BY ROGER WATSON
I had never heard of August Šenoa until a recent visit to Croatia. In the week before my visit, which was my first time in the country, I searched online for Croatian writers. With a preference for modern rather than classical writers, I encountered August Šenoa. My interest in him was heightened by the fact that he came from Zagreb where there is a museum in his memory, Šenoa House (Kuća Šenoa), and a famous modern statue of him. I wanted to locate some of his books, the genre of which is described as ‘protorealist’. Šenoa was one of a handful of Croatian writers who bridged the gap between romantic and realist writing. His books had political themes and he introduced the concept of the historical novel, a style pioneered by Sir Walter Scott, to Croatian literature.
I was not disappointed.
Born in 1838, Šenoa lived and died prior to the formation of Yugoslavia; in that sense, he truly is a Croatian writer. He writes about Croatia, then part of the Austrian Empire, and Zagreb in particular. It was remarkably easy to find out, informally, about Šenoa. I learned that his most famous novel The Goldsmith’s Treasure (Zlatarovo zlato, literally The Goldmith’s Gold) is required reading for all Croatian schoolchildren. Despite his fame, this is the only one of his books to be translated into English and only a few thousand copies were printed. I scoured as many bookshops as I could, finally finding one in a shop on the main square in Zagreb.
Šenoa’s statue is easy to locate, and it is one of the series of statues of famous literary Croatian figures scattered around the city. The statue of August Šenoa is distinguished from the other literary statues as he is depicted standing leaning against a pillar. Touchingly, daily, someone replenishes a small bouquet of delicate white flowers which are laid at his feet. Šenoa is someone the Croatians have really taken to their hearts.
Kuća Šenoa, within walking distance from the centre of Zagreb, had been closed for many months. Damaged in an earthquake in 2020 it is undergoing repair. The house is packed with books and Šenoa memorabilia including his desk where he, allegedly, wrote The Goldsmith’s Treasure. The house, in a very desirable residential area of Zagreb, still owned by his descendants, was built by his son but Šenoa never lived there. The apartment where he lived and died is marked by a memorial carving on the wall. Remarkably, this is in private ownership and is available to rent for holidays. The link with Šenoa is explicit in the advertising.
A long walk from the city centre and up one of the two steep hills on which Zagreb is built lies the Mirogoj Cemetery where Šenoa is buried. The grave lies on the edge of one of the numbered plots or ‘polje’ (literally field). It is less ornate than many in the cemetery but has a pillar with a carving of Šenoa and an inscription. It appears that flowers are regularly laid here too.
Šenoa was a polymath. He was multilingual, briefly a student of law and, until his appointment as the town senator, Art Director of the Croatian National Theatre. He wrote poetry and plays, edited a magazine, wrote entertaining newspaper articles (feuilletons) prolifically and produced ten novels. He was widely read, counting Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott among his influences.
The Goldsmith’s Treasure is a charming book. It is an historical novel but, with apologies to fans of Scott, unlike much of Scott’s oeuvre in the same genre, easier to read. Set in 16th century Zagreb, against a backdrop of war against the Ottomans and internal Croatian political squabbles, the story is about forbidden love across the class divide between a beautiful common girl (Dora, the goldsmith’s daughter) and a dashing young nobleman Pavao Gregorijanec. Dora is almost a real figure for the people of Zagreb and at least one lady to whom I spoke was named after her.
We gain insight into the debt we owe the Croatians who were, effectively, Europe’s final frontier between Christianity and Islam. We learn about the Bans of Croatia, who ruled the country but how Zagreb was directly accountable only to the Hungarian King. We also learn about the foundations of Zagreb which, at the time, was a very small place extending little beyond the tourist area of St Mark’s Square. The fictional Dora is commemorated in a statue at the Stone Gate, also a shrine to the Virgin Mary.
The action in The Goldsmith’s Treasure mainly takes place in the hundred square yards or so around St Mark’s Church and the Stone gate. The story has romance, intrigue, and bloodshed. But, in places, it is also profoundly funny. Šenoa, in his realistic style, describes situations in sufficient detail to draw you into the house of a poor person or the castle of a noble and it is the small details about the characters that provide the humour. The women crossing themselves at some mundane utterance by the priest, the physical ugliness of the unlikeable characters and the mutual descriptions of husbands by wives when they get together, usually over brandy. Clearly, these people must have existed around Šenoa, albeit transposed three centuries back. The important point about Senoa’s seminal work is that it is a story of chaste love, loyalty, chivalry, decency and also, much in the same vein as Waugh’s masterpiece Brideshead Revisited, redemption.
Šenoa pokes fun at men’s foibles be they priest or politician, but this is not a Voltairean diatribe against religion. Šenoa seems to have been a true conservative.
Šenoa made an enormous contribution to the modernisation of Croatia and its integration at the time with its neighbours. He was a compassionate man and worked tirelessly to relieve the sufferings of the Zagrebian people after the damaging earthquake of 1880. It is believed that overwork during this period, superimposed on an already packed and workaholic life, led to his demise. He died in 1881 aged 43.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.