THE ART OF POLEMICS: VUK KARADŽIĆ AS POLEMICIST, PAMPHLETEER, AND ADVOCATE OF THE POPULAR LANGUAGE

The polemical literary output of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić stands as one of the most remarkable examples of literary polemics in nineteenth-century Serbian culture. As a proponent of reforming the Serbian literary language, Vuk engaged in vigorous disputes with his contemporaries, contesting not only fundamental linguistic issues but also competing conceptions of culture, science, and society. His style was shaped by popular language, vivid imagery, irony, and the rhetorical force of pamphleteering. This paper analyses the techniques and strategies of Vuk’s polemics, highlighting how, through these confrontations, he shaped both the linguistic and conceptual framework of emerging Serbian literature. Beyond the specific polemical methods, the study situates these debates within their broader socio-cultural context and considers how Vuk’s opponents have been represented in subsequent literature.