Vladimir Nazor
Encyclopedia
Vladimir Nazor was the first head of state of modern Croatia
. A member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), he led the Croatian World War II wartime assembly, the ZAVNOH, and later served as the President of the Presidium of the People's Assembly of PR Croatia - the head of state of the People's Republic of Croatia. Today he is most remembered, however, as a well-known Croatian
poet, writer
, translator, and humanist
. Although he was not an active politician until 1941, he had a significant political influence through ethical aspects of his work during prewar Kingdom of Yugoslavia
.
Nazor's early work paralleled the rise of the Young Croatian literary movement. He acquired much literary popularity in Croatia
writing about folk
legends and stories. The tale Big Joseph (Veli Jože) (1908) is still popular: it features a helpful and kind hearted giant
named Jože, living in the area around the town of Motovun
(Inner Istria
). His verses in Hrvatski kraljevi (Croat Kings) (1912) established him as the great patriot poet in Croatia. Istrian Tales (Istarske priče) (1913) revealed his storytelling skill and mastery. By illuminating the personality of the South Slavs through tales of Croatia, he contributed a great deal in creating the Yugoslav national consciousness.
Nazor supported the opposition alliance led by Vladko Maček
in the 1938 Yugoslav elections. During World War II
, on December 30, 1941, Nazor became a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
by government decree, but in 1942 he escaped from Zagreb
with poet Ivan Goran Kovačić
in a boat across the river Kupa, that was sublimed in poem The Boat on the Kupa (Čamac na Kupi) and joined the Partisans. Nazor became one of Josip Broz Tito
's closest associates and the President of Croatia's World War II assembly, the ZAVNOH. After the war, he became the first president of the People's Republic of Croatia's Parliament (President of the Presidium of the People's Assembly), and thus the first head-of-state of the modern Croatia
n state in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He went on to write a war diary With Partisans (S partizanima) (1943–1945).
Nazor was a very productive author. He was the master of prose, but his highest achievements are in lyric poetry.
One of his main prose works is the extensive novel Loda the Shepherd (Pastir Loda) (1938). The work describes the history of his native island of Brač as told by Loda, a faun
, one of the last of that kind on the island.
In poetry Nazor's creative way began from metaphysical transcendental philosophy and arrived to materialistic revolutionary action, to rational scheme and harmonic larpourlartistic crystal structure and interior protest against artistic verbalizing in Futurism
, Dada
ism, Expressionism
and Surrealism
as well as instructive didactics of socialist realism
. Therefore his opus comprises a plenty of style tendencies, from neoclassical
to surrealistic
and despite its heterogeneity, in essence it belongs to Symbolism
. Nazor's poems are rather difficult for reading, due to subjecting contents to form – especially in sonets, rhime and rhythm forcing, vowels shortening for adjusting the number of syllables and progressing the sentence to the next verse as well as use of academic, atypical, rare and arhaic words.
Nazor wrote over 500 poems. His poetry implicates that art is aestheticly stronger than reality, for art reflects the essence of real world. Early phase of Nazor's poetrv work is mostly object of scholars' research now, but Galérien's Poeme (Galiotova pesan) from that time (1903), describing suffering and sadness of a galley slave, attains universal meanining as condemnation of oppressing at all and still stands as one of the most expressive disapproval of slavery; unfortunately, it is very difficult for translating, because it is written in Chakavian dialect
.
Nazor probably reached the highest scope in poems of so called pagan phase, published in books of verse Lyrics (Lirika) (1910) and New Poems (Nove pjesme) (1913). Passionately ecstatic, these poems comprise symbols of life, its eternal fertility, pantheistic metamorphoses of nature and sensual affirmation of love; life prevails for life itself, so life is taken in its whole versatility. Vitalistic view of life and fascination by countryside - Cypress (Čempres), Dionysian Poems (Dionizijske pjesme), Cicada (Cvrčak) and Olive (Maslina), as well as contemplative experience and spiritualizing of natural appearances - Turris eburnea, Notturno, Forest Sleeps (Šuma spava), Trunk (Stablo) and Spider (Pauk), dominate in the heights of that phase, and these are the heights of Nazor's poetry at all. Poems Cicada, Olive, Notturno and Forest Sleeps belong to the top of the World poetry.
Vladimir Nazor spoke several languages and translated from Italian (Dante
- Divina Commedia, Giosuè Carducci
, Giovanni Pascoli
, Gabriele d'Annunzio
), German (Goethe
, Heine
), French (Hugo
, Alfred de Musset
) and English (Shakespeare
).
Nazor was buried in Mirogoj Cemetery
. Since 1959, Croatia has named a state award for artistic achievement the Vladimir Nazor Award
.
His works have been translated into following languages (incomplete list):
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. A member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), he led the Croatian World War II wartime assembly, the ZAVNOH, and later served as the President of the Presidium of the People's Assembly of PR Croatia - the head of state of the People's Republic of Croatia. Today he is most remembered, however, as a well-known Croatian
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
poet, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, translator, and humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
. Although he was not an active politician until 1941, he had a significant political influence through ethical aspects of his work during prewar Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
.
Nazor's early work paralleled the rise of the Young Croatian literary movement. He acquired much literary popularity in Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
writing about folk
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
legends and stories. The tale Big Joseph (Veli Jože) (1908) is still popular: it features a helpful and kind hearted giant
Giant (mythology)
The mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...
named Jože, living in the area around the town of Motovun
Motovun
Motovun is a village in central Istria, Croatia. The population of the village itself is 531, with a total of 983 residents in the municipality ; 442 of the residents have Italian as their mother language...
(Inner Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
). His verses in Hrvatski kraljevi (Croat Kings) (1912) established him as the great patriot poet in Croatia. Istrian Tales (Istarske priče) (1913) revealed his storytelling skill and mastery. By illuminating the personality of the South Slavs through tales of Croatia, he contributed a great deal in creating the Yugoslav national consciousness.
Nazor supported the opposition alliance led by Vladko Maček
Vladko Macek
Vladko Maček was a Croatian politician active within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the first half of the 20th century. He led the Croatian Peasant Party following the assassination of Stjepan Radić, and all through World War II.- Early life :Maček was born to a Slovene-Czech family in the village...
in the 1938 Yugoslav elections. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, on December 30, 1941, Nazor became a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Croatia. It was founded in 1866 as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts , and was known by that name for most of its existence.- History :...
by government decree, but in 1942 he escaped from Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
with poet Ivan Goran Kovačić
Ivan Goran Kovacic
Ivan Goran Kovačić was a prominent Croatian poet and writer of the 20th century.-Early life and background:He was born in Lukovdol , a town in Gorski Kotar, to Croatian father Ivan and Jewish mother Ruža . His middle name Goran stems from that...
in a boat across the river Kupa, that was sublimed in poem The Boat on the Kupa (Čamac na Kupi) and joined the Partisans. Nazor became one of Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
's closest associates and the President of Croatia's World War II assembly, the ZAVNOH. After the war, he became the first president of the People's Republic of Croatia's Parliament (President of the Presidium of the People's Assembly), and thus the first head-of-state of the modern Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n state in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He went on to write a war diary With Partisans (S partizanima) (1943–1945).
Nazor was a very productive author. He was the master of prose, but his highest achievements are in lyric poetry.
One of his main prose works is the extensive novel Loda the Shepherd (Pastir Loda) (1938). The work describes the history of his native island of Brač as told by Loda, a faun
Faun
The faun is a rustic forest god or place-spirit of Roman mythology often associated with Greek satyrs and the Greek god Pan.-Origins:...
, one of the last of that kind on the island.
In poetry Nazor's creative way began from metaphysical transcendental philosophy and arrived to materialistic revolutionary action, to rational scheme and harmonic larpourlartistic crystal structure and interior protest against artistic verbalizing in Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
, Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ism, Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
as well as instructive didactics of socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
. Therefore his opus comprises a plenty of style tendencies, from neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
to surrealistic
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and despite its heterogeneity, in essence it belongs to Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
. Nazor's poems are rather difficult for reading, due to subjecting contents to form – especially in sonets, rhime and rhythm forcing, vowels shortening for adjusting the number of syllables and progressing the sentence to the next verse as well as use of academic, atypical, rare and arhaic words.
Nazor wrote over 500 poems. His poetry implicates that art is aestheticly stronger than reality, for art reflects the essence of real world. Early phase of Nazor's poetrv work is mostly object of scholars' research now, but Galérien's Poeme (Galiotova pesan) from that time (1903), describing suffering and sadness of a galley slave, attains universal meanining as condemnation of oppressing at all and still stands as one of the most expressive disapproval of slavery; unfortunately, it is very difficult for translating, because it is written in Chakavian dialect
Chakavian dialect
Chakavian or Čakavian is a dialect of the Croatian language. The name stems from the word for "what?", which is "ča" in Čakavian...
.
Nazor probably reached the highest scope in poems of so called pagan phase, published in books of verse Lyrics (Lirika) (1910) and New Poems (Nove pjesme) (1913). Passionately ecstatic, these poems comprise symbols of life, its eternal fertility, pantheistic metamorphoses of nature and sensual affirmation of love; life prevails for life itself, so life is taken in its whole versatility. Vitalistic view of life and fascination by countryside - Cypress (Čempres), Dionysian Poems (Dionizijske pjesme), Cicada (Cvrčak) and Olive (Maslina), as well as contemplative experience and spiritualizing of natural appearances - Turris eburnea, Notturno, Forest Sleeps (Šuma spava), Trunk (Stablo) and Spider (Pauk), dominate in the heights of that phase, and these are the heights of Nazor's poetry at all. Poems Cicada, Olive, Notturno and Forest Sleeps belong to the top of the World poetry.
Vladimir Nazor spoke several languages and translated from Italian (Dante
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
- Divina Commedia, Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
, Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli was an Italian poet and classical scholar.- Biography :Giovanni Pascoli was born at San Mauro di Romagna , into a well-to-do family. He was the fourth of ten children of Ruggero Pascoli and Caterina Vincenzi Alloccatelli...
, Gabriele d'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
), German (Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
), French (Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
) and English (Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
).
Nazor was buried in Mirogoj Cemetery
Mirogoj Cemetery
The Mirogoj Cemetery is considered to be one of the most beautiful cemetery parks in Europe and, because of its design, numbers among the more noteworthy landmarks in the City of Zagreb....
. Since 1959, Croatia has named a state award for artistic achievement the Vladimir Nazor Award
Vladimir Nazor award
The Vladimir Nazor Award is an annual award given by the Croatian Ministry of Culture to Croatian artists for highest achievements in various artistic fields. It was established in 1959 and is named after the notable writer Vladimir Nazor...
.
Works
- List of Nazor's work on Croatian Wikipedia
- Na vrhu jezika i pera, Croatian Publishing and Bibliographic InstituteCroatian Publishing and Bibliographic InstituteThe Croatian Publishing and Bibliographic Institute was a lexicographic institute in the Independent State of Croatia founded on August 9, 1941. Mate Ujević was its director. In 1944, Dragutin Tadijanović became the literary secretary of the institute...
, 1942
His works have been translated into following languages (incomplete list):
- Italian
- Hungarian
- Slovenian
- German