Andrija Kačić Miošić

Andrija Kačić Miošić (April 17, 1704 - December 14, 1760) was a Croatian poet and Franciscan monk.

Born in Brist near Makarska, he became a Franciscan monk. He was educated in Zaostrog monastery and Buda. He used to teach philosophy in Zaostrog and Sumartin on Brač.

His most important work is "Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskog" ("Pleasant Conversation of Slavic People", 1756), a history in verse, in which Kačić Miočić, influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment, tried to spread literacy and modern ideas among common people. It was the most popular book in the Croatian-speaking lands for more than a century. It also played a key role in the victory of the Shtokavian dialect as the standard Croatian language.

Using the ten-syllable verse of folk poetry and relying on Mavro Orbini and Pavao Ritter Vitezović, Kačić Miošić narrates and sings about the history of the Slavic peoples from the antiquity to his age. He, like Ivan Gundulić, describes the Slavic peoples from the Adriatic to the North Sea as one people. The book exalts many heroes from the famous Croatian families of the age of the Ottoman wars. Since the book includes some important folk poems, many readers considered it a folk songbook.

"Pleasant Conversation" is mostly didactic in tone and of little artistic value, but later it served as a valuable source of historic data. It gave inspiration for future Croatian writers.

His other works are a philosophical study in Latin and a chronicle called "Korabljica" (1760), where he used passages from other writers, including Vitezović.

External links

* [http://www.hrt.hr/arhiv/ndd/04travanj/0417%20Kacic.html Short biography in Croatian]

Persondata
NAME=Miošić, Andrija Kačić
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Croatian poet and Franciscan monk
DATE OF BIRTH=17 April 1704
PLACE OF BIRTH=Brist, Croatia
DATE OF DEATH=14 December 1760
PLACE OF DEATH=Zaostrog, Croatia