Hvar City Theatre Days, Vol. 52 No. 1, 2026.
Original scientific paper
The Glembays: From Prose to Ballet
Vlaho Bogišić
Abstract
Shifts in civilizational and technological circumstances since the early twentieth
century have not substantially altered the position that Croatian literature attained during
the era of national cultural revival. For the literary gesture of Miroslav Krleža – which was
manifested as subversive from its inception, a quality it has retained even from a centurylong
historical distance – the epoch unfolded not merely as a poetic realm, but as a media
space, originating in theatre and expanding through other forms of creative interaction. If
Krleža’s literary template is transposed, in accordance with such a historical recapitulation,
into the scale of the epoch, it reveals integrated models of creative performance; gradually,
this often-reciprocal composition becomes indispensable for experiencing and understanding
the entirety of his work. Within this complex, the Glembay cycle serves as a fruitful
foundation for study, as it reflects the genre and stylistic fluidity of the author’s expression,
its fictional precision, and provides a detectable trail for understanding the media growth
of Croatian literary impulses in general. This paper examines the Glembay saga as a recitative,
a quotation, a prose fragment, a radio and television adaptation, a film, a ballet, and,
above all as a theatrical foundation. It explores how these forms become thematically and
structurally interconnected to socially orchestrate their tension – a tension that has, from
the outset, proved to be far more than game, and more than lite rature.
Keywords
Miroslav Krleža, The Glembays, intermediality, literature, theatre, ballet, film
Hrčak ID:
347161
URI
Publication date:
6.5.2026.
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