Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Yugoslav and Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry (''

Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh ''The Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh'' ( hr, Balade Petrice Kerempuha) is a philosophically poetic work by the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža, composed in the form of thirty poems between December 1935 and March 1936. The work spans a period of ...

'', 1936), theater ('' Messrs. Glembay'', 1929), short stories ('' Croatian God Mars'', 1922), novels (''

The Return of Philip Latinowicz ''The Return of Philip Latinowicz'' ( hr, Povratak Filipa Latinovicza, pronounced ) is a novel by the Croatian author Miroslav Krleža. It is considered the first modern complete novel of Croatian literature. The structure is very complex, altho ...

'', 1932; '' On the Edge of Reason'', 1938), and an intimate diary. His works often include themes of

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. ...

hypocrisy and conformism in

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

and the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 191 ...

. Krleža wrote numerous essays on problems of art, history, politics, literature, philosophy, and military strategy, and was known as one of the great

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...

ists of the century. His style combines visionary poetic language and sarcasm. Krleža dominated the cultural life of Croatia and Yugoslavia for half a century. A "Communist of his own making", he was severely criticized in

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

circles in the 1930s for his refusal to submit to the tenets of

socialist realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...

. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, he held various cultural posts in Socialist Yugoslavia, and was most notably the editor of the Yugoslav Lexicographical Institute and a constant advisor on cultural affairs to President Tito. After the break with

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

, it was his speech at the 1952 Congress of Yugoslav Writers that signaled a new era of comparative freedom in Yugoslav literature.

Biography

Miroslav Krleža was born in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

. He enrolled in a preparatory military school in

Pécs Pécs ( , ; hr, Pečuh; german: Fünfkirchen, ; also known by other #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the countr ...

, modern-day

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

. At that time, Pécs and Zagreb were within the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. Subsequently, he attended the Ludoviceum military academy at

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

. He defected to

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

but was dismissed as a suspected spy. Upon his return to Croatia, he was demoted in the

Austro-Hungarian army The Austro-Hungarian Army (, literally "Ground Forces of the Austro-Hungarians"; , literally "Imperial and Royal Army") was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint arm ...

and sent as a common soldier to the Eastern front in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. In the post-World War I period Krleža established himself both as a major

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

writer and politically controversial figure in Yugoslavia, a newly created country which encompassed South Slavic lands of the former Habsburg Empire and the kingdoms of Serbia and

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = ...

. Krleža was the driving force behind leftist literary and political reviews ''Plamen'' (The Flame) (1919), ''Književna republika'' (Literary Republic) (1923–1927), ''Danas'' (Today) (1934) and ''Pečat'' (Seal) (1939–1940). He became a member of the

Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

in 1918, but was expelled in 1939 because of his unorthodox views on art, his opposition to

Socialist realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...

, and his unwillingness to give open support to the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

, after the long polemic now known as "the Conflict on the Literary Left", pursued by Krleža with virtually every important writer in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in the period between the two World Wars. The Party commissar sent to mediate between Krleža and other leftist and party journals was

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his death ...

. After the establishment of the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

puppet

Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...

under

Ante Pavelić Ante Pavelić (; 14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian politician who founded and headed the fascist ultranationalist organization known as the Ustaše in 1929 and served as dictator of the Independent State of Croatia ( hr, l ...

, Krleža refused to join the Partisans headed by Tito. Following a brief period of social stigmatization after 1945 – during which he nevertheless became a very influential vice-president of the Yugoslav Academy of Science and Arts in Zagreb, while Croatia's principal state publishing house, Nakladni zavod Hrvatske, published his collected works – Krleža was eventually rehabilitated. Supported by Tito, in 1950 Krleža founded the Yugoslav Institute for Lexicography, holding the position as its head until his death. The institute would be posthumously named after him, and is now called the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography. From 1950 on, Krleža led a life as a high-profile writer and intellectual, often closely connected to Tito. He also briefly held the post of president of the Yugoslav writers' union between 1958 and 1961. In 1962 he received the

NIN Award The ''NIN'' Award ( sr, Ninova nagrada, italics=yes, Нинова награда), officially the Award for Best Novel of the Year, is a prestigious Serbian (and previously Yugoslavian) literary award established in 1954 by the ''NIN'' weekly ...

for the novel ''Zastave'', and in 1968 the

Herder Prize The Herder Prize (german: Gottfried-von-Herder-Preis), named after the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), was a prestigious international prize awarded every year from 1964 to 2006 to scholars and artists from Central and So ...

. Following the deaths of Tito in May 1980, and Bela Krleža in April 1981, Krleža spent most of his last years of his life in ill health. He was awarded the Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1981. He died in his Villa Gvozd in Zagreb, on 29 December 1981 and was given a state funeral in Zagreb on 4 January 1982. In 1986, Villa Gvozd was donated to the City of Zagreb. It was opened to the public in 2001, but is temporarily closed due to the

2020 Zagreb earthquake At approximately 6:24 AM CET on the morning of 22 March 2020, an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 , 5.5 , hit Zagreb, Croatia, with an epicenter north of the city centre. The maximum felt intensity was VII–VIII (''Very strong'' to ''Damaging'') ...

damage as of 2021.

Works

Krleža's formative influences include Scandinavian drama, French symbolism and Austrian and German

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it ra ...

and modernism, with key authors like

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

, Strindberg,

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

, Karl Kraus,

Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogn ...

, and

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous ...

. Krleža's opus can be divided into the following categories:

Poetry

Although Krleža's

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

is held in high regard, by common critical consensus his greatest poetic work is '' Balade Petrice Kerempuha'' (''Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh''), spanning more than five centuries and centred on the figure of plebeian prophet "Petrica Kerempuh", a Croatian

Till Eulenspiegel Till Eulenspiegel (; nds, Dyl Ulenspegel ) is the protagonist of a German chapbook published in 1515 (a first edition of ca. 1510/12 is preserved fragmentarily) with a possible background in earlier Middle Low German folklore. Eulenspiegel is a ...

Novels

Krleža's novelistic oeuvre consists of four works: '' Povratak Filipa Latinovicza'' (''

''), ''Na rubu pameti'' (''On the Edge of Reason''), '' Banket u Blitvi'' ('' The Banquet in Blitva'') and ''Zastave'' (The Banners). The first one is a novel about an artist. ''On the Edge of Reason'' and ''The Banquet in Blitva'' are satires (the latter located in an imaginary Baltic country and called a political poem), saturated with the atmosphere of all-pervasive

totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regu ...

, while ''The Banners'' has been dubbed a "Croatian ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...

''". It is a multi-volume panoramic view of Croatian (and Central European) society before, during, and after World War I, revolving around the prototypical theme of fathers and sons in conflict. All Krleža's novels except ''Zastave'' (''The Banners''), have been translated into English. Miroslav Krleža (Zagreb)

Short stories and novellas

The most notable collection of Krleža's short stories is the anti-war book '' Hrvatski bog Mars'' ('' Croatian God Mars''), on the fates of Croatian soldiers sent to the slaughterhouse of World War I battlefields.

Plays

Krleža's main artistic interest was centered on drama. He began with experimental expressionist plays like ''Adam i Eva'' and ''Michelangelo Buonarroti'', dealing with defining passions of heroic figures, but eventually opted for more conventional naturalist plays. The best known is '' Gospoda Glembajevi'' (The Glembays), a cycle dealing with the decay of a bourgeois family. ''Golgota'' is another play, political in nature.

Diaries and memoirs

Krleža's memoirs and diaries include ''Davni dani'' (Olden days) and ''Djetinjstvo u Agramu'' (Childhood in Zagreb). Other works include ''Dnevnici'' (Diaries) and the posthumously published ''Zapisi iz Tržiča'' (Notes from Tržič) chronicle multifarious impressions.

Selected works

*'' Hrvatski bog Mars'' (1922) *'' Gospoda Glembajevi'' (1928) *'' Povratak Filipa Latinovicza'' (1932) *'' Balade Petrice Kerempuha'' (1936) *'' Na rubu pameti'' (1938) *'' Banket u Blitvi'' (1939) *'' Zastave'' (1962) Translations into English: Krleža, Miroslav. ''The Banquet in Blitva'' (Banket u Blitvi, 1939). Translated by Edward Dennis Goy and Jasna Levinger-Goy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2004. _____. ''The Cricket Beneath the Waterfall, and Other Stories'' (Cvrčak pod vodopadom). Various translators; edited by Branko Lenski. New York: Vanguard Press, 1972. _____. ''Harbors Rich in Ships: Selected Revolutionary Writings'' (The Glembays, 1928, and other early texts). Translated by Željko Cipriš. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2017. _____. ''Journey to Russia'' (Izlet u Rusiju, 1925). Translated by Will Firth. Zagreb: Sandorf, 2017. _____. ''On the Edge of Reason'' (Na rubu pameti, 1938). Translated by Zora Depolo. New York: New Directions, 1995. _____. ''The Return of Philip Latinowitz'' (Povratak Filipa Latinovicza, 1932). Translated by Zora Depolo. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1995.

References

Sources

*Enes Čengić; S Krležom iz dana u dan, Globus, 1986, Zagreb * Viktor Žmegač: Krležini europski obzori, 1984, Zagreb
"Krležijana": Enciklopedija Miroslava Krleže, LZMK, 1993, Zagreb

External links

Introduction to Author
*
KRLEŽA, Miroslav
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krleza, Miroslav 1893 births 1981 deaths Writers from Zagreb People from the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia Croatian dramatists and playwrights Croatian essayists Male essayists Croatian novelists Male novelists Croatian male poets Yugoslav writers 20th-century male writers Croatian communists Communist writers Vladimir Nazor Award winners Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath laureates Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Modernist writers Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery 20th-century Croatian people 20th-century Croatian poets 20th-century novelists 20th-century dramatists and playwrights 20th-century essayists Herder Prize recipients