The early twentieth century saw a rise in Jewish writers in what is traditionally considered non-Jewish languages in the Balkans like in the rest of Europe. In light of this phenomenon’s significance, we pose the question why and how Serbo-Croatian became a language of Sephardic literature. The article questions the accepted narrative of ‘linguistic acculturation’ of Sephardic Jews in the Balkans and unearths the complex cultural, but also political background of this Jewish phenomenon using the examples of two prolific, recognized, and celebrated writers of Sephardic background, Isak Samokovlija and Jacques Confino. Through historicization of Sephardic multilingualism in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the 1890s to the 1920s, it argues that the adoption of Serbo-Croatian was motivated equally, if not dominantly, by Jewish political aims in the region rather than the pressures of emancipation only. Samokovlija and Confino’s biographies and cultural choices, therefore, illuminate an unlikely Sephardic history.

二十世纪初，与欧洲其他地区一样，巴尔干地区传统上被认为是非犹太语言的犹太作家数量有所增加。鉴于这一现象的重要性，我们提出了一个问题，即塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语为何以及如何成为西班牙裔文学的一种语言。这篇文章质疑巴尔干地区塞法迪犹太人“语言文化适应”的公认叙述，并通过两位多产、公认和著名的塞法迪背景作家 Isak Samokovlija 和雅克·孔菲诺。通过对 1890 年代至 1920 年代塞尔维亚和波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那的西班牙系多语制的历史化，它认为采用塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语的动机是平等的，即使不是主要的，犹太人在该地区的政治目标，而不仅仅是解放的压力。因此，Samokovlija 和 Confino 的传记和文化选择阐明了一段不太可能的塞法迪历史。