Jedinstvom protiv (ne)sloge: nacionalna koncepcija napredne omladine
With Unity Against (Dis)harmony: the Progressive Youth’s Conception of the Nation

Summary/Abstract: Similarly as in other European countries, at the end of the 19th century the modernist movement of the Progressive Youth dynamized Croatian culture and politics and challenged the ideas and positions of the “old” national elites. As it was formed under the influence of foreign, mostly Viennese and Prague movements, its appropriation and application to the Croatian space necessarily had to be modified with regard to the specific Croatian social context. This leads to a question of evaluating the character of the modernist movement in Croatia, especially concerning its relationship to the established national structures and traditions. Does the modernist Youth Movement represent a radical break with the traditions and politics of “the elders”, or is it more a case of a simple process of generational change obscured by radical rhetoric? An attempt to answer this question will be given through a consideration of a specific problematic which was in the focus of Croatian political and cultural life of the time, i.e. the national question. To this end, representative texts published in the first relevant publications of the Progressive Youth – the Prague-based journal The Croatian Thought and the Zagreb-based university almanac The National Thought – will be analyzed. Finally, through the contextual reading of these texts it is also possible to consider certain differences within the Youth Movement, as well as to determine the specific foci of certain groups of the Movement which acted in different fields and contexts.

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