Siegfried Kapper and the South Slavic Literary Culture of the Western Balkans

Abstract

The article discusses the relationship of Siegfried Kapper (1820–1879), a Czech-German author of Jewish origin, to South Slavic literary cultures (in particular Serbian, Montenegrin and Croatian), the influence of South Slavic national poetry on his work, on Kapper’s travels throughout the South Slavic countries of the Habsburg monarchy, of his contacts with distinguished figures of Serbian and Croatian culture and the South Slavic reception of Kapper’s work, as well as the Czech reception of that part of Kapper’s work, in which he conveyed the traditions of South Slavic literary monuments and the history of Czech society. The aim of the article is above all to provide a recapitulation and evaluation of Kapper’s mediating role between German, Czech and the South Slavic literary cultures of the Western Balkans, which Kapper played within the Central European environment from the time of the national emancipatory endeavours of the 1840s until the time of his death.

Keywords

• 19th century
• jewishness
• siegfried kapper
• south slavic folk poetry responses
• south slavic literary culture