Croatian Proverbs Portal

The Portal of Croatian Proverbs was created as part of the 2024 research project of the Centre for the Research of Cultural Identity and Regional Heritage at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. The aim of the project was to create the first publicly accessible digital database of Croatian proverbs. The portal allows users to search proverbs by keywords and their synonyms, sources, and by the internationally recognized proverb classification developed according to the system of Matti Kuusi (Lauhakangas, 2001), thereby contributing to the preservation of Croatian folk heritage and encouraging diachronic research of Croatian linguistic heritage.

In the first phase of the project, 1,050 proverbs from printed sources (Čubelić, 1975; Kekez, 1990) were entered and subject-indexed. Afterwards, a digital platform was developed that enables users to search proverbs according to various criteria. The plan for 2025 is to enter and subject-index contemporary proverbs and to develop a thesaurus of contemporary proverbs.

The Portal also offers a range of digital accessibility features, ensuring access for users with various reading difficulties: adjustable font size, a dyslexia-friendly font (in addition to the standard font), colour and contrast adjustment, heading highlighting, and a reading guide. These features, available through the menu in the lower-left corner of the web interface, allow users to tailor the display to their individual needs.

Sources used in the project:

Čubelić, Tvrtko (1975). Usmene narodne pitalice, poslovice i zagonetke. Zagreb: Sveučilišna naklada Liber.

Kekez, Josip (1990). Svaki je kamen da se kuća gradi. Osijek: Izdavački centar „Revija“ Otvorenoga sveučilišta.

Lauhakangas, Outi. (2001). The Matti Kuusi International Type System of Proverbs. FF Communications, 275, Helsinki:  Academia Scientiarum Fennica.

Project participants:
Assoc Prof Dr Kristina Feldvari (PI)
Assoc Prof Dr Melita Aleksa Varga (participant)
Prof Dr Boris Badurina (participant)
Borna Petrović, MA (participant)
Student researchers:
Borna Petrović, Irena Poje (2024)
Borna Petrović, Monika Brandić, Kristina Gagulić (2025)
Monika Brandić, Kristina Gagulić, Martina Hranić, Lucija Iličić (2026)

Research papers related to the development of the Portal of Croatian Proverbs

Feldvari, K., Petrović, B., & Badurina, B. (2025). Digitalna kulturna baština – primjer izrade Portala hrvatskih poslovica. In V. Dugalić, & K. Dabo (Eds.), Kontinentalna Hrvatska: povijesni kontekst, aktualnosti i perspektive u budućnosti (3) (pp. 507–528). Znanstveni kontekst [et al.]. Retrieved December 19, 2025, from https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/640049811247f28732040531/69459ea020e44a7f9a106a72_KONT%20ZBORNIK%20RADOVA%203%202025%20(1).pdf

Petrović, B. (2025). Predmetna obrada i izrada paremiološkog tezaurusa suvremenih hrvatskih poslovica. Organizacija znanja, 30(1–2), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.3359/oz2530008

Feldvari, Kristina, Petrović, Borna, Poje, Irena (2024). Izrada tezaurusa hrvatske paremiološke građe. Konferencija Baštinske institucije u (post)digitalnom dobu – BAM 2024, 3. i 4. listopada 2024., Sarajevo. Organizator: BAM - Asocijacija informacijskih stručnjaka: Bibliotekara, arhivista i muzeologa.

Aleksa Varga, Melita (2024). Digitalizacija i očuvanje hrvatskoga paremiološkog blaga. U: Gudurić, Snežana; Stefanović, Marija, Dražić, Jasmina (ur.).  Jezici i kulture u vremenu i prostoru XI/2 /. Novi Sad: Filozofski fakultet, 287-297.

Aleksa Varga, Melita (2024). The Croatian paremiological lore until the 19th century and the contribution of Josip Kekez to modern paremiography. In: S. Babič, F. Carson Williams, C. Grandl, A. T. Litovkina, (ur.) "Standing on the shoulders of giants": A Festschrift in honour of Wolfgang Mieder on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Osijek: Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, 649-662.

Aleksa Varga Melita, Babić, Snježana (2023). Kroatische Sprichwortvarianten bei der Erstellung des kroatischen parömiologischen Thesaurus. Yearbook of phraseology, 14, (1), 147-164. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/phras-2023-0007

Aleksa Varga, Melita, Feldvari, Kristina (2022). Constructing the Digital Proverbial Thesaurus: Theoretical and Methodological Implications. In: G. Corpas Pastor, R. Mitkov (ur.) EUROPHRAS: International Conference on Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology, Cham: Springer, 1-15,

Aleksa Varga, Melita, Feldvari, Kristina, Keglević, Ana (2023) Proverbs off- and online. In: Memišević, A., Matešić, M. (ur.) Linguistic and Extralinguistic in Interaction. Berlin: Peter Lang, 101-116.