When a new population census is conducted sometime in the middle of the century, which will establish a definitive demographic breakdown in all post-Yugoslav republics, concerned academics and national fanatics will still insist on the exclusivity and purity of the language and discuss whose literature belongs to Dubrovnik. The matter has been known for a long time. The more these states show themselves to be complete failures in all fields, the more they indulge in nationalism, which is most visible in relation to historiography and language.
This time I will leave the historiography aside, because of the reason for the creation of the text, which is the initiative of Matica Hrvatska for the adoption of the Law on the Croatian Language. It is essentially no different from the recent Cyrillic Law in Serbia, since both ideas completely ignore reality and do everything to instill fear of their own language and script in their citizens. It is no wonder that Croatian and Serbian nationalism are in the negation of reality, since it is their key fuel, but it is still fascinating how they do not see that what Boris Buden formulated a long time ago as a return to the vernacular is happening to our language more and more, in a situation in for which English will be the language of professional communication. The only thing that might save that language in the end will be the fact that it is shared by Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. And no matter how much nationalist linguists terrorize their own citizens, and legislators and publishers do everything to ensure that a single market for books never comes to life again, it's all in vain for them in the face of the common popular culture of trash and the common market of cable operators, thanks to which we watch a whole series of new series with actors from from all parts of Yugoslavia who speak all varieties of languages, but we also follow broadcasts of football matches from various studios. Put simply, we all know that we speak the same language, although the dogged persistence of linguistic puritans to prove otherwise is somewhat fascinating.
Therefore, there is no need to lie. The idea of passing a law on language is totalitarian and no amount of cellophane wrapped in Matica Croatia these days about the fact that we are functionally illiterate and that the law would only apply to use in official institutions, with a slight mention of the problem of English speakers, will not change that. Anglicisms are mentioned throughout the story solely to divert the discussion from the real intentions, and this is another attempt to somehow legislate and stop any tradition of the Croatian-Serbian language with punishments.
Here I must return to a personal example. When I once wrote a scientific text for a historiographical journal in Zagreb, the editors sent me an anonymous review that, instead of content, butchered my text with language interventions, even though I wrote it in flawless Croatian. But with that Anić-Silić spelling, one of the three official ones, which relied on the Croatian-Serbian tradition. So the reviewer changed every 'during' to 'during' and so on. It's an understatement to say that I was shocked by that idiotic intervention, but the first thing that crossed my mind was: what are students or pupils doing when they shamelessly impose nationalist spelling on a colleague, while doing a completely different job. The second example refers to the Declaration on a common language, which I gladly signed, after which the presenters in the Nova TV daily harassed me by repeating the same question three times about whether I was aware that I was acting unconstitutionally because Croatian is the official language of the Republic of Croatia. In other words, it is a matter of well-organized hysteria and a totalitarian effort to adapt reality to nationalist whims. Therefore, at a time when the subtitling of local series and films is advocated again and again, it is worth recalling the only subtitled Serbian film in Croatia. It was Dragojević's 'Wounds' that caused hilarity in the Zagreb cinema at the end of 1999, after which even the nationalist authorities in their decadent phase became clear how pointless the whole thing was.
What we are left with after all is to follow the dead race between the stubbornness of the nationalists and the reality that will eventually force them to adopt it. So maybe we can wait for the Nino Award to once again recognize all books published in the common language, and for theater/theatrical co-productions, such as the recent "Stone" by ZKM and the Belgrade Drama Theater to be the rule, not the excess. Everything else is a continuation of the steady path to irrelevance and provincialism, under the revolutionary leadership of unrealized mediocrity.
Bonus video:
