Grgo Martić

Who was Grgo Martić?

Grgo Martić also known as Grga Martić was a Bosnian Croat friar and writer from Herzegovina.

Martić was born in Rastovača village near Posušje, Eyalet of Bosnia, Ottoman Empire and was educated in Zagreb and Pest. He was ordained on Christmas Day, 1844. He served for three years in Kreševo and Osova.

From 1851 to 1879 he served as a parish priest in Sarajevo. He performed the majority of his life's work in Bosnia, in the Franciscan monastery in Kreševo.

Martić worked as a writer and translator, translating works by Homer and Goethe into the Croatian language. At the time of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was also politically active and fought for the Roman Catholic Croatian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his youth he was a supporter of Illyrian movement . Later he became the supporter of unification of BiH with Croatia.

Martić opened a school in Kreševo in 1847 and a gymnasium in Sarajevo. His best-known literary work was Osvetnici, an epic about the struggle against Ottoman rule.

Martić made contributions to Albanian culture: while Albanian writer Gjergj Fishta attended Franciscan schools in Bosnia, he met Grga Martić and Croatian writer Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević who at that time lived in Bosnia. Martić and Kranjčević awakened literay instinct in Fishta.