Adolfo Veber Tkalčević

Who was Adolfo Veber Tkalčević?

Adolfo Veber Tkalčević, was a Croatian philologist, writer, literary critic and aestheticist.

He received degrees in philosophy in Zagreb, theology in Budapest and Slavistics in Vienna.

He has continued the tradition of the Illyrian movement, as outlined by Vjekoslav Babukić and Antun Mažuranić, but clearly distanced himself from Gaj's attempts of relating to Vuk Karadžić. He was important as one of the storytellers which has, in the middle of the 19th century, broken the practice of Turkish novellas and romantic prose introducing the elements of Realism into Croatian literature. His aesthetic views with a classicistic background influenced his philological works and many of his solutions in norming the Croatian standard language.

He was the author of the first syntax of Croatian literary language, Skladanja ilirskog jezika. He authored several school-level textbooks and wrote grammars of Croatian and Latin language for high schools. His Slovnica hrvatska published in 1871 has been used as standard high-school textbook, and as a norm and codification of standard language of the period.