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I do not know about what was the first historical book in croatian language, but this is certainly not the Kronika (Chronicle). As everyone could see, on the front page of Kronika is clearly unambiguously written "szlouenzkim iezikom" (in slovenian language). Please if you can correct this, thank you in advance and my apologies for bad grammar :) JakobZ (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was wondering about this as well. Vramec was a Slovene that lived for a period of time in Croatia but his book was published in Ljubljana. What is interesting in this book is that I, a Croat, can understand the Slovenian of 500 years ago but cannot understand modern Slovenian. ZidarZ (talk) 13:52, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Vramec may be a Slovene by origin (I don't intend to delve into early modern national consciousness and genetics, so let's just assume that's true), but his language in Kronika was not automatically Slovenian because of that. He has lived and worked in Croatian areas since 1568 until his death in 1588, published Kronika in 1578 in Ljubljana, and in 1586 he published Postilla in Varaždin. Where one published a book at that time was frequently determined by practical availability of printing presses, and not by the national or linguistic character of the text and author. E.g., most of Croatian renaissance and baroque (Dalmatia + Dubrovnik) literature was printed in Venice. Vramec's Postilla was the very first Croatian book printed in Varaždin, which ought to illustrate how undeveloped printing was in the area.
Vramec calling his own language "Slovenian" does not mean much by itself - such and similar names were the default before the formation of modern Slavic nations in the region and their definitive nomenclature. Older Croatian grammars called their language "Illyrian" and "Slavonian", for example. Vramec himself used the name "Illyrian" as well (see the reference to V.A. Fine). To determine the actual linguistic character of a text, its grammar and vocabulary should be studied by themselves. The problem is that dialectologically there is no unambiguous border between Slovenian and Croatian (Kaykavian) dialects, so with enough effort you can re-classify many local dialects into this or that "macro" language, depending on your (usually ideological) preferences. As expected, Croats classify him as a Croatian Kaykavian writer, while Slovenes don't seem to care much about him: he doesn't even have a Slovene WP page, there's one monograph on him in Slovenian that triumphantly discovers his Slovene-ness, and the Slovenian source already used in the article (Kržišnik-Bukovec) says: "Vramec, Anton, tudi Antun Vramec (Ormož, 1538–Varaždin 1587), duhovnik, pisec, začetnik kajkavske književnosti".
Anyway, the article currently contains some abject nonsense ("Vramec deliberately used simple language spoken by the population of Slavonia in his works"), contradicts its own sources ("the first popular historical work written in a [sic!] Slovene in the Habsburg lands" - the source says "the first popular historical work written in a South-Slavic vernacular in the Habsburg lands"), and is full of grammar mistakes, so I'll look to fix it. I don't think your addition of the original text of Kronika is useful, sadly, since the article presupposes an English-speaking audience. — Phazd (talk|contribs) 00:33, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your information. Since you know much about Vramec, how accurate do you think his work is? For example - the Battle of Konjscina. Vramec writes that it occurred in 1545 but Nicolaus Istvanffy - a highly respected Hungarian historian wrote that it happened in 1544. So, did the battle happen in 1544 or 1545?
On the issue of ethnicity - ponder this. I was born in Croatia but live in Canada, where I am a citizen. I left Croatia when I was two years old and now am 57. Do you think I consider myself a Croatian or Canadian? ZidarZ (talk) 01:17, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been consulting Kronika as a linguistic, not historical source; this is the first time I've heard of the battle of Konjščina at all. So, I'll limit myself to quoting Vjekoslav Klaić: "Osim toga je kronologija pouzdana te pomaže kontroliranju drugih izvora." (introduction to this 1908 edition, p. XLVI), though the previously mentioned VA Fine, on the other hand, says: "The chronicle is an odd text, with most dates considerably off and many other errors." (When Ethnicity..., p. 241). A quick googling of Croatian sources suggests the modern consensus is 1545, e.g. Enciklopedija.hr.
Without intending to sound rude - what you consider yourself to be is none of my concern, and it's not too relevant for the identification of old Vramec :) The issue I wanted to address is whether his work is a part of Kaykavian (Croatian) or Slovenian literature - on linguistic and/or cultural grounds. — Phazd (talk|contribs) 21:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
