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13 NOTICES BIBLlOGRAPHlQUES 793

The dictłonary of authors is based on the Idea of prescuting in detali the writers* iife and literary activity, In aiphabeticai order of nanieś. So, the editorial staff has abandoned ali synthctlcai entries on the history of some schools and literary trends. Within the context of \ ugoslavian iiteratures, stress is being iaid on individuai contributions and entries on men of ietters, managiug rcvicw editors or ieaders of literary socletics being inserted. Then. a new modaiity of presentation offers new possibilitics of anaiyzing Yugosiavia’s literary’ and culturai iifc over a very iong period. As for the contents, the reader wili flnd ln the pages of this work some schoiars who beiong to inore than one nationai literaturę, eitiier by their ethnical origin or literary activity. Beginning with Cyril and Mcthodius, the teachcr of aii Siavs, through the Middie Ages and to the modem times, the phenomenon is recurrcnt This is actuaiiy a typicai fcaturc of tlie south-east European cuiture, morę or iess manifest, depcndlng on the culturai trends that generated them. That is why a scholar such as Grigore Tzambiac, for exampie, wili occur ln aimost aii nationai histories and in aii nationai literary dictionaries of south-east Europę. As a matter of fact, Grigore Tzambiac is present in Serbian, Romanian, Buigarian and Russian reference works. And therc are evcn morq exampics. Each time they coincidc with those moments in the nationai history that aliowed simuitaneous response to other International movcments. Such phenomena, if rightiy understood, have niways madę important contributions to the reiations between nationai cuitures on different stages of dcveiopment, under historicai conditions farourabic to their recurrcnce. In some periods, they pcrfectiy exprcss the reiations between the iiteratures of peopics in south-east Kuropc. The scientific vaiue of this work is also cnhauced by the modę of presentation of the materiał. First, the titic, as lt is formuiated, does not give a cue to a very important matter of contents which distinguishes the present dictłonary from previous ones. The term “Yugo-slavia” has in history, in aii Siavlc languages, the meaning of “Southern Siavs” but it is, at the same time, the namc of the modern state of the Federal Socłaiist Repubiic of Yugo-siavia. The tłtie refers of coursc to the iatter meaning. Thus, the Lexicon presents aii the writers bom within these geograpiiicai limits between the 19th and the 20th centurłes, who lived and wrotc therc, regardiess of their extraction and the language in which they wrote. As origin wouid have been difficuit to estabiish for the writers of the oider epochs, the tcchnique of presenting the authors has been unified through the elimination of this meution in aii cases, both for writers of the Middie Ages as well as for modem writers. Such a vlew madę it possibie to inciude the writers of the coinhabitating nationaiities as weii. As to the other meaning of the term “ Yugosiavia”, that is ‘‘Southern Siavs”, aii writers were entered, on ency-ciopedic principies, regardiess of their extraction, and their present citizenship, of their birth and writing płace, in the framework of the present Yugosiavian federative state, composed of six nationai repubiics with three literary languages: the Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian, the Slovenian and the Macedonian. The criterion of selection is that of the ianguage in which the authors wrote, that is, one of the three above-mentioned languages.

Thus, for exampie, one can find in the Lexlcon, Serbo-Croatian writers such as Viadimir Cokov, and others who carried out their activity ln Romania. An immense voiume of work was reąuired to tracę these forełgn writers, a work accompiished by groups divided by different countries. The selection of the Romanian materiał, is due to professor Radu Flora, one of the most remarkabie Romanists in Yugosiavia, weii known by his rlch pubiicistic activlty.

The principies underiying the eiaboration of the Lexicon being so fiexible, aii important forcign translators who madę the Yugosiavlan literaturę known in the worid have been inciuded.

We insisted on aii these detaiłs ln order to stress the vast proportions of this work, uniquc in the history of the Yugosłavian peopie*s cuiture, both in point of the voiume of the factual materiał and of its original eiaboration technique, capabie to express the compiexity of the literary iife in the Yugosiavian mllieu. In this way, the absence of simiiar works in the past iias been suppiemented.

Another important feature which distinguishes this Lcxicon from other works of the kind is that the typed spacc does not foliow estabłished esthetic norms; it is morę or less rcstricted dependlng on the iife and activlty of evcry writer, with aliits forms of expression, indicating thus the true vaiue and importance of literaturę in the iife of society. As a resułt of this attitudc, in morę cases than one larger space was given to writers holding a icss important płace as literary vaiue is concemed, but being morc invołved in the sociai and culturai iifc. The scholar interested in literaturę wili find in this Lexłcon an up-to-date bibłiography of writers and works written in and outslde Yugosiavia, for and about tiiis country. At the end of the work a chronoiogłcai bibłiography comprislng the literary publlcatlons, newspapers and magazines is added with raentłon of their time of pubłicatłon and the aiphabet in which they were printed. Foreign names which were transliteratcd in Serbo-Croatian in the Lcxicon are rendered in the Latin aiphabet, in an index.

EJ