Croatian Writers' Association

Croatian Writers' Association (Croatian: Društvo hrvatskih književnika; abbreviated DHK) is the official association of Croatian writers. It was founded in 1900 in Zagreb with the goal "to unite writers and help them support one another, and promote Croatian literature regardless of political objectives", "to protect the interests and increase the reputation of writers" and "supports its members and their orphans."

In 1897 the Croatian Writers' Club (Klub hrvatskih književnika) unofficially operated as part of the Association of Croatian Artists (Društvo hrvatskih umjetnika ), and was led by Milivoj Dežman. In 1898 the first informal agreement on the establishment of the Croatian Writers' Association was held, and a regulatory proposal was written. Matica hrvatska in 1899 approved the establishment of a separate Association, and on March 17, 1900 the government approvod its rules. Rules established four categories of members: real members (pravi članovi), association founders (zakladnici), founders (utemeljitelji) and associate members (izvanredni članovi).

At the inaugural meeting on April 2, 1900, held in the presence of 103 writers, Ivan Trnski was elected for the first president of the Association. In 1906 a monthly Contemporary (Savremenik) was launched. At the end of the 1908 the series Modern Croatian Writers (Suvremeni hrvatski pisci) was established, which was particularly prominent under the editorship of Julije Benešić (1909–1920). It was in that series that the famous anthology Croatian Young Lyric (Hrvatska mlada lirika ) was published in 1914.

The association's first years were marked by convergent efforts towards Matica Hrvatska – the association's publications of the Modern Croatian Writers series and the magazine Contemporary were supported by Matica hrvatska as possibly jointly published. At the same time the association advocated literary unity of Croats and Serbs, and proposals were made to issue a common literary magazine. In 1914 the association was temporarily suspended by a government decision due to the World War I. The postwar efforts of the association were marked by a support to linguistic and orthographic unification of Croats and Serbs.

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