Matija Murko’s Literary History and Dalmatian-Ragusan Literature

Abstract

This article focuses on Matija Murko’s treatment of older Dalmatian-Ragusan literature from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. While this topic was not the primary focus of Murko’s literary-historical writing, he addressed it throughout his academic career, particularly in his major literary-historical works (Geschichte der älteren südslavischen Literaturen, 1908, and Die Bedeutung der Reformation und Gegenreformation für das geistige Leben der Südslaven, 1927). Murko recognized that this literature represented the artistic culmination of all South Slavic literatures up to the nineteenth century, which is why it holds a special place in his research, despite being treated sporadically. Furthermore, the discussion aims to demonstrate that the thematization of this literature may serve as the clearest reflection of Murko’s overall literary-historical approach: a philologically oriented literary positivism that due to its intercultural and comparativist nature, remains receptive to influences of the history of ideas (Geistesgeschichte). Murko developed this intellectual breadth during the formative period of his academic career, especially through his interactions with the Germanists of the Scherer school (E. Schmidt) and the Russian literary historians of his time (A. N. Veselovsky and A. N. Pypin).