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Fragments sur l’histoire politique et littéraire de l’ancienne république de Raguse et sur la langue slave. 

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First edition, very scarce, of this collection of short pieces on Dubrovnik by the Croatian writer and composer Antun Sorkočević (1775–1841). 

The volume gathers together: ‘Origine et chute de l’ancienne République de Raguse’; ‘Lettre à M. Eusèbe Salverte’ (first published in Le temps, 8 January 1836); ‘Osman, poème illyrien, en 20 chants’ (a French translation of the eighth canto of Ivan Gundulić’s poem Osman, first published in La revue du Nord, no. 8, 1838); ‘Sur la ville et l’ancienne République de Raguse’ (first published in La revue du Nord in May 1838); and ‘Mémoire sur la langue slave’ with, at the end, a ‘vocabulaire mésogétique d’Ulphilas, slave et français’.  In a touching if rather gloomy dedication to his daughter Marie, Sorkočević writes that since leaving the land of his birth he has been reduced to witnessing ‘l’affreux spectacle du cadavre de ma patrie, écrasée sous le char bondissant d’un siècle en délire’.  ‘Prêt à franchir les bords de ma tombe’, he urges her to think of that land whenever she thinks of him. 

Sorkočević was a member of an old Ragusan aristocratic family.  ‘He studied music in Dubrovnik with his father and then in Rome (1789–91).  In 1794 he became a member of the Great Council, the parliament of the Dubrovnik Republic, went to Paris as the last consul to be accredited there, and continued to live in Paris after the fall of the Dubrovnik Republic.  His music often shows the limitations imposed by the provincial character of musical taste prevalent in Dubrovnik.  Nevertheless, some of his works show considerable dramatic intensity’ (Grove online). 

The manuscript corrections, which include alterations to the substance as well as to grammar and punctuation, are doubtless authorial. 

Library Hub records a single copy (Cambridge University Library).  OCLC finds three copies in the US (American Philosophical Society Library, Harvard, and Newberry Library). 

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