The croatian national revival movement (the "Illyrian Movement") and the question of language in the phase from 1830 to 1841

The article investigates how language influenced ethnonational group identity of Croatian national leadership during the first period (1830-1841) of Croatian national revival movement that was formally named as the "Illyrian Movement". This work is an attempt to reconstruct the main stream of linguaistic policy by the leaders of the movement (in the first phase of it) and their outlines how to solve the South Slavic question within a part of Central and South East Europe. Previous research into the problem basically failed to investigate the role of language in the ideological structure of the "Illyrian Movement" as a model of the definition of Croatian, respectively Serbian, nationality and as well as a model of the creation of a ethnolinguistically-defined national states of Croats and Serbs. The findings of the previous research lagerly misinterpreted the linguistic side of the political ideology of the Movement, mainly suggesting that Croatian political leadership fought for pan-South Slavic cultural and even political unification. However, my research-results are indicating that most probably an ultimate goal of the Movement was to establish a Greater Croatia and as such to politically reshape a map of the Balkan Peninsula and the South East Europe.