Antun Gustav Matoš and Đakovo

Abstract

The paper deals with the relationship between Antun Gustav Matoš and the most important people of the town’s cultural and political life at the turn of the 19th into 20th century. The relationship between Matoš and the town Đakovo is considered from two perspectives: the first being the perspective of Matoš, which is based on his two travel accounts and numerous writings about Đakovo, i.e. the Bishop of the Diocese of Đakovo, Josip Juraj Strossmayer; the second perspective is that of Đakovo-based writers and considers their attitudes towards Matoš, with a special regard to the Bishop Strossmayer. The relationship between Antun Gustav Matoš and the Bishop Strossmayer was complex, even though it was, seemingly paradoxical, one-sided. Strossmayer was in many, ways an extraordinarily important person for Matoš, who wrote many texts about Strossmayer, for Strossmayer however, Matoš was only one among many young Croatian writers who were asking him for help and wrote about him. Strossmayer refused to provide Matoš with patronage, therefore the aim of this paper is to establish the reasons behind that decision, and determine why Croatia’s most prominent patron could not, or refused to, acknowledge one of Croatia’s most important writers.