The directory «Plots»

Harambašić August
(1861—1911)

August Harambašić, talented Croatian patriotic poet and politician, member of the Croatian Party of Rights, was very early confronted with the heavy burden of the political context of his time. His ardent patriotic verses and political speeches made the whole nation enthusiastic, but toward the end of his life he experienced the total breakdown of his youth ideals and died alone and forgotten in the Psychiatric Hospital Stenjevac. August Harambašić was born on 14 July 1861 in Donji Miholjac. Having lost his mother in his early childhood and his father at the age of 15, he continues his life and elementary school in Nova Gradiška, living with his grandfather. He attends Gymnasium in Požega and Osijek and studies legal sciences in Zagreb and Vienna, takes his doctor degree in 1892, passes in 1894 his judicial trainee and in 1896 also his bar examination. He receives the Certificate in Legal Practice in 1900 and that same year is elected Secretary to the Croatian Writers’ Association. From 1894 he worked for some time in the law office of J. Frank, and in 1895 defended students who burnt Hungarian flag in Zagreb. Because of his political and artistic work he had been arrested on several occasions. At the end of 1880-ies, when the youth of the Croatian Party of Rights became an eager exponent of party’s ideas he joined the Party and became its spokesman. After the split in the Party of Rights in 1895 he sided with the mainstream of the party, i.e. patriots, although he advocated the unification of the Party. He took part in the work of parliament members committee from Croatia and Dalmatia, who elaborated a study on which the Rijeka Resolution was founded. After founding of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition he followed its political orientation, and his actions testify about a delicate position of the members of the Party of Rights within the Coalition. Pointing out the need to positively work on the basis of the Croatian -Hungarian Agreement, he advocated the constitutional reform and above all secret, direct and equal voting right and the unification of Dalmatia and Croatia. At the beginning of 1909 he dropped out of the Croatian Party of Rights and from the Croatian-Serbian Coalition, and the Ban P. Rauch appointed him that same year a Secretary to the Provincial Government in the Department for Religion and Education. He wrote poems, poetic stories, satires, librettos, feuilletons and literary and art criticism. His first poem Na što pjesni? (Why Poetry?) was published in Smilje in 1877. The majority of poems that ensured him the status of the leading Croatian poet were written by 1902 (Ružmarinke - Rosemary Poems 1882, Slobodarke - Free Poems 1883, Sitne pjesme - Miniature Poems 1884, Tugomilke – Sad Poems 1887 and Nevenke - Marigold Poems 1892, Pjesničke pripoviesti – Poetic Stories 1889 and Izabrane pjesme – Sellected Poems, 1895). The only self-published poetic story Rob - Slave (Balkan, 1888) was seized because it treated the theme of the occupation of Bosnia. Jokes and satires were mostly published in wit and humour periodicals, were written for the needs of Party’s (Party of Rights) satiric publishing and had no literary ambitions; however, the novelty and quality can be noticed in creating humorous effects by the use of language and not by theme. He also wrote several poetry and children stories collections (Mali raj - Small Paradise, Smilje i kovilje – Immortelle and Feather Grass, Zlatna knjiga za djecu - Golden Book for Children) and librettos for which I. Zajc composed music (Zlatka, Kraljev hir - King’s Caprice and Armida, both together with S. Miletić). He wrote the hymn to Ante Starčević, the leader of the Party of Rights. Harambašić was also engaged in literary and art criticism, mostly limited to biography reviews and plots. In 1888 he wrote with N. Kokotović Hrvatski pučki pismovnik - Croatian Folk Alphabet for the needs of civic life, occasional letters and patterns modelled after Hrvatsko-njemački pučki listar za sva odnošenja građanskoga života (Croatian-German Folk Listing for all Civic Life Relations) by M. Stojanović. He was also translating from Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Russian, French, Italian and German language. He prepared for printing also his translation of Bugarske pjesme (Bulgarian Poems 1886) and Sabrane pjesme (Collected Poems, 1890) by Jorgovanić. Already as a Gymnasium pupil he edited a wit and humour journal Lakrdijaš (Buffon,1876) and political journal Hrvat (Croatian 1878), and later almost all satiric journals of the Party of Rights, Bič ( Whip 1883./1884.), Tries (1885/1886), Novi bič (New Whip 1886), Trn (Spine 1891), fun and literary journal Hrvatska vila (Croatian Fairy 1882/1883), Balkan (1886./1887, with N. Kokotović), Hrvatska (Croatia 1890), Hrvatska domovina (Croatian Homeland 1894), Preporod (Revival 1898 /1899) and the Christian-social journal Hrvatstvo (Croatianness 1904). He also co-operated in many other periodicals. August Harambašić is considered one of the most popular Croatian poets in the period of Romanticism, whose poetry is marked by the thematic parallelism of simple, love and patriotic poems that express strong national aspirations and clear ideas and orientations of the Party of Rights (motifs of unrestrained longing for freedom, rebellion, dream of past glory and future greatness, belief in folk). His - at his time exceptionally engaged and at receiver’s end very important poetry - is today perceived primarily as social and less as literary fact.

Croatia, 2011, August Harambašić