“The first Odia magazine,‘Bodha Dayini’, was published in 1861 from Balasore. The scale of the tragedy triggered a mass awakening and literary developments as well,” informs NK Mohapatra, senior lecturer of Indian history and anthropology. People died of starvation, compounded bycholera and malaria. Like the enormity of the Black Death (plague)in Europe, the famine killed nearly one-third of the population at that time. “In Odisha, the Renaissance period started after Na’anka Durvikshya (the Orissa famine of 1866). Imbibed with the spirit of ‘Odia BhasaAndolana’ at that time, Odia literature stands richer in nationalist writings than many other contemporary literatures. But in Odisha, these writings initiated a new literary era, popularly known as the ‘Satyabadi Age’. This was particularly true during the freedom movement, when the country saw a spurt in nationalist prose, poems and essays in every regional language. True to his words, writers just don’t give words to our emotions they carry forth the soul of a civilization-They pen their fascinating experiencesas well as the great social and cultural churnings of their times, leaving a record for future generations to admire the glorious days of yore.Īnd so it was with Odia literary stalwarts, who led a revival of our once moribund mother tongue and raised the stature of Odia literature with their soul-stirring writings. “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself,” wrote French philosopher and author Albert Camus.
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