Петар Прeradович: Жизнь и творчество хорватского поэта

Croatian poet

Petar Preradović (; 19 March 1818 – 18 August 1872) was a Croatian poet, writer, and military general. He was one of the most important Croatian poets of the 19th century Illyrian movement and the main representative of romanticism in Croatia. He was also the paternal grandfather of the Austrian writer and poet Paula Preradović, who is best known for composing the lyrics of the Austrian national anthem.

Petar Preradović was born to a family of Serb origin in the village of Grabrovnica near the town of Pitomača in modern day Croatia, which was a part of the Croatian Military Frontier at the time. He was born to Ivan and Pelagija Preradović, and spent his childhood in his fathers' hometown of Grubišno Polje and Đurđevac. In autobiography Crtice moga života, Preradović wrote of himself as a Croat. He had two sisters, Marija (20 December 1812 – 25 February 1867) and Ana (11 February 1820 – 5 April 1822). Following his fathers' death in 1828, Preradović, like many from the Military Frontier area, chose to become a professional soldier. He enrolled at the military academy in Bjelovar and later Wiener Neustadt where he converted from Eastern Orthodox Church to Catholicism and went on to excel as one of the school's best students. During the training, all Academy students were conducted as Roman Catholics, which could have been changed at the express request of the soldier. However, this has rarely occurred. Thus Preradović, tacitly signed as a Roman Catholic convert from the Orthodox Christianity which was legitimized by a formal act of conversion. His loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church was later increased since both he and his wife were Roman Catholics. While at the Academy, he began writing his first poems in German with distinctive features of romanticism.

After graduation, he was stationed in Milan where he met Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, a fellow officer from Croatia, who inspired him to start writing in Croatian. His writings were published in the local Croatian language newspaper Zora dalmatinska in 1846. Since then, he had systematically continued his poetry in Croatian and has also advocated official acceptance of Ljudevit Gaj's grammar in southern Croatia. In 1866, he became a general. where he was buried on 14 July 1879. Mayor of Zagreb August Šenoa held an inspired speech and stirred up the hymn to Preradović, which was inaugurated by Ivan Zajc. The gravestone monument to Petar Preradović, depicting Croatia in a form of a woman that lays flowers on his grave, was made by sculptor Ivan Rendić. He had eight children: Čedomil (8 July 1849 – 24 September 1849), Milica (b. 24 September 1850), Slavica (17 August 1852 – 23 March 1854), Dušan (18 September 1854 – 30 September 1920), Radovan Josip Petar (24 August 1858 – 11 February 1908), Milan (5 February 1866 – 6 August 1879), Zora (13 December 1867 – 10 May 1927) and Jelica (13 June 1870 – 27 December 1870). One of his grandchildren was Paula von Preradović, Austrian poet and the author of the Austrian national anthem.

While attending the military academy in Vienna, Preradović began writing his first poems (Der Brand von Neustadt, 1834) in German. In 1840, he met Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, who awoke his interest in Croatian culture and encouraged him to write in his native Croatian. In 1841, in Zagreb's German magazine Croatia he published the song Das Uskoken Mädchen. On the initiative of Špiro Dmitrović, in 1843, Preradović wrote the first poem in Croatian, Poslanica Špiri Dimitroviću. His first published song written in Croatian Zora puca, bit će dana was published in 1844 in the first issue of Zora dalmatinska. Preradović remained one of the constants of Croatian romanticism by its very nature.