Some parts of this final paper, entitled - From Poetics to Politics: Programs and Manifestos in 19th Century Croatian Literature, refer to Croatian history, which is a secondary subject but necessary to understand the part in which the surrounding events becomes a consequences from which programmatic texts arise. The analysis of the texts begins with the period of Croatian Romanticism in which only certain preparatory renaissance ideas about the importance of one's own language and national identity are recognized, and then in the organized renaissance and Illyrian movement the role of literature shifts from poetic to political represented by Ljudevit Gaj. Literary power proved to be purposeful and in the service of self-contradictory areas, because Gaj solved the issue of standard language and orthography with his programmatic but political appearances. His associates also distanced themselves from Gaj's political conceptions, and the founder of Croatian literary criticism, Stanko Vraz, whose programmatic texts were analyzed in the paper, stands out among them. Šenoa fully restored literature to its role and poetic framework, emphasizing the importance of the literary task of strengthening people's lives by looking for sources in domestic literature. The literary work requires that it be guided by realistic procedures, and be closer to the people, that is, it must be written in a simple style. Of the other questions raised by Šenoa, the most important is the value of a work as a literary work, as it will be the subject of major debates until the end of the 19th century.