The orientation of Matica Srpska Letopis towards the creation of
the world-history cultural context necessary for the development of
Serbian literature and culture can be very clearly demonstrated by the
examples of some of the most important editors responsible for the
journal’s editorial policy. Founder and first editor of the journal in
the period 1824-1830,
Georgije Magarašević
was an intellectual of the Enlightenment orientation, as well as a
professor and textbook writer who presented general world history up to
the beginning of the 19th century. He initiated the
Letopis, gave it its basic direction, edited its first twenty
volumes (1825–1830) and indicated the meaning of the basic sections in
the first volume. It is believed that more than half of the contents of
those volumes came from Magarašević himself (the originals, among which
the most significant are ‘Letters of a Filoserb’ and translations,
especially of Gesner's idylls), and that he himself also wrote the
section ‘Smesice’. Editor of the Letopis from the 1830-1831
period
Jovan Hadžić was a
Classicist poet (published under the pen name
Miloš Svetić),
lawyer and essayist, as well as the creator of the Civil Code of the
Principality of Serbia from 1842, which significantly contributed to the
Europeanization of the Serbian legal system. Adhering to the old
program, Hadžić only changes the classification (rubrication) of texts,
replacing the adjective in the title Serbska with
Serbskíj.
Teodor Pavlović
edited the journal from 1832 to 1841, and is significant as the
initiator of several newspapers, and one of the most important creators
of the press and media life in Serbian culture. Letopis opened
the door to the influence of folk poetry, the nationalization of Serbian
literature and to the Romanticism tendencies in it. Editor of the
Letopis in the period 1842-1847, and 1850-1853,
Jovan Subotić was a
pre-romantic writer, lawyer, politician, poet, novelist, playwright, as
well as the author of the grammar of the Serbian language, as well as of
the extensive discussion about the nature of Serbian verse and
versification. He published a large number of articles in
Letopis in all its sections: extensive material from the events
of 1848-1849, documents from older times, short stories, translations,
polemics, criticisms, literary-historical reviews, studies on the verse
of folk and artistic poetry, articles on folk customs. The famous
novelist
Jakov Ignjatović
edited Letopis in the period 1854-1856, and by describing the
life of the Serbian people in the Central European and the Pannonian
Basin, he made the novel a leading genre in the epic of Serbian Realism.
In Letopis, he published documents from the history of
Sentandreja - Before
Sentandreja - Now
, views on the history of the Serbian people, essays on the
state of Serbian literature and a historical novel
Đurađ Branković.
Jovan Đorđević was
the editor-in-chief of the journal in 1858-1859, significant in Serbian
culture as the founder of first professional theaters, the
(SNP) in Novi Sad and the
in Belgrade.
He authored the text for the Serbian anthem Bože pravde, and a
Latin-Serbian dictionary that is still relevant today. He was a
long-time professor at the Great School in Belgrade, and a reformer of
Letopis in the following way: the title abandoned the Slavic
orthography, and some letters from the printing process as well (i). The
longest-lasting editor was
Antonije Hadžić
(1859-1869, 1876-1895), and he is particularly credited for the success
of two important institutions – of Matica Srpska and of Serbian National
Theater. During his term, Matica moved from Pest to Novi Sad (1864), and
the first volume of the journal in Novi Sad was published in 1865. His
editorial articles in Letopis are more concerned with the history
of Matica Srpska than with the Letopis itself.
A Slavicist and philologist, longtime professor at the Great School in
Belgrade and secretary of the Serbian Learned Society,
Jovan Bošković
edited Letopis in 1870-1875. Once very popular playwright whose
work was performed at the SNP stage, a novelist, critic and essayist, as
well as a translator (among other things) of Goethe's Faust,
Milan Savić edited the magazine from 1896 to 1911Under his tenure,
Letopis combined literary (fiction) and scientific works
(history, philosophy). An important literary historian with a positivist
orientation and a cultural historian, as well as a musicologist,
Tihomir Ostojić
edited Letopis in 1912-1914. He gave the journal its new
frameworks, expanding and modernizing its thematic field. Historian and
fundamental archivist researcher, historian of literature and culture,
Vasa Stajić, was
the editor of the journal in 1921 and 1936. Bibliographer, cultural and
theater worker
Marko Maletin
edited the journal during the 1923-1929 period;
Radivoje Vrhovac, a
Slavicist, professor, then long-time director of the Sremski Karlovci
High School, edited Letopis in 1930, developing the idea of the
unity of Yugoslav culture as the culture of the Yugoslav nation (since
the country was given a new name Kingdom of Yugoslavia), which
Letopis should strive for: instead of national (Serbian)
Yugoslavism is announced. Avantgarde poet, playwright, essayist and
critic
Todor Manojlović
was the editor in 1931; poet and theater worker in the SNP
Žarko Vasiljević
edited the journal in 1932; and cultural worker
Nikola Milutinović
in the period 1933-1935 and 1936-1941.
In the socialist Yugoslavia, different but professionally close editors
took turns. Literary and cultural historian
Živan Milisavac was
the editor-in-chief in 1946-1957; literary historian, essayist and poet,
founder of the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, and one of the
founders of the University of Novi Sad,
Mladen Leskovac,
edited the journal in 1958-1964; and literary scholar and university
professor
Dimitrije Vučenov
was in charge in 1974-1979. Two great prose writers and novelists, as
well as poets, essayists and translators,
Boško Petrović and
Aleksandar Tišma,
took care of the editing of Letopis in the period of
Neomodernism, in the years 1965-1969 and 1969-1973. For many years,
Aleksandar Tišma ran the popular column ‘Browsing Magazines’. In the
environment of socialist Yugoslavia, at the time of the active
neo-avant-garde efforts and postmodernity, the editor was a poet and
writer
Boško Ivkov
(1980-1991). In the transition period, editors were literary scholars,
university professors and writers
Slavko Gordić
(1992-2004),
Ivan Negrišorac
(2005-2012),
Slobodan Vladušić
(2013-2016) and Đorđe Despić (2017-2020), and poets
Đorđo Sladoje
(2021-2023) and Selimir Radulović (from 2023).
All of these, and some other, unmentioned editors, are firmly embedded
in the pages of Matica Srpska Letopis, each in their own way, but
unequivocally, in the manner which genuinely contributed to the fact
that Serbian literature is always aware the fact it is deeply and
essentially connected with other literatures and cultures. Because it is
only in European and world literature that Serbian literature can find
more general criteria for confirming its own values, and it is precisely
this truth that Letopis nurtures and develops during its entire,
almost two-century long tradition.
