This contribution aims to give a scholarly and human profile of the Italian Slavist Sergio Bonazza (1938-2021), recently passed away. Bonazza was born in a Slovene-speaking village nearby Triest to a ...mixed family. He studied in Venice and Vienna, where he started his activity as a researcher in the field of Slavic studies history, especially in the Austro-German and Italian contexts of the 19th century. His academic career unfolded mostly at the University of Verona, but also in Naples, Udine and Vienna. In 1987 in Udine, he was assigned the first chair of Slovene studies out of Slovenia. Gifted with a strong personality, he touched on a wide variety of concerns in different fields of Slavic studies, overcoming academic and cultural stereotypes, and often opening up new perspectives in the fields of history of Slavistics, Slovene culture and literature, Austro-Slavism, Slavic-Italian cultural relationships, Glagolitic writing in Eastern Italy, and more. Bonazza is well known as a specialist in the scholarly biography of the prominent Slavist Jernej (Bartholomäeus) Kopitar, to whom he devoted his best works, including a monograph.
Das vorliegende Buch "Differenzen und Interferenzen" ist eine Sammlung wissenschaftlicher (slavistischer) Studien, die vom Autor im deutschen bzw. englischen Sprachraum bereits veröffentlicht oder ...vorgetragen wurden. Als Ganzes ist es jedoch den südosteuropäischen Themen zugeordnet, wobei sich die einzelnen Beiträge konsistent in drei Problemkreise einordnen ließen. Der erste Kreis zeichnet sich durch grundsätzliche theoretische und literarhistorische Texte aus. Der zweite Kreis gilt den Fragen der Entstehung der Slavistik als einer wissenschaftlichen Disziplin und der Problematik, die ihr durch die vielseitigen Aktivitäten J. Kopitars auferlegt wurde. Den dritten Kreis bilden jene Texte, deren Thematik auch ein breiteres Lesepublikum anzusprechen vermag: die Entstehung und Entwicklung der slovenischen Literatur.
According to 19th-century philologist Jernej Kopitar, elite literary traditions and modern written languages originated in folk literature. Leading Slovenian intellectuals of his day, however, ...including poet France Prešeren and linguist and critic Matija Čop, favored classic poetic forms reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance. In Slovenian literary history, Kopitar has remained a figure of secondary importance; nonetheless, his role in other South Slavic cultures was preeminent. We examine several attempts to revert this tendency and to ascribe to Kopitar, and not only to Čop, a leading role in Slovenian nation-building.
Jernej je Kopitar u suradnji s austrijskim redarstvom odlučio srpski književni jezik reformirati tako da mu prekine razvojni kontinuitet i da mu nametne hrvatski književnojezični tip kao novu ...osnovicu. Time je htio prekinuti srpske kulturno-političke veze s Rusijom i pravoslavne Srbe vezati uz katoličke Hrvate. Nakon prihvaćanja hrvatskih književnojezičnih zasada od strane Srba posredstvom V. S. Karadžića, Hrvatima je trebalo nametnuti Kopitar-Karadžićevu pravopisnu i jezičnu kodifikaciju. Srpsko-hrvatskim književnojezičnim ujedinjenjem Kopitar je kanio potaknuti nastanak nove srpske nacije koja bi dobrim dijelom bila katolička, prozapadno orijentirana i privržena Austriji. Preko nje bi se širio austrijski utjecaj prema istoku.