About the Priest Gjuro Adam Büttner and His Writings in the Turkish Language

Abstract

Gjuro Adam Büttner, a priest at the Srijem Bishopric and the first parish priest in Zemun after the liberation from the Turks, was of German origin. He did his parochial service in Zemun from 1744 to 1779. His manuscript legacy in Turkish was found at the Diocesan library in Đakovo. As far as can be determined, nobody so far has worked on it. It includes a German-Turkish dictionary (126 pages) and several small volumes and papers of catechism and linguistic content. All texts are written in the Latin script, and the language discloses the characteristics of the Balkan or the west-Rumelian Turkish language. We can assume that this material was intended for the religious-educational activities as during Büttner's tenure of the parish priest office Zemun was on the very frontier between the Christian world and the Ottoman Empire. The legacy of such kind and such size can be considered a real rarity in the Croatian territory. This paper has attempted to answer the question about its origin, or rather the question of the place of its origin and author.