Mladost Tome Ivića

Mate Ujević (1901–1967), a famous Croatian lexicographer, encyclopedist and writer, published the novel Mladost Tome Ivića in 1928 in the edition of the Library of Good Novels of the Croatian Literary Society of St. Jerome. It is his most extensive prose work, which has a strong autobiographical character.

The novel follows the youth of Tome Ivić, a sensitive and intelligent young man from the hinterland of Herzegovina, who goes to school and encounters the challenges of the modern world, city life, ideological conflicts and personal crises. Ujević describes his spiritual wanderings, disappointments in friendship and love, moral dilemmas and finally finding a foothold in the Catholic faith.

The work is written in the spirit of Catholic literature of the interwar period. It emphasizes the themes of religious conversion, the struggle between worldly temptations and spiritual calling, and the conflict between the traditional rural mentality and new ideas. The style is introspective, lyrical and somewhat didactic, with rich descriptions of the Herzegovinian and Dalmatian nature.

Although it was noted in Catholic circles in its time, the novel did not experience great literary reception and was often considered more a document of the times than a work of high art. Today it is valued as an authentic testimony to the youthful crisis of the Croatian Catholic intelligentsia in the 1920s and as a rare antiquarian edition. It represents an important part of Mate Ujević's early work before he devoted himself entirely to lexicographic and encyclopedic work.