Petar Preradović

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Officer and writer Petar Preradović
Monument in Zagreb

Petar Preradović (born March 19, 1818 in Grabrovnica , military border or Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia , Austrian Empire ; † August 18, 1872 in Fahrafeld near Pottenstein , Archduchy of Austria under the Enns , Austria-Hungary ) was Austrian and from 1867 Austrian- Hungarian officer and Croatian author. He wrote in Croatian and German. Thirty years after his death, he was called "the most important Croatian poet of modern times" and is still considered the Croatian national poet today.

Life

Preradović was born in the village of Grabrovnica near Virovitica , which at that time belonged to the Austrian military border . His parents belonged to the Serbian Orthodox religious community. Petar Preradović aspired to the career of a professional soldier in the imperial-royal army and received his training from 1830-1838 at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt , which he graduated as one of the best of his year. In Wiener Neustadt he converted to Catholicism and began writing his first poems in German here. After his retirement, he was stationed in Milan as a second lieutenant in 1838 . Here he met Ivan Kukuljević-Sakcinski , who inspired him to write in Croatian, which he did from 1842.

In 1843 Preradović was stationed in Zadar in Dalmatia . Here he began to write for the Croatian-language newspaper " Zora dalmatinska ". In 1844 he became a first lieutenant. In 1846 he was transferred to the Croatian capital Zagreb , where he made contact with the exponents of the so-called Illyrian movement .

In 1847 he was again stationed in northern Italy and in 1848 fought as a captain against the Italian unification movement . After his return to Croatia in 1849 he became a close associate of Feldzeugmeister Joseph Jelačić von Bužim . In 1852 he was promoted to major, in 1859 to colonel and worked in Temesvár , then Hungary.

In 1864, in view of his military merits, he was awarded a title of nobility, which Emperor Ferdinand II had given four brothers of that name in 1626.

In 1865 he was deployed in Verona and promoted to major general and brigadier in the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866, when Austria was fighting against the loss of Lombardy . In 1868 he was active as such in Pressburg and in 1869 in Vienna .

Preradović wrote his poetic work under the influence of national romanticism; his poems often reflect Pan-Slavic ideas . He was very interested in spiritualism and also wrote some related articles about it. His life, caught between a military career, politics and literature, was also marked by poor health and gambling addiction.

Preradović's death house

Preradović died in Fahrafeld in Lower Austria at the age of 54. He was buried in Vienna in the Matzleinsdorf cemetery . When it was closed in 1879, his remains were transferred to the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb, built in 1876 .

He had seven children. One of his granddaughters was the writer Paula Preradović , author of the Austrian national anthem ; Preradovicgasse in Vienna Hütteldorf is named after her . In the novel " Pave and Pero " Paula Preradović published parts of the correspondence between Petar Preradović (Pero) and his first wife Paolina de Ponte (Pave).

A monument to Preradović has stood on a square in the center of Zagreb since 1895; the square bears his name to this day. In Vienna , in the 3rd district at the house at Ungargasse 39, where Preradović lived, there is a memorial plaque for the “great Croatian poet” installed by the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts . Here Preradović met with Vuk Stefanović Karadžić , who at the time also lived in Vienna and codified the modern Serbian written language. According to the Serbian and Croatian intellectuals working in Vienna, the two peoples had a common language.

Works (selection)

  • The Uskoken Girl ( Uskočka djevojka , 1841)
  • Zora puca, bit će dana ( The dawn breaks, the day is approaching , 1844)
  • Prvenci ( first fruits , collection of poems, Zadar 1846)
  • Putnik (1846)
  • Nove pjesme ( New Songs , 1851)
  • Prvi ljudi ( The First People , Epic, 1862)
  • Vladimir i Kosara ( Vladimir and Kosara , epic)
  • Kraljević Marko ( King's Son Marko , Drama)
  • Slavenski Dioskuri ( Slavic Dioskuri )
  • To my fatherland ( Mojoj domovini )
  • Pozdrav domovini ( Greetings to the Fatherland )
  • Pjesnička djela ( Poetic Works , Zagreb 1873)
  • Život i pjesme ( Life and Songs , 1909)

Mavro Spičer translated a selection of his poems into German; they appeared in Leipzig in 1895.

As a translator into Croatian, Preradović supervised works by Lord Byron , Goethe , Nikolaus Lenau , Dante , Zygmunt Krasiński and Alessandro Manzoni .

literature

Web links

Commons : Petar Preradović  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 14, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna 1896, p. 172.
  2. ^ Biographical Lexicon of the Austrian Empire , entry on Wikisource
  3. ↑ Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 , Ed. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Online Edition, Volume 8, p. 264 f. (PDF; 150 kB)
  4. ^ Karl-Markus Gauß : In the forest of the metropolises. Paul Zsolnay-Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-552-05505-6 , p. 48.
  5. ↑ Zora puca on hr.wikisource.org
  6. ↑ Putnik on hr.wikisource.org
personal data
SURNAME Preradović, Petar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Preradović, Petar von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian general, Croatian writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Grabrovnica near Virovitica
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1872
Place of death Fahrafeld near Pottenstein