Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 81 No. 2, 2011.
Original scientific paper
The Poetry of Vinko Kos (from previously unknown manuscripts)
Daniel Mikulaco
orcid.org/0009-0000-3656-9192
; Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Pula, Croatia
Abstract
As its title implies, this paper deals with listing and evaluating newly-discovered poetical manuscripts (poetry: Poems 1936, Hills in Blossom, Moment Easy to Understand, Individual Poems - which are just a part of a series of unpublished works) left behind by the Croatian writer Vinko Kos (1914 - 1945), whose tragic life and works, due to unfavorable social and political circumstances, have been neglected and kept secret until recently. Mostly a poet, a children's author and an educator, but also a short-story writer, a travel writer and a dramatist - Vinko Kos was a victim of the tragic war events. His life ended violently at the age of 31, most probably in one of the camps set up in the period of the Bleiburg tragedy in 1945. As a young and promising author, he established himself in Croatian literature in the period between 1938 and 1945. During that short period, he published four collections of poems (Waterfall, Sculptor, Bat, and Lada) and a travel book. He also wrote a few books of children's poems and stories. In order to get a clear picture of the author and his poetic work (published and unpublished), the paper includes some general contextual considerations of literary tendencies and practical literary models during the 1930s and the 1940s. The poetry written by Kos is characterized by the poetics of romantic-sentimental, modernist (symbolist and impressionist) expression, relying on experience derived from Catholic (religious and metaphysical) poetry and the tradition of modern classics of world literature of a similar cast of mind. Some of his manuscript poems are incomplete and/or weaker, and just one book (Hills in Blossom) and a few individual poems are articulate and finished. These poems, relevant in terms of their aesthetic values, certainly deserve to be added to the already published pieces by Kos, thus finally putting the name and the work of Vinko Kos on the map of Croatia literature in the first half of the 20th century.
Keywords
Vinko Kos; modern poetry; Croatian literature in the first half of the 20th century; reflective and mystical poetry; Catholic poets (religious poetry); Bleiburg / the Way of the Cross
Hrčak ID:
69785
URI
Publication date:
28.6.2011.
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