Vienna Literary Agreement

The Vienna Literary Agreement (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Bečki književni dogovor, Cyrillic: Бечки књижевни договор) was the result of a meeting held in March 1850, when writers from Croatia, Serbia and one from Slovenia met to discuss the extent to which their literatures could be conjoined and united, and to standardize the Serbo-Croatian language.

The first half of 19th century proved to be a turning point in Illyrian language conceptions. By that time, Illyrians held individual debates with their opponents, and Zagreb, as the center of Croatian cultural and literary life, served as a stronghold for their implementation and propagation. However, by that time some of the Illyrians came to realize the infeasibility of the Illyrian conceptions of language and literary unification of all South Slavs, realizing that the only real option left would be the creation of common literary language for Croats and Serbs, which have in common both Štokavian dialect and Ijekavian accent.

In March 1850 the meeting was organized and was attended by self-taught Serbian linguist and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, his close follower Đuro Daničić, the most eminent Slavist of the period - Slovenian Franc Miklošič, and Croatians were represented by Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, Dimitrije Demeter, Ivan Mažuranić, Vinko Pacel, and Stjepan Pejaković.

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