Literatura jako narzędzie kreowania zbiorowej wyobraźni. August Šenoa i jego czytelnicy

August Šenoa was regarded by literary historians as the creator of the Croatian public readership. This article aims to present some aspects of the relationship between the author and his reader and prove that Šenoa indeed deserved this a name. The key issue is the relation of the content communicated by the author (the question of national identity) and the needs and limitations of the reader of his era. The subject of the analysis is the category of reader developed in the text as compared to the reader who is the real recipient of the author’s texts in the second half of the nineteenth century. The objectives present in Šenoa’s writings point to the fact that through literature he intended to influence the content of the nation's collective memory and thereby shape the extratextual reality. Presented in the article is also the category of the author - the authority of the era - in order to answer the question of the extent to which Šenoa had the chance to influence the readers' tastes and habits.