Josip Šentija – tihi borac za hrvatski jezik
Josip Šentija – Silent Fighter for the Croatian Language

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the contribution that the journalist, lexicographer and publicist Josip Šentija gave to the affirmation of the Croatian literary language by supporting the Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language and by defending it against unitary linguistic and political attacks. It further discusses the suppression of the attempted Serbian language colonization of Radio Zagreb; the harvesting of the first postdeclaration fruits manifested in the amended language articles in the 1974 constitutions of Yugoslav republics; the implementation of Art. 138 of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Croatia about language in the third edition of the General Encyclopaedia of the Lexicographic Institute, and the cooperation with Miroslav Krleža and the central editorial board in building an encyclopaedic style and nurturing the Croatian language. Finally, the article analyses Šentija’s modern social democratic political orientation and his clear views of national components in the context of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and of the creation of an independent Croatian state, with an emphasis on Croatian-Serbian relations and on Greater Serbian expansionist programme that was partially founded on Karadžić’s motto “Serbs everywhere”, built around the non-scientific premise about the exclusive Serbianness of the Štokavian dialect.

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