Egzistencijalni humor

Abstract

This paper deals with the subject of existential humor in the prose of Slavko Kolar in his thematic cycle on village life in the book Mi smo za pravicu (We Want Our Rights), Zagreb, 1936. In order to justify the use of the term “existential humor”, professor Ćeklić searches for a foothold in Kierkegaard's opinion that the comical definition of existence “is founded on suffering as a basic situation of man”. Since Kolar depicts the social situation of the Croat peasant in the period between the two world wars in its negative aspect, he spontaneously expresses the existential essence of laughter and convincingly proves the authentic earnestness of the comical. The author of the text uses the syntagm “imitational identification”, so as to explain, on the example of his short story and drama Svoga tela gospodar (Master of one's own body), the pseudo indifference of the writer in describing the most tragic human situations. Such a narrative procedure enabled Kolar to observe all the aspects of moral behaviour from the perspective of his literary heroes and doing so, he intimately does not necessarily accept their ethical norms.