Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević

Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević (Croatian pronunciation: [sîːlʋije strǎximir krǎːɲtʃeʋitɕ]; 17 February 1865 – 29 October 1908) was a Croatian poet. His reflexive poetry, reaching its zenith in the 1890s, was a turning point that ushered modern themes in Croatian poetry.

Kranjčević was born in Senj. Rebellious as a teenager, he completed his secondary education in a Gymnasium, but did not graduate from it. Soon after joining the elite Germanico-Hungaricum Institute in Rome, where he was supposed to become a priest, he changed his mind and left. The short stay in the Eternal City would show through in his poetry years later.

He attended the one-year course for language and history teachers in Zagreb. With the diploma for a teacher in “citizen schools”, he left to work in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mostar, Livno, Bijeljina, Sarajevo: those were the cities where he taught and wrote poetry.

Kranjčević made contributions to Albanian culture: while Albanian writer Gjergj Fishta attended Franciscan schools in Bosnia, he met Bosnian Croat Grga Martić and Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević who at that time lived in Bosnia. Martić and Kranjčević awakened literary instinct in Fishta.

He published his first poem, Zavjet (The Pledge) in 1883, a couple of months before leaving for Rome. The magazine where it was published, Hrvatska vila, was led by Eugen Kumičić, a famous writer and politician of the time, who enthusiastically welcomed the fighting spirit in the verses of the unknown young poet. Kranjčević sent another two poems from Rome in 1884, Pozdrav (Salute) and Senju-gradu (Poem for Senj), to Sloboda, a magazine in Sušak. When he came back from Rome, he published Noć na Foru (A Night at the Forum) in Vijenac.

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