Professional paper
Požega to Peić, Peić to Požega
Kristina Lešić
orcid.org/0000-0003-1162-8541
; Gimnazija Požega, Požega, Hrvatska
Abstract
The presence and the imagination of the old and beautiful town of Požega would never be the same if Matko Peić had not spoken about it from different aspects and with a vision blurred by subjectivity. Never would this lady feel exceptional and different within a range of Croatian towns, nor would we ever perceive how many fragments of its being are implied in almost the whole of Europe, or how many of its sons have indebted Croatia through science and arts, were it not for Peić’s observations about his native town. Contemplating the town which awakens reminiscences of his childhood filled with a youngster’s mischief, Peić feels the awakened nostalgia for the devastated highschool observatory or the ruined house of J.E. Tomić. The impressionist atmosphere of the town revives in Peić a visual artist, while the clear rhythmic sounds of Požega’s songbirds and the vibration of flowing waters lyricise the prose of the itinerant poet. The portrayal of architecture, flora and fauna, the seasons, as well as times of the day in the town of the cleanest and clearest water, from which only the language of its residents is clearer, is mimetically meticulous. Peić, the world traveller, evokes his native town no matter where he travels, and states that Požega, apart from being western (its elements existing in Italy, Spain, Austria), is also eastern, i.e. Turkish Požega. Požega, a book of essays, feuilletons and travelogues which Peić published in magazines and newspapers between 1953 and 1995, is about to be the central interest of this presentation. Požega shaped Peić the artist, and he, in turn, discovered its deepest bits by giving it emergent features and penned some of the most famous sentences about his native town.
Keywords
authenticity; nostalgia; landscape; literature; visual artistry
Hrčak ID:
133851
URI
Publication date:
17.4.2014.
Visits: 1.804 *