Vjenceslav Novak (11 September 1859 in Senj – 20 September 1905 in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

) was a Croatian Realist

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

, and

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He was born into an emigrant Czech family, of which his mother was from an emigrant

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

n family. He was the most successful Croatian realist writer and was known as the ''Croatian Balzac''. He finished elementary and middle school in Senj and Gospić. He also worked as a teacher in Senj for some time. He entered into literature in 1881 with his

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) fact ...

'' Maca''. He wrote seven novels. He published thirty novellas. Apart from stories he also wrote poetry,

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of french: feuillet, the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art critici ...

, dramatic works, reviews, critiques and musical arrangements. In 1892 he initiated (jointly with

Vjekoslav Klaić Vjekoslav Klaić (21 June 1849 – 1 July 1928) was a Croatian historian and writer, most famous for his monumental work ''History of the Croats''. Klaić was born in Garčin near Slavonski Brod as the son of a teacher. He was raised in Germa ...

) the music periodical ''Gusle: Časopis za svjetovnu i crkvenu gasbu'', which he coedited with Klaić. The periodical was published only for a year, but next year he started a new journal ''Glazba: List za crkvenu i svjetovnu gazbu te dramatsku umetnost'', which he edited alone. This periodical ceased its publication at the end of 1893. He had a large family, suffered from tuberculosis, fought poverty, and during this period of his life was an average writer of that time. He was a novelist, narrator, critic and translator and worked right up until his death in 1905. He started out as a Romantic story-teller and ended up a writer of modern psychological prose with occult themes.

Works

* Novels: ** ''Pavao Šegota'' ** ''Pod Nehajem'' ** ''Posljednji Stipančići'' (

Matica hrvatska Matica hrvatska ( la, Matrix Croatica) is the oldest independent, non-profit and non-governmental Croatian national institution. It was founded on February 2, 1842 by the Croatian Count Janko Drašković and other prominent members of the Illy ...

, 1899, Agram ** ** ''Dva svijeta'' ** ''Tito Dorčić'' ** ''Nikola Baretić''

External links

Biography
1859 births 1905 deaths People from Senj Croatian dramatists and playwrights Croatian novelists Male novelists Croatian male short story writers Croatian short story writers Croatian male writers Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery 19th-century novelists 19th-century dramatists and playwrights 19th-century short story writers 19th-century male writers {{Croatia-writer-stub Croatian people of Czech descent Croatian people of German descent