The Croatian National Revival Movement (1830–1847) and the Serbs (III)
In the Yugoslav historiography (1918–1941; 1945–1991) Lj. Gaj’s decision to choose a Illyrian name and the štokavian dialect for the Croatian national revival movement was politically explained by his wish to culturally and even politically unite all the South Slavs, believing that this was an ancient common name for all the (Balkan) Slavs, because he like the other leaders of the Illyrian Movement considered the ancient Balkan Illyrians (or Illyrs) as the South Slavic and even Slavic ancestors. However, this decision had much deeper roots and totally different purposes than it was officially presented by the Yugoslav historians. An undisputable fact is that Lj. Gaj chose the Serbian literal language (based on the people’s spoken language) for the literal language of all Croats. Gaj by himself recognized that the Croatian leaders of the national revival movement accepted exactly the Serbian literal language, which was reformed by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, for the literal language of the Croats […]
