Marko Car (writer)

Marko Car (born Herceg Novi, Austrian Empire, 30 August 1859 - died Belgrade, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1 December 1953) was a Serb, Croatian and Montenegrin writer, politician and activist from the Bay of Kotor. He was a polyglot, translating from Italian and French into Serbo-Croatian and an aesthetic essayist, writing numerous poems, critics, novels, narratives, essays and travel reports. During his age, he wrote for many newspapers and magazines.

Early life

Marko Car was born in 1859 in the town of Herceg-Novi in the Bay of Kotor, then a part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia province of the Austrian Empire. He received his basic education in the local Italian popular school, after which he moved to Kotor and finished the classical gymnasium.

High life

Then he moved to the province's capital of Zadar in 1879, entering political life by joining the Serb People's Party of Sava Bjelanović (whose biography he later wrote and published in Dubrovnik's Serb Press in 1911) which fought for the defense of national interests of the Serb people in the wake of the Croatian national movement. He worked in the Dalmatian Diet from 1884 to 1918. He was the editor of the Zadar magazine "The Wolf" (Vuk) that was being published in 1884.

When the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created, he moved to the new monarchy's capital of Belgrade in 1919. The mid-war period he had spent working for the Yugoslavian Ministry of Education as the Inspector of the Artist division until retirement. Car is the founder of the Society of Serbian Writers in Belgrade, being its first President. He then received his membership in the Serbian Royal Academy, later known as the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and also membership in the Matica srpska in Novi Sad. He was also for one time a President of the Serbian Literary Community.

After the April war and the Nazi occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, he fled to Italy across Zadar. After the war ended and the Communist Partisans won in 1945, he returned to Belgrade where he spent the rest of his life.

He became famous as a writer for his work in 1883 Za kišljive dnevi (During the Rainy Days).

He worked for the Matica srpska in Dubrovnik, his works being published in the Serbian Dubrovnik Printing Press.

Death

He passed away in 1953 in the Yugoslav and Serbian capital of Belgrade. His remains were moved to Montenegro to the countryside of his birth and he was buried in the Savina Monastery.

Religious & national beliefs

Although born a Roman Catholic Christian, he converted before death to Eastern Orthodoxy, claiming that that was the only way to save the Catholic-Serb community from extinction and avoid assimilation into Croats, which he had claimed was occurring in the Bocca. His movement didn't have significant impact outside his native Dalmatian coastland, but in there a significant number of Catholics converted to Orthodox Christians considering it a confirmation of their Serbian national identity and affiliation.

Legacy

A street in Herceg Novi's Old City bears his name in his honor. In it is also a bust raised in his honor by Peter Palaviccini not long after Car's death.

Quotes

Marko Car on Boka kotorska, in the "Niz rodno Primorje" (Slike i utisci s Jadrana, Mostar, 1899):

I tako biva te se u bokeljskog Srbina, pored svih plemenitih osobina koje su našem narodu već u krvi, obrazuje i neka druga narav, neko naročito fizičko i psihičko obličje, kojim se on od ostale svoje braće potpuno odvaja i koje mora da u toj braći izaziva čuđenje...Mnogi posumnjaju u srpsku krv Boke. Ali to iščuđavanje ne traje dugo, jer se uskoro iz svakog od njih iščauri kičeljivi starosjedilac koji svoje porijeklo dovodi od Kosova i u svoje pređe ubraja Strahinj-bana i Marka Kraljevića...Glavno mesto u Boki Kotorskoj po starinskom opredelenju i po zvaničnoj dezignaciji je grad Kotor. Ali je moralna prestonica, bez pogovora Herceg-Novi. Ovim ne obaram vrednosti Kotoru i ostaloj Boki, ali, badava. Novi je mesto gde se najbolje srbuje i gde je tuđinska dosad najmanje mogla da pusti korena.