Matija Divković

Divković wrote his books to meet the needs of the Catholic folk.[5] Veliki nauk (transl. Greater Doctrine – transl. Greater Christian Doctrine) from 1611 was intended for clerics, while Mali nauk (Lesser Doctrinetransl. Lesser Doctrine – transl. Lesser Christian Doctrine) from 1616 became a textbook for the people. The former is made up of several unidentified Latin works (the sermons of John Herolt, Bernardine Bastio, etc.). The latter looks like a dialog between a teacher and a student, mixing verses and prose, with various religious and educational themes. Mali nauk (transl. Lesser Doctrine) was one of the most popular books in Bosnia and Herzegovina and widely used in neighboring Dalmatia.

Mali nauk had as many as eight editions. Divković had its content "made into one from Ledezmo's and Bellarmino's learning". More precisely, Divković used the Croatian translation of the catechism of James Ledezmo (1578), the Italian original of Roberto Bellarmino and the Croatian translation of his book by A. Komulović. Mali nauk includes the Tears of the Blessed Virgin Mary in eight-syllable verses, written as a variation on the "crying" literature from the age of Croatian glagolitic literature. Verses on Abraham and Isaac are a paraphrase of the Abraham of Mavro Vetranović; the life of St Catherine, also in verses, is a paraphrase of an older peoples legend.

One Hundred Miracles… is a loose translation of the medieval legends of John Herolt (Promptuarium discipuli de miraculis B. M. Virginis, Venice, 1598). Words... is a collection of sermons for priests and nuns, mostly after the collections of Herolt (Sermones discipuli de tempore et de Sanctis) and some other Catholic authors.

Matija Divković is distinguished with the historical title of the founder of the Bosnia and Herzegovina literature.[6] This means that he was Bosnian Franciscan who wrote in narodni jezik (transl. Peoples Language), which, beside Bosnian, was a common name for the South Slavic language, Štokavian dialect, among Bosnians at the time.[1][7] Such medieval writings, found in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Old Herzegovina, like the Gršković's Apostle, the Hrvoje's Missal, the Hval's Codex, the Venetian Apocalypse, belong to the Bosnian literature, and are considered the written heritage,[2] but not a literature in the strict modern sense.[8]

The above analysis shows that Divković was not always an original writer, but a translator and compiler. As a translator, he was not meticulous about being faithful to his sources, which means that he modified them to bring them closer to the folk mixed idiom of the Eastern-Bosnian Štokavian dialect and Ikavian–Ijekavian accent, spoken between Olovo and Kreševo in Bosnia.

Considering the sources, he used within the Counter-Reformation, his choice was already obsolete in his age, since during the Catholic Baroque period, he found his models in Catholic literature of the late Middle Ages, which doesn't mean that he was not well versed in the literature of his time.[9] Actually, researchers believe that Divković was very interested in his local public, so he chose those works that would have the strongest impact on the overall goal of Counter-Reformation, which explain why Divković had such a great success and gained reputation among Catholic circles which only Andrija Kačić Miošić could surpass. While the other Counter-Reformers went along with the times, using rationalism to lure people, Divković went back to the Middle Ages to attract his public through retelling of the biblical stories and ancient legends with characteristic medieval imagination. Divković's didactic prose abundantly uses "fiery" imagery of hell and purgatory for sinners and paradisical bliss for the just, while his sermons abound with the tales about miracles and the supernatural.