| Aleksa Šantić | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 27, 1868 Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Died | February 2, 1924 (aged 55) Mostar, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Serbian |
Aleksa Šantić (Serbian Cyrillic: Алекса Шантић) (May 27, 1868 – February 2, 1924) was a Serbian poet from Herzegovina.
He was born and lived most his life in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a province that was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878 and annexed by them in 1908. After attending business schools in Trieste and Ljubljana, he settled down in his native Mostar where he became the editor-in-chief of the review Zora (Dawn; 1896–1901). In this capacity he came into the focus of the life of this region which, by its cultural and national consciousness, showed a stubborn opposition to the German Kulturtrager. The product of his patriotic inspiration during the liberating Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 is the book Na starim ognjistima (On the Old Hearths; 1913). During the First World War he was taken by the Austrians as hostage, but he survived the war and saw the realization of his dream—the union of the South Slavs.
The oeuvre of Aleksa Šantić, widely accessible yet acutely personal, is a blend of fine-tuned emotional sensibility and clear-eyed historical awareness, steeped in the specifics of local culture. Drawing themes and imagery from his hometown Mostar, the atmospheric capital of Mediterranean Herzegovina, and its surroundings, his poetry is marked in equal part by the late-Ottoman urban culture in the region, its social distinctions, subdued passions and melancholy, as well as the South-Slavic national awareness that was growing all over what was later to become Yugoslavia.
As a Serb who embraced the form and the sentiment of the traditional Bosnian love ballad sevdalinka, he was a pioneer in attempting to bridge the national and cultural divides, and in his lamentation of the erosion of population through emigration, that was the result of Austrian occupation. This combination of locally rooted, transcultural sensibility and a dedicated pan-Slavic vision has earned him a special place in the pantheon of South Slavic poetry.
He was strongly influenced by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, Vojislav Ilić and Heinrich Heine. The topics and images of his poems ranged from strong emotions for social injustices of his time to nostalgic love. His poems about Mostar and the river Neretva breathe pure and Serbian patriotism and are considered particularly beautiful. Šantić wrote a number of love songs in the style of the Bosnian love songs, sevdalinkas. His most well known sevdalinka is Emina, to which music was composed and it is often sung at restaurants (kafanas).
During his life he wrote six volumes of poetry (1891, 1895, 1900, 1908, 1911, 1913), as well as some dramatizations in verse, the best of which are Pod maglom (In the Fog; 1907) and Hasan-Aginica (1911). He also translated Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo (1897–1898), prepared an anthology of translated german poets, Iz nemacke lirike (From German Lyrics; 1910), made Serbian renderings of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (1922) and translated Pesme roba (Poems of a Slave; 1919) from the Czech writer Svatopluk Cech. He also translated successfully from German.
Aleksa Šantić, a village in Serbia is named after this poet. He is also pictured on 10 Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible marks bill.
Few spots in the world have such gracious beauty as the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic. He thus foresees the liberation of his native province, in the Dalmatian Nocture:
Sea bluely gleaming, Dreaming;
Chill darkness earthward falls.
The last red glimmer Dimmer
O'er blackened ridges crawls.
And chimes are droning, Moaning,
Trembling where rocks arise;
Prayers have ascended, Blended
With poor men's long-drawn sighs.
Before God's altar Falter
This wailing, haggard brood.
But ne'er is spoken Token
By God upon His rood.
And dreams are nearer, Clearer;
Chill darkness earthward falls.
The last red glimmer Dimmer
O'er blackened ridges crawls.
Jovan Skerlić, Istorija Nove Srpske Književnosti/History of New Serbian Literature (Belgrade, 1914, 1921), pages 421-422.