European literature. Regional Bačka Croat's literature thus becomes an example on the basis of which it is possible to consider the problem of accepting, unifying and creating different local Croatian literary traditions in the context of the dual regional dimension of Croatian literature. This also opens up the issue of determining the position of the Bačka Croats' literature in the history of Croatian literature and within the Pannonian cultural and literary circle.