ABSTRACT
The publication of Utkal Sahitya, a monthly literary magazine, in January 1897 is an event of immense cultural significance for Odisha. The magazine enjoyed uninterrupted publication for almost thirty-eight years, a fact remarkable in the context of an extremely short life-span of Odia literary magazines which had appeared in the previous two and a half decades or so. Significantly, it carried the term samalochan (criticism) on its cover page, thereby emphatically indicating the role the magazine intended to play in shaping Odia critical discourse. It not only featured established creative writers but also nurtured, and created a space for, young and aspiring authors. In the process, a community of writers appeared on the scene, which found in Utkal Sahitya a vibrant platform for self-expression. More importantly, it provided a forum for critics to interpret and evaluate literary works, ancient and modern, and engage in educating the sensibility of an emergent reading public. It reflected and produced a restless milieu in which an educated middle class was actively seeking to carve an identity for itself and negotiate with colonial modernity. The essay given below comprises two parts; the first is written by Biswanath Kar and the second, by Chandra Mohan Maharana. Both the authors seek to provide justification for bringing out a literary monthly in Odia. These two essays give us an idea of the growing awareness of the role literary magazines in building a critical discourse in Odisha. And these also highlight the Biswanath’s conscious attempt to give critical discourse new direction and substance through the sustained publication of a literary periodical.
