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During the first quarter of the 20th cent. the modernists sought to assimilate literary trends imported from France and Germany. Anton Askerc (1856–1912) wrote historical poems of social revolt, while Vojislav Ilic (1862–94), Aleksa Santic (1868–1924), and Silvije Strahimir Kranjcevic (1865–1908) were influenced by the Parnassians. The symbolists numbered not only the Serbs Jovan Ducic (1874–1943) and Milan Rakic (1876–1938), but also Oton zupancic (1878–1949), the greatest Slovene poet of this century, and Vladimir Nazor (1876–1949), Croatia's 20th-century literary giant. Outstanding critics were the Serbs Bogdan Popovic (1863–1944) and Jovan Skerlic (1877–1914) and the Croatian Milan Marjanovic (1879–1955).
During the 1930s socially conscious literature with local-color settings predominated. The Serbs Jovan Popovic (1903–52) and Cedomir Minderovic were among the more successful writers of this period. In Slovenia the epic novel flourished under such writers as Jus Kozak, Anton Ingolic, and Prezihov Voranc.
World War II produced a number of partisan poets, and war themes predominated in postwar writing. After 1944 when Macedonian was recognized as one of the official languages of Yugoslavia, writers sought to develop a literature based on Macedonia's rich folk heritage. Although the Communist regime imposed severe restrictions on writers, freedom from Soviet influence after 1949 and the cultural independence of several regions resulted in some innovation.
Among notable postwar writers have been Mladen Horvat; Marko Ristic; the Serbian poets Milos Crnjanski and Rastko Petrovic; the Macedonian poet Koca Racin; the Bosnian novelist and poet Ivo Andric, who was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature; the Croatian poet and dramatist Miroslav Krleza; the Slovenian prose writer France Bek; the fabulist Miodrag Bulatovic; and the political writer Milovan Djilas. With the breakup of the Yugoslav federation in the early 1990s and the collapse of the effort (begun in 1918) to form a unified South Slavic nation, the differences between the major South Slavic literatures are likely to widen.
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