KAMOV, ČERINA AND KRLEŽA

Abstract

The inspiring hermeneutic connection between Kamov’s and Krleža’s texts points to constantly dynamic and varying interpretations of the writings of these two classic Croatian writers. In an absurd manner, Miroslav Krleža negated Janko Polić Kamov’s personality and literature by ignoring his proto-avant-garde position in Croatian and European literature, while at the same time associating with Kamov’s best friends, and by being thoroughly acquainted with his work and biography. The literary work of Janko Polić Kamov, Croatia’s proto-avant-garde representative, is recognisably reflected in a significant segment of Miroslav Krleža’s literary output. At the same time this does not mean that Krleža’s artistic and cultural contribution as the pivotal figure of Croatian and European literature is in any manner diminished.
The intensive relationship between Vladimir Čerina and Miroslav Krleža might provide a possible key to the secret of Krleža’s reception of Kamov which the former negated during his whole life. Krleža did not write a word about Čerina’s voluminous study Janko Polić Kamov while at the same time he maintained friendly relations with Čerina, his high school colleague with whom he exchanged literary manuscripts and who safeguarded Kamov’s manuscripts, some of which have as of present been mysteriously lost. Krleža’s relationship with Julije Benešić is also significant since the latter had in his possession the manuscript of Kamov’s novel Isušena kaljuža which went on to be published with a half-century’s delay. As his personal secretary Krleža chose Anđelko Malinar, the son of Kamov’s never-to-be-forgotten love Katarina Radošević and Kamov’s friend Mate Malinar.
The revalorization of some of Miroslav Krleža’s and Janko Polić Kamov’s canonical texts insinuates itself as an inspiring research imperative which points to the truth that the established signifying system of texts of both Croatian literary classics produces an inexhaustible semantic potential and a surprising transcoding which verifies the fact that literature is a unique expressive system, irreplaceable in the all-embracing humanistic creation of the world.