Original scientific paper
Miroslav Krleža on Franjo Marković
Davor Balić
; Odsjek za filozofiju, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Hrvatska
Abstract
Franjo Marković (1845–1914), Croatian philosopher and literate, remained in the focus of Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981) for almost sixty-five years, from the latter’s diary entries dated 14 September 1916, to a discussion that took place on 14 June 1980 with the journalist and his collaborator Enes Čengić, and the actor, poet and musician Rade Šerbedžija. Krleža’s assessments of Marković can be examined from three perspectives: that of Marković’s literary works, Marković’s place and importance in Croatian literature and Krleža’s views of Marković as a literate, and lastly, Krleža’s assessments of Marković’s philosophical orientation and his role in Croatian philosophy.
Krleža’s critical remarks concern four literary works written by Marković: the epic Dom i svijet (The Home and the World), the epic Kohan i Vlasta (Kohan and Vlasta), the drama Karlo Drački (Charles of Durazzo), and the drama Benko Bot.
The majority of Krleža’s assessments pertain to the epic The Home and the World.
He most frequently referred to it as a “Romantic poem” although, with regard to European Romanticism, it was composed with a thirty-year delay (1865), and published with an even fifty-year delay (1883). In Krleža’s opinion, Marković modelled his The Home and the World on the epic poem Pan Tadeusz by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. These remarks have been drawn from Krleža’s diary entries (1918), from the essays “O Kranjčevićevoj lirici” (“On Kranjčević’s Lyrics,” 1931), from the prologue to the collection of drawings Podravski motivi (Podravina Motifs, 1933) by the painter Krsto Hegedušić, and from the marginalia that Krleža provided for the Enciklopedija Jugoslavije (Encyclopaedia of Yugoslavia) alongside the text on the Croatian literature from the 1840s to the 1900s (around 1960). In addition, Krleža also remarks that The Home and the World stands as “a virtually unique Romantic epic in Croatian literature” (“On Kranjčević’s Lyrics,” 1931), that it “qualifies as one of the most interesting works” in Croatian literature of the 19th century, and that the “poetic debut of Franjo Marković falls within the farthest reaches of his talent” (marginalia on the characteristics of Croatian literature from the 1840s to the 1900s, around 1960).
Furthermore, in the marginalia that he dictated for the Encyclopaedia of Yugoslavia in 1957 or 1958 alongside the text on the characteristics of Croatian epic poetry of the 19th and 20th century, he asserted that in the epic The Home and the World, as well as in the epic Kohan and Vlasta (1868), Marković “opposes the tendencies of Germanisation.” His assessments of Marković’s historical dramas Charles of Durazzo (1872) and Benko Bot (1872) Krleža presented in his diary entries dated 14 September 1916. On that occasion he states that both dramas by the Austrian literate Franz Grillparzer and the drama Bánk Bán, published by the Hungarian literate József Katona in 1815, all of which being largely dominated by mythological and historical issues, had no influence on the political circumstances of the first half of the 19th century, subsequently arguing that Marković’s thematisation of events from Croatian history had no impact on the political circumstances that prevailed in Croatia during the second half of the 19th century: “Neither Franjo Marković’s Benko Bot nor Charles of Durazzo are any shrewder.”
Krleža also commented on Marković’s place and role in Croatian literature.
His first remarks on this topic may be traced in the article “Illustrissimus dominus Battorych” (1924), in which Krleža was convinced that numerous Croatian literates, including “university professor illustrious nobleman Mr Franjo Marković, president of the Academy”, would not “be ignificant, not even as they seemingly are now, if their reputation as literates had not been shimmering in the glow of empty and foolish civic honour.” Assessments on Marković as a literate, especially as a dramatist, Krleža also submitted on 12 April 1928 in Osijek, prior to reading his drama U agoniji (In Agony). First, he said that he “as a grammar school attendee,” and then also as a “twenty-year-old beginner” thought that he could learn how to skilfully and successfully write literary dramas “from a master,” among whom, “according to our literary-historical scheme,” he also included Marković, which was followed by his conclusion that Marković was one of those Croatian dramatists “from whom no one can learn anything, not even a beginner grammar school attendee.” That could be one of the reasons why in the article “O našem dramskom répertoireu” (“On Our Drama Repertoire,” 1948) he argued that Marković belonged among those Croatian dramatists who were “scenically dead”. Nevertheless, in the essay “On Kranjčević’s Lyrics” (1931) Krleža admitted that Marković greatly contributed to the formation and development of Croatian Romanticism: he deemed Franjo Marković and August Šenoa as “the most distinguished names” of one of the stages that marked this literary movement in Croatian literature.
The first remarks Krleža made on the philosophical component of Marković’s oeuvre were those regarding Marković’s research of Croatian philosophical heritage.
Krleža submitted them in 1950 in both the conceptual and the final version of the manuscript “Filipović Vladimir o Marku Maruliću” (“Filipović Vladimir on Marko Marulić”). In so doing, he complied with the views that Marković delivered in his 1881 rectorial speech on the characteristics of the opus of the early Renaissance Croatian philosopher Juraj Dragišić, especially on the presence of Bogomilistic component in Dragišić’s opus. In both versions of the manuscript “Filipović Vladimir on Marko Marulić” Krleža emphasized that “there is a Bogomilistic component” in Dragišić’s philosophical teaching. He also commented on Marković’s philosophical orientation in the marginalia dictated in 1957 or 1958 for the Enciklopedija Leksikografskog zavoda (Encyclopaedia of the Lexicographical Institute), alongside a text on the German philosopher, pedagogue, and psychologist Johann Friedrich Herbart. Krleža first disclosed to the author of the text that Herbartians “had fatal influence on our academic philosophy and not only on Franjo Marković” and then informed him that “Franjo Marković’s aesthetics” should definitely “be given more attention, in order to determine what it is all about.” Krleža presented his views of Marković as a philosopher on 14 June 1980, in a discussion with Čengić and Šerbedžija, by remarking that Benko Bot was a literary drama “by Franjo Marković, a renowned aesthetician and professor who had been teaching philosophy at the University of Zagreb since 1874.”
Therefore, Krleža came forward with numerous assessments on the nature and characteristics of Marković’s oeuvre. With the exception of Zlatko Posavac, expert in Croatian philosophical heritage, these assessments had not been taken into consideration by former researchers of the work of Krleža and Marković. Apparently, Posavac had not given them proper attention, as he referred to only four of Krleža’s assesments of Marković. As shown in this article, there are actually nineteen assessments of this kind, present in some of the fifteen bibliographic units of Krleža’s opus. The accuracy of these statements is confirmed by the contents of the appendix “Bibliografske jedinice koje sadrže prosudbe Miroslava Krleže o Franji Markoviću” (“Bibliographic units that contain Miroslav Krleža’s assessments of Franjo Marković”).
Keywords
Miroslav Krleža; Franjo Marković; , Johann Friedrich Herbart; , Herbartians; Croatian literary heritage; , Croatian philosophical herita
Hrčak ID:
240931
URI
Publication date:
25.6.2019.
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