Janko Polic Kamov
Encyclopedia
Janko Polić Kamov was a Croatian
writer and poet.
He was born in Sušak
, Rijeka
. Rebellious by nature, he was expelled from Rijeka
high school and dropped out of the school in Zagreb
. Because of his participation in the demonstration against the Hungarian governor in Croatia, Khuen-Héderváry
, he was sentenced to three months in prison in 1903. Headstrong and temperamental, he called himself Kamov, after Ham (or Kam) from the Old Testament
, who saw his father Noah
naked but unlike his siblings Shem and Japhet did not cover his nakedness, thus issuing a curse. Kamov probably saw himself as a revealer of bourgeoise hypocrisy and wrote to his brother Vladimir in 1910 - "Kamov to me is a literary program..."
His literary work was small, but very significant, because in his poems and plays he expressed his anger and displeasure over hypocrisy and injustice of his contemporaries in a way unprecedented in Croatian literature
. His masterwork is a modernist novel Isušena kaljuža (1906–1909) saturated with psychosexual and spiritual conflicts of the iconoclastic first-person narrator and later described as a proto-existentialist prose, written decades before the literary movement's appearance. Kamov's novel, invariably described as the premier Croatian avant-garde major prose work, was printed for the first time in 1956. Because of that he earned reputation as one of the greatest rebels and iconoclasts in history of Croatian culture.
He died at the age of 24 in Barcelona
and was buried at the hospital cemetery near Hospital de la Santa Creu
.
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
writer and poet.
He was born in Sušak
Sušak
Sušak is a part of the city of Rijeka in Croatia, where it composes the eastern part of the city.In 1924, Rijeka belonged to the independent Free State of Fiume, which had been created four years earlier under the Treaty of Rapallo, but in the Treaty of Rome the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and...
, Rijeka
Rijeka
Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
. Rebellious by nature, he was expelled from Rijeka
Rijeka
Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
high school and dropped out of the school in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
. Because of his participation in the demonstration against the Hungarian governor in Croatia, Khuen-Héderváry
Károly Khuen-Héderváry
Dragutin Károly Khuen-Héderváry, also known as Károly Count Khuen-Héderváry de Hédervár , was a Hungarian politician, the ban of Croatia in the late nineteenth century. He succeeded the temporary reign of Ban Hermann Ramberg in 1883. Khuen's reign was marked by a strong magyarization...
, he was sentenced to three months in prison in 1903. Headstrong and temperamental, he called himself Kamov, after Ham (or Kam) from the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
, who saw his father Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
naked but unlike his siblings Shem and Japhet did not cover his nakedness, thus issuing a curse. Kamov probably saw himself as a revealer of bourgeoise hypocrisy and wrote to his brother Vladimir in 1910 - "Kamov to me is a literary program..."
His literary work was small, but very significant, because in his poems and plays he expressed his anger and displeasure over hypocrisy and injustice of his contemporaries in a way unprecedented in Croatian literature
Croatian literature
Croatian literature is a definition given to the compilation of novels, dramas, short stories, poems and other various work of written kind entirely attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats and the Croatian language....
. His masterwork is a modernist novel Isušena kaljuža (1906–1909) saturated with psychosexual and spiritual conflicts of the iconoclastic first-person narrator and later described as a proto-existentialist prose, written decades before the literary movement's appearance. Kamov's novel, invariably described as the premier Croatian avant-garde major prose work, was printed for the first time in 1956. Because of that he earned reputation as one of the greatest rebels and iconoclasts in history of Croatian culture.
He died at the age of 24 in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and was buried at the hospital cemetery near Hospital de la Santa Creu
Hospital de Sant Pau
The present Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in the neighborhood of El Guinardó, Barcelona, Catalonia , is a complex built between 1901 and 1930, designed by the Catalan modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Together with Palau de la Música Catalana, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site...
.