Miroslav Krleža
Encyclopedia
Miroslav Krleža (July 7, 1893 - December 29, 1981) was a leading Croatian
and Yugoslav
writer and the dominant figure in cultural life of both Yugoslav states, the Kingdom
(1918–1941) and the Republic
(1945 until his death in 1981). He has often been proclaimed the greatest Croatian writer
of the 20th century.
, modern-day Croatia
. He enrolled in a preparatory military school in Pécs
, modern-day Hungary
. At that time, Pécs and Zagreb were within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Subsequently, he attended the Ludoviceum military academy at Budapest
. He defected to Serbia
in 1912 as a volunteer for the Serbian army
, but was dismissed as a suspected spy. Upon his return to Croatia, he was demoted in the Austro-Hungarian army
and sent as a common soldier to the Eastern front
in World War I
. In the post-World War I period Krleža established himself both as a major Modernist
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
.
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 was a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
from 1918, expelled in 1939 because of his unorthodox views on art, his defense of artistic freedom against Socialist realist doctrine, and his unwillingness to give open support to Stalin's purges
, after the long polemic now known as "the Conflict on the Literary Left", pursued by Krleža with virtually every important writer in the mid-war Yugoslavia. The Party commissar sent to mediate between Krleža and other leftist and party journals was Josip Broz Tito
. After the establishment of the pro-Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia
under Ante Pavelić, Krleža refused to join the Partisans
now headed by Tito. It is believed that Krleža made that decision after learning of what happened to his associate August Cesarec
in the Kerestinec incident
, fearing possible revenge from his former Party colleagues. Krleža spent the war period in Zagreb, marginalized by the Nazi government as he refused their calls for cooperation. During these years he kept silent, not publishing at all nor making public appearances.
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 rehabilitated after Yugoslavia's break-up with Stalin's USSR. His position on art and literature was even adopted as the official one. Still, Milovan Đilas publicly defended the party's pre-war position against Krleža, declaring that his magazine Pečat followed his revisionist principles. However, at Tito's intervention, "the Conflict of the Literary Left" was officially closed and Đilas' speech was regarded as merely his personal opinion, and was not published in the proceedings of the party's 1948 congress.
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 Lexicographical Institute
.
From 1950 on, Krleža led a life of the high-profile writer and intellectual, often closely connected to President Tito. Krleža wrote about Tito that Tito was an illegitimate child of the Keglević
who in another poem became. as a fictional character, the epitome of exploitation
of the working class. He also briefly held the post of president of the Yugoslav writers' union between 1958 and 1961. In 1962 he received the NIN award for the novel Zastave, and in 1968 the Herder Prize
.
Following the deaths of Tito in May 1980, and particularly of Krleža's wife Bela Krleža in April 1981, Krleža spent most of his last year of life depressed and ill. He was awarded the Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1981. He died in his villa Gvozd in Zagreb, on December 29, 1981, at 1 am, and was given a state funeral in Zagreb on January 4, 1982. Gvozd is now his memorial center.
He is the heir of two parallel traditions: a specifically Croatian one, where he conceived of his role in Croatian literature
as the shaper of the national consciousness, or, in the words of James Joyce
's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: "to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race"; the other is the broad European avant-garde
movement. Krleža's formative influences include Scandinavian drama, French Symbolism
and Austrian and German expressionism
and modernism, with key authors like Ibsen
, Strindberg
, Nietzsche
, Karl Kraus
, Rilke and Proust
.
Krleža's opus can be divided into the following categories:
. This sombre and highly complex multilayered poem evoking reminiscences of Bruegel
and Bosch paintings, written in a unique hybrid language based on Croatian kajkavian dialect
interspersed with Latin, German, Hungarian and the archaic Croatian highly stylised idiom, irradiates universal dark verities on the human condition epitomized in Croatian historical experience.
style; expressionist innovations and techniques integrated in a mature authorial voice; numerous essayist passages that define these works as novels of ideas; a blend of existentialist
vision and sharp consciousness of politics as the determining factor of human lives.
The first one is a novel about an artist, written in the Proustian mood, but forecasting the existentialist shadow, a novel written quite some time before Sartre's Nausea and yet unrecognized as such; On the Edge of Reason and The Banquet in Blitva are essentially political-satirical novels of ideas (the latter located in an imaginary Baltic country and called a political poem), saturated with the atmosphere of all-pervasive totalitarianism
, while The Banners has rightly been dubbed a "Croatian War and Peace
". 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 the last one, Zastave (The Banners), have been translated into English.
, Baudelaire, Erasmus, Paracelsus
), political anatomies of history both contemporary and medieval (Deset krvavih godina (Ten bloody years), Amsterdamske varijacije), vignettes on art and music (Chopin
, Grosz
) - all is covered in this veritable anatomy of European history and culture.
. The best known is his cycle dealing with the decay of a bourgeois family sunken in the morass of adultery, corruption, theft and murder, Gospoda Glembajevi. Also of note is Golgota, a political drama. As is the case in some of his poetry and short stories, in Golgota Krleža again deals with biblical symbols and figures, but in a very earthly way, leading towards a finale reminiscent of Strindberg's Father.
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
and Yugoslav
Yugoslavs
Yugoslavs is a national designation used by a minority of South Slavs across the countries of the former Yugoslavia and in the diaspora...
writer and the dominant figure in cultural life of both Yugoslav states, the Kingdom
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
(1918–1941) and the Republic
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
(1945 until his death in 1981). He has often been proclaimed the greatest Croatian writer
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....
of the 20th century.
Biography
Miroslav Krleža was born in ZagrebZagreb
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...
, modern-day Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. He enrolled in a preparatory military school in Pécs
Pécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
, modern-day Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. At that time, Pécs and Zagreb were within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Subsequently, he attended the Ludoviceum military academy at Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. He defected to Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
in 1912 as a volunteer for the Serbian army
Serbian Army
-Objectives:The Serbian Army is responsible for:* deterring armed threats* defending Serbia's territory* participation in peacekeeping operations* providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief-Personnel:...
, but was dismissed as a suspected spy. Upon his return to Croatia, he was demoted in the Austro-Hungarian army
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...
and sent as a common soldier to the Eastern front
Eastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. In the post-World War I period Krleža established himself both as a major Modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
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
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
.
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 was a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...
from 1918, expelled in 1939 because of his unorthodox views on art, his defense of artistic freedom against Socialist realist doctrine, and his unwillingness to give open support to Stalin's purges
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, after the long polemic now known as "the Conflict on the Literary Left", pursued by Krleža with virtually every important writer in the mid-war Yugoslavia. The Party commissar sent to mediate between Krleža and other leftist and party journals was Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
. After the establishment of the pro-Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
under Ante Pavelić, Krleža refused to join the Partisans
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
now headed by Tito. It is believed that Krleža made that decision after learning of what happened to his associate August Cesarec
August Cesarec
August Cesarec was a Croatian writer and left-wing politician.Cesarec was born in Zagreb, which was part of Austria-Hungary at a time. As a high school student he was involved in radical nationalist politics and joined the group that tried to assassinate Croatian ban Slavko Cuvaj...
in the Kerestinec incident
Kerestinec
Kerestinec is a settlement west of Zagreb, in the Sveta Nedelja, Zagreb County, infamous for events in Croatian history. It has 1,199 inhabitants living on an area of . The name of Kerestinec comes from Hungarian word kereszt which stands for "cross".According to historical sources, there was a...
, fearing possible revenge from his former Party colleagues. Krleža spent the war period in Zagreb, marginalized by the Nazi government as he refused their calls for cooperation. During these years he kept silent, not publishing at all nor making public appearances.
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 rehabilitated after Yugoslavia's break-up with Stalin's USSR. His position on art and literature was even adopted as the official one. Still, Milovan Đilas publicly defended the party's pre-war position against Krleža, declaring that his magazine Pečat followed his revisionist principles. However, at Tito's intervention, "the Conflict of the Literary Left" was officially closed and Đilas' speech was regarded as merely his personal opinion, and was not published in the proceedings of the party's 1948 congress.
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 Lexicographical Institute
Miroslav Krleža Lexicographical Institute
The Miroslav Krleža Lexicographical Institute is Croatia's national lexicographical institution. Based in Zagreb, it was originally established in 1950 as the national lexicographical institute of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
.
From 1950 on, Krleža led a life of the high-profile writer and intellectual, often closely connected to President Tito. Krleža wrote about Tito that Tito was an illegitimate child of the Keglević
House of Keglević
The House of Keglević is a Croatian noble family originally from Dalmatia, their members were pointed out in public life, also as soldiers...
who in another poem became. as a fictional character, the epitome of exploitation
Exploitation
This article discusses the term exploitation in the meaning of using something in an unjust or cruel manner.- As unjust benefit :In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for...
of the working class. He also briefly held the post of president of the Yugoslav writers' union between 1958 and 1961. In 1962 he received the NIN award for the novel Zastave, and in 1968 the Herder Prize
Herder Prize
The Herder Prize, established in 1963 and named for Johann Gottfried von Herder, was a prestigious international prize dedicated to the promotion of scientific, art and literature relations, and presented to scholars and artists from Central and Southeastern Europe whose life and work have improved...
.
Following the deaths of Tito in May 1980, and particularly of Krleža's wife Bela Krleža in April 1981, Krleža spent most of his last year of life depressed and ill. He was awarded the Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1981. He died in his villa Gvozd in Zagreb, on December 29, 1981, at 1 am, and was given a state funeral in Zagreb on January 4, 1982. Gvozd is now his memorial center.
Krleža's work
However interesting Krleža's political and social stance toward various ideological and political events may be, his enduring legacy is as one of the finest European modernist authors &mdash, a fact frequently overlooked, not the least due to his turbulent political career and general influence on cultural life in Yugoslavia. Miroslav Krleža's collected works number more than 50 volumes and cover all facets of imaginative literature: poetry, drama, short stories, novels, essays, diaries, polemics and autobiographical prose.He is the heir of two parallel traditions: a specifically Croatian one, where he conceived of his role 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....
as the shaper of the national consciousness, or, in the words of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: "to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race"; the other is the broad European avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movement. Krleža's formative influences include Scandinavian drama, French Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
and Austrian and German expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and modernism, with key authors like Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
, Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
, Rilke and Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
.
Krleža's opus can be divided into the following categories:
Poetry
Although Krleža's lyric poetry is held in high regard, by common critical consensus his greatest poetic work is Balade Petrice Kerempuha (Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh), a visionary compendium of Golgotha Croatica, spanning more than five centuries and centred around the figure of plebeian prophet Petrica Kerempuh, a sort of Croatian Till EulenspiegelTill Eulenspiegel
Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France...
. This sombre and highly complex multilayered poem evoking reminiscences of Bruegel
Bruegel
Bruegel is an independent economic think tank, based in Brussels. It focuses on economic policy. Bruegel's governance and funding model relies on memberships from Member States of the European Union, international corporations, and other institutions....
and Bosch paintings, written in a unique hybrid language based on Croatian kajkavian dialect
Kajkavian dialect
The Kajkavian dialect is one of the three main dialects of Croatian. It has low mutual intelligibility with the other two dialects, Štokavian and Čakavian. All three are named after their word for "what?", which in Kajkavian is kaj....
interspersed with Latin, German, Hungarian and the archaic Croatian highly stylised idiom, irradiates universal dark verities on the human condition epitomized in Croatian historical experience.
Novels
Krleža's novelistic oeuvre consists of four works: Povratak Filipa Latinovicza (The Return of Filip Latinovicz), Na rubu pameti (On the Edge of Reason), Banket u Blitvi (The Banquet in Blitva) and Zastave (The Banners). All four novels exemplify the characteristics of Krleža's narrative prose: highly eloquent, almost baroqueBaroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style; expressionist innovations and techniques integrated in a mature authorial voice; numerous essayist passages that define these works as novels of ideas; a blend of existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
vision and sharp consciousness of politics as the determining factor of human lives.
The first one is a novel about an artist, written in the Proustian mood, but forecasting the existentialist shadow, a novel written quite some time before Sartre's Nausea and yet unrecognized as such; On the Edge of Reason and The Banquet in Blitva are essentially political-satirical novels of ideas (the latter located in an imaginary Baltic country and called a political poem), saturated with the atmosphere of all-pervasive totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
, while The Banners has rightly been dubbed a "Croatian War and Peace
War and Peace
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...
". 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 the last one, Zastave (The Banners), have been translated into English.
Essays
Miroslav Krleža's essays contain both his best and his worst writing. Undoubtedly the literary form he had found the most genial to his artistic temperament, Krleža has poured into essays everything that provoked his intelligence and sensibility — this genre covers more than 20 books of his collected works. Encyclopedic knowledge and polemical passion inform his meditations on various aspects and personalities of culture (Marcel ProustMarcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, Baudelaire, Erasmus, Paracelsus
Paracelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
), political anatomies of history both contemporary and medieval (Deset krvavih godina (Ten bloody years), Amsterdamske varijacije), vignettes on art and music (Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
) - all is covered in this veritable anatomy of European history and culture.
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.Dramas
Krleža's main artistic interest was centered around 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 a more conventional naturalist drama, patterned along examples of mature works by Ibsen and StrindbergStrindberg
Strindberg may refer to:People* August Strindberg , Swedish dramatist and painter* Nils Strindberg , Swedish photographer* Anita Strindberg , Swedish actor* Henrik Strindberg , Swedish composerOther...
. The best known is his cycle dealing with the decay of a bourgeois family sunken in the morass of adultery, corruption, theft and murder, Gospoda Glembajevi. Also of note is Golgota, a political drama. As is the case in some of his poetry and short stories, in Golgota Krleža again deals with biblical symbols and figures, but in a very earthly way, leading towards a finale reminiscent of Strindberg's Father.
Diaries and memoirs
Krleža's memoirs and diaries (especially Davni dani (Olden days) and Djetinjstvo u Agramu (Childhood in Zagreb)) are fascinating documents of growing and expanding self-awareness grappling with the world outside and mutable inner self. Other masterpieces, like Dnevnici (Diaries) and posthumously published Zapisi iz Tržiča (Notes from Tržič) chronicle multifarious impressions (aesthetic, political, literary, social, personal, philosophical) that an inquisitive consciousness has recorded during an era lasting more than half a century.Selected works
- Legenda, 1914
- Maskerata, 1914
- Zarathustra i mladić, 1914
- Pan, 1917
- Tri simfonije, 1917
- Pjesme, 1918
- Lirika, 1918
- Saloma, 1918
- Pjesme, 1918-19 (3 vols.)
- Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1919
- Eppur si muove, 1919
- Tri kavalira gospodjice Melanije, 1920
- Hrvatska rapsodija, 1921 (includes Smrt Franje Kadavera and Veliki meštar sviju hulja)
- Magyar kiralyi honvéd novela-Kraljevsko-ugarska domobranska novela, 1921
- Golgota, 1922
- Hrvatski bog Mars, 1922
- Galicija, 1922
- Adam i Eva, 1922
- Novele, 1923
- Vučjak, 1923
- Vrazji otok, 1923
- Izlet u Rusiju, 1926
- Gospoda Glembajevi, 1928
- Leda, 1930
- U agoniji, 1931
- Knjiga pjesama, 1931
- Moj obračun s njima, 1932
- Knjiga Lirike, 1932
- Eseji, 1932
- Glembajevi, 1932
- Povratak Filipa Latinovicza, 1932 - The Return of Philip Latinowicz (transl. by Zora Depolo)
- Balade Petrice Kerempuha, 1936
- Deset krvavih godina, 1937
- Na rubu pameti, 1938 - On the Edge of Reason (transl. by Zora Depolo and Jeremy CattoJeremy CattoDr Robert Jeremy Adam Inch Catto was, until 2006, the Rhodes Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, Oriel College, Oxford, where he was also Senior Dean. He holds a Master's degree and a doctorate His research interests lie in the politics and religion of later medieval England...
) - Banket u Blitvi, 1939 – The Banquet in Blitva (transl. by Jasna Levinger and E. D. Goy)
- Dijalektički antibarbarus, 1939
- Djetinjstvo u Agramu godine 1902-1903, 1952
- Davni dani, 1956
- Aretej, 1959
- Eseji, 1961-67 (6 vols.)
- Zastave, 1967 (6 vols.)
- Izabrana dela, 1969
- 99 varijacija, 1972
- Djetinjstvo i drugi spisi, 1972
- The Cricket beneath the Waterfall, and Other Stories
- Put u raj, 1973
- Miroslav Krleža: Jubilarno izdanje, 1973
- Dnevnik, 1977 (5 vols.)