МIROSLAV КRLEŽA 120. obljetnica od rođenja 100 godina od prvog dolaska u Makedoniju

120
100
Makedonska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti
Fondacija Trifun Kostovski
IROSLAV RLEA
120. obljetnica od roenja
100 godina od prvog dolaska u Makedoniju
Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Trifun Kostovski Foundation
IROSLAV RLEA
120 years since his birth
100 Years of His First Coming to Macedonia


120
100
IROSLAV RLEA
120 godina od roenja
IROSLAV RLEA
120 Years since his Birth ????
100 Years of his First Coming to Macedonia ????
/
Glavni urednik i coordinator projekta /
Editor-in-Chief and the Project Coordinator
/ Tome Serafimovski
120
100

IROSLAV RLEA
120. obljetnica od roenja

/ Autori tekstova / Texts Written by
/ Katica ulavkova
/ Goran Kalogjer
/ Boo Rude
/ Gane Todorovski

IROSLAV RLEA
/ Prijevod / Translation
/ Biljana Jovanovska
/ Zoran Anchevski
120 years since his birth

100 Years of His First Coming to Macedonia
2013 Skopje
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Tome Serafimovski: portret Miroslava Krlee, mramor
Tome Serafimovski: portrait of Miroslav Krlea, marble

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:
stariji brat bio je pod turskom zastavom, pa su doli Srbi i oteli
nam sto i sedam ovaca. A ja sam srpskoga kralja sluio tri puta i povukao se
u Albaniju. Pa su Bugari doli i mater mi odvukli. I sestru. I oca su mi ubile
Komite jo prije. Sve su nam uzeli (str. 331332).
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: ,
Tome Serafimovski: figura Miroslava Krlee, bronza
Tome Serafimovski: figure of Miroslav Krlea, bronze
: ,
Tome Serafimovski: figura Miroslava Krlee, bronza
Tome Serafimovski: figure of Miroslav Krlea, bronze
Katica ulavkova
Povratak Miroslava Krlee
Sto godina od prvog dolaska u Makedoniju
Linosti koje su prevazile svoje vrijeme pripadaju svim kulturama i
svim vremenima. Linosti koje su zaduile jednu kulturu, nikada ne pre
staju biti dio te kulture, pa makar bile odsutne, stavljene u sjenu javnosti i
iza glavnog scenskog prostora. Kulturna se misija moe preobraziti, ali ne i
nestati. Takva je linost Miroslava Krlee (Zagreb, 7. srpnja 1893 29. pro
sinca 1981). Ve vie od 32 godine on nije meu ivima, a asovnik povijesti
odbrojao je 120 godina od njegova roenja. Miroslav Krlea je zaduio ne
samo hrvatsku kulturu, ve i junoslavenske, te u tom smislu i makedonsku
kulturu, knjievnost i naciju. On danas pripada i europskoj kulturi, a time i
svjetskoj. Stoga i nije vano jeli Krlein opus prije svega obiljeen hrvatski,
jugoslavenski, balkanski, centralnoeuropski, pa i austrougarski. Njegova su
knjievna i kulturna misija doivjele (privremeno) biti potisnute na dru
tvene margine, od desno orijentiranih predstavnika hrvatskog nacionalnog
diskursa, upravo u neovisnoj Hrvatskoj, iako, da ironija bude vea, teko da
se bez Krlee moe zamisliti kontinuitet, cjelovitost i vrijednost hrvatske kul
ture, leksikografije i knjievnosti XX. stoljea.
Ukoliko postoji linost koja je utisnula vei ig na suvremeni hrvatski
jezik i knjievnost te i na kulturne strategije i politike nekadanje Jugoslavi
je, onda je to, bez sumnje, Miroslav Krlea. Poeta, romansijer, pripovjeda,
85
dramski pisac, enciklopedist, publicist, politiki komentator, polemiar, pu

topisac, memorist, intelektualni tuma ovog polivalentnog vijeka, Miroslav
Krlea je linost koja je neumorno stvarala bogatu i vodeu knjievnost, on
je bio kreator dominantnih stajalita i poticao je razvojne procese u Hrvat
skoj i na prostorima nekadanje Jugoslavije. Nije sluajno to je njegova knji
evno-povijesna uloga po vrijednosti bila usporeivana sa Strindbergovom,
meu nordijskim dramaturgijama, ili sa onom Thomasa Manna, na podru
ju njemake knjievnosti. Miroslav Krlea je proirio granice poetske rijei,
utemeljio je najreprezentativnije forme jugoslavenskog egzistencijalizma u
romanu i u drami, generirao je hrvatski modernizam primjenom na odabra
nim postupcima distanciranja od tradicije i od vladajuih stereotipa, uvodei
postupak hibridne ekspresije koja ukljuuje povijesnost, ali i psihologizam,
autobiografinost, ali i esejizam, lirinost, ali i dramatinost, pa i teatralnost,
refleksije humanistike lijeve ideologije, reminiscencije reima koji doivlja
va svoje posljednje dane. On je postavio paradigme i mjerila leksikografske i
enciklopedijske djelatnosti u nekadanjoj Jugoslaviji, a postao je ivi primjer
za to kako je mogu modernistiki enciklopedizam koji ne iskljuuje estetski
kod, imaginaciju i fikciju.
Danas se Krlea odnovo vraa u svoju rodnu Hrvatsku. U danima kada
je neovisna Hrvatska postala lanica Europske unije, 1. srpnja 2013 godine,
datum koji je, dakle, blizak njegovom danu roenja, hrvatska se javnost pot
sjetila Krleinih vizija o budunosti europske ideje, dakako i njegovih remi
niscencija na mnogobrojne, iako ne uvijek za pohvalu, europske civilizacijske
konstelacije. U Nacionalnoj i sveuilinoj knjinici u Zagrebu organizovana
je reprezentativna izloba djela Miroslava Krlee, pod nazivom Europski Kr
lea, zatim drugi festival posveen Krlei (17 srpnja, Zagreb), te veliki broj
sveanosti po cijeloj Europi.
Post nubila Phoebus. Poslije euforinih, traumatinih i tranzicijskih za
bluda, konfikta i paradoksa, na junoslavenskim se prostorima artikulira je
dan racionalniji, prihvatljiviji i dijalogian logos. Kulturna se memorija vie
ne mora opstruirati. Slobodno sjeanje je uvod u jedno suvremeno ponovno

itanje nasljeenih knjievnih i kulturnih vrijednosti, te, u tom kontekstu,
i za ponovno tumaenje opusa Krleijana. Nekako postaje toplije u dui.
Otvoren je i dom Miroslava i Bele Krlee za nove dijaloge o sutini hrvatskih,
centralnoeuropskih, junoslavenskih i europskih perspektiva i povijesti.
Baca se nova svjetlost na kultna mjesta gdje se ukrtaju prolost i budunost,
toke u kojima se povijest ponavlja ili budunost nagovjetava, vizionarski.
Na takvim je mjestima vidljiva nazonost Miroslava Krlee, jedne izuzet
no podijeljene figure jugoslavenskih naroda i kultura. Ni manji Hrvat ni vei
Jugoslaven. Pomalo Makedonac. Simboliko kulturno znaenje nije manje
vano od povijesnog. Kulturna povijest i memorija transcendiraju povijest i
generiu univerzalne vrijednosti.
Ovim se izdanjem, Miroslav Krlea ponovno vraa u Makedoniju. On
je i njoj neophodan. I nju je zaduio. Svojom empatinom ljubavlju prema
makedonskom narodu, on se upisao u noviju makedonsku kulturnu povi
jest. Svojom ushienou pred makedonskom srednjovjekovnom umjetno
sti. Svojim potovanjem makedonske pismenosti. Svjeu da su glagoljska
pismenost i kultura konstituisale slovenske identitete, osobito na podruju
izmeu Makedonije, Bosne i Hercegovine i Hrvatske. Sa suuti prema make
donskim povijesnim i nacionalnim traginostima, podjelama i nepravdama.
Svojim interesom za makedonsku knjievnu i kulturnu modernu. Razumije
vanjem makedonskih kazalinih prilika. Sa jasnom svjeu o makedonskom
identitetu i njegovoj posebnosti. Svojom vizijom za izdanje zasebne make
donske (ope) enciklopedije. Svojom makedonskom putopisnom priom.
Svojim makedonskim oiljkom, iz vremena njegovog prvog dolaska u Ma
kedoniju, 1913. godine, u jeku balkanskih ratova, kada je bilo teko sauvati
ivu glavu.
Ovo simboliko, ali indikativno i neophodno vraanje Miroslava Krlee
u Makedoniju, realizira se na poziv makedonskog kipara, akademika Tome
Serafimovskog, domicilnog Makedonca, Hrvata po svom obrazovnom for
86
87
matu i po svom obiteljskom, egzistencijalnom, jezinom i kulturnom ambi

jentu. Na njegovu su inicijativu, napisana dva odlina, studijozna teksta o i
votu i djelu Miroslava Krlee: jedan od Gorana Kalogjere, profesora Rijekog
sveuilita, lana Makedonske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u vanjskom
sastavu, drugi, od Boa Rudea, esejiste, publiciste i nakladnika iz Zagre
ba. Goran Kalogjera narativizira Krleine posjete Makedoniji i Skopju: prvi
put 1913. godine, u predveerje Prvoga svjetskog rata, kada se kao bjegunac
prijavljuje u srpsku vojsku i shvaa da je njen pohod po t.z. Junoj Srbiji ap
surdan, zato to Makedonci nisu Srbi, ve zaseban narod koji ima svoj jezik
(zbog ovoga Krlea je odleao kratku, ali rizinu zatvorsku kaznu); drugi put
1937. godine, kada je na sceni skopskog kazalita bila postavljena njegova
drama U logoru, i trei put 1960. godine, kada ide u posjet makedonskim
kulturno-povijesnim spomenicima i kontaktira sa knjievnom i politikom
elitom u Makedoniji. Nakon ovih iskustava, Krlea o Makedoniji pie u ve
em broju svojih tekstova i djela. On je i suorganizator izlobe makedonske
srednjovjekovne umjetnosti u Parizu, zajedno sa Dime Kocom.
Boo Rude je priredio jednu sjajnu i opsenu studiju o Krleinim eu
ropskim i hrvatskim duhovnim horizontima, kao i o Krleinom odnosu sa
Makedonijom, sve to promatrano iz suvremene i aktualne perspektive u ra
zvoju europske i jugoslavenske koncepcije zajednice naroda. Rude se, isto
kao i Kalogjera, odnovo navraa na besedu akademika Ganeta Todorovskog
iz 1983. godine o povezanosti Krlee sa Makedonijom, a u povodu objavlji
vanja izbora njegovog stvaralatva na makedonski jezik.
Koncepcija ovog specijalnog izdanja o Krlei i Makedoniji, povodom
120. obljetnice njegovog roenja, markirana je idejom da se obiljei jubilej
i povijesni znaaj jedne kljune i temeljne figure hrvatske kulture u proua
vanju i afirmaciji makedonske kulture. Zato se tekstovi ove knjige objavljuju
na tri jezika hrvatski, makedonski i engleski. Jedino je tekst Ganeta Todo
rovskog, koji je, pun osobnih reminiscencija i objanjenja nekih Krleinih
tekstova na makedonske teme (In extremis, Balkanske impresije, Zastave,)
objavljen predhodno. Ali, bez Ganetova teksta, ova knjiga ne bi imala svoju
duhovnu cijelovitost, ne bi artikulirala svoj konceptualni oslonac, prepoznat
u makedonskom nacionalnom, jezikom i kulturnom biu koje je Krlea sa
gledao, duboko emotivno, kao otkrovenje, jo u svojoj dvadesetoj godini a
koje je njegovao do kraja svoga ivota, dajui potporu sa puno argumenata.
Ova je knjiga objavljena sa finansijskom i moralnom potporom Fon
dacije Trifun Kostovski, a iza njene objave stala je i Makedonska akademija
znanosti i umjetnosti. To je najmanje to smo mogli uiniti kako bi iskazali
nae potovanje prema djelu i linosti Miroslava Krlee, jednog od najveih
makedonskih prijatelja XX. stoljea. Jednom prijatelj, zauvijek prijatelj.
88
89
U Skopju, studenoga 2013.

Prijevod s makedonskog na hrvatski:
Biljana Jovanovska
Goran Kalogjera
Krlea i Skopje u tri ina
Prvi in. Skopje 1913.
Nedovoljno marljiv, uman, nije uvijek otvoren, nervozan. Dosta marljiv,
pomalo uglast. Pomalo uglast, zatvoren u sebe. Ozbiljan dobronamjeran, po
malo spor. Osrednje darovit. Vrlo osjetljiv, jo nije potpuno formiran, na dobar
postupak vrlo dobro radi. Vrlo sklon prkosu i to nastoji prikriti svojom osjetlji
vou. Sanjarska priroda, uznosit. Bavi se filozofijom iako iz tog studija ne bi
mogao izvui koristi. Pogrena shvaanja koja odande crpi prenosi na ostale
predmete pa ak i u ivot. Zbog toga nita ne producira iako je dosta darovit.
Ne pripada ovamo.
Ovo su ocjene koje mladi Krlea dobiva od svojih pretpostavljenih,
nakon prvog semestra u Ludoviceumu.1 U rubrici Karakterne osobine i
raspoloenje pie: Pomalo zatvoren, ali odreit karakter, ozbiljan ponekad
djetinjast, nezgrapan i prkosan, samopouzdan, neskroman, sanjarska priro
da, euforian.2 U rubrici Darovitost, marljivost posebne sklonosti stoji:
Vrlo talentiran, ivog poimanja, nedovoljno marljiv, pomalo povran, bavi se
apstraktnim idejama, predmetima vojne nastave se ne bavi, prua malo nade
Ocjenitelji su bili natporunik Dome, nastavnik Leszak, kapetan Thott, natporunik Hajto, major
Dobrentey, Oberleutant Vamos, kapetan Klimko. Vidi u: Lasi, Stanko, Krlea kronologija ivota i
rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982., str. 100.
2
Isto, str. 101. Na temelju teksta ore Zelmanovia Njihov obraun s njim , Veernji list, 8. 12. 1973.,
str. 7.
1
: ,
91
da e od njega postati upotrebljiv vojnik.3 Kapetan Klimko smatra da ne pri

pada Ludoviceumu, natporunik Craanenbrock kategoriki procjenjuje da
nije za vojsku, a kapetan Orban, vojniki kratko zakljuuje sveznalica ali
lo vojnik.4
Jesu li ocjene njegovih nadreenih bile razlogom da Krlea napusti vojni
licej Ludoviceum, odgovor je zasigurno ne. Krlea svojim fizikim i psihi
kim predispozicijama nikako nije bio tip vojnika, odnosno asnika, to je i
sam vrlo brzo shvatio. Mjesta u vojnim barakama za njega nije bilo. Odio
znost spram vojske, militarizma openito, Krlea e iskazati u vie prigoda: I
u kasarnama se mlatilo, i u ratovima. Sabljom, izmom i akama. Vezalo se u
spone. Teka tjelesna kazna biti vezan: ovjek visi na podlakticama vezanima
unakrst, jedva dodirujui vrcima prstiju zemlju itavom svojom teinom one
svjeujui se. Vezali su vojnike sapete u klupko kao pse, lijevu ruku o lanku
desne noge po devet sati i to jo u rovu i to zato jer ovjek nije iskazao dovolj
nu poast viem inu.5
Slijedi njegovo poznato svjedoanstvo, koje Krleu na vrlo traumatian
nain po prvi put povezuje sa Skopjem i Makedonijom: Jo na poetku puta
naao sam se i ja vezan, u negvama, u zatvoru, oekujui da budem prozvan,
to je znailo biti strijeljan. To su bili okovi pred premijerom: sve zeje u ovje
ku skupi se u prknu, sunuo bi kao strijela, a vezan je.6 Po jednom od njegovih
biografa, Stanku Lasiu, Krlea odlazi iz Ludoviceuma jer zna za dogaaje u
Srbiji i eli se osobno angairati. To je znailo prekid s dotadanjim nainom
ivota ali i rastanak s ocem, to je cijeloj namjeri davalo i vrlo snanu emotiv
nu notu. S obzirom da je granica bila zatvorena zbog balkanskog rata, trebalo
je iznai zaobilazni put i stii u Junu Srbiju. Dolazi u Pariz, s namjerom da
preko Marseillea i Soluna stigne u Skopje.

5

6

3
4
Isto, str. 101.

Zelmanovi, ore, Njihov obraun s njim, Veernji list, 8. XII. 1973., str. 7.
Matvejevi, Predrag, Stari i novi razgovori s Krleom, Spektar, Zagreb, 1982., str. 107.
Isto, str. 107.
92
Postoji i druga varijanta njegovog naputanja Ludoviceuma. Iz Krlei

ne interpretacije proizilazi da se u Srbiji naao sluajno, jer mu se izjalovio
put u kolonijalnu vojsku.7 Lasi se ne slae s tezama i tvrdnjom urednitva
Nove Evrope da je Krlea namjeravao krenuti u neku od britanskih kolo
nija, uz napomenu da su one netone i na brzinu sroene.8 Neosporno je da
se Krlea poetkom svibnja 1913. nalazi u Parizu, stanuje u hotelu Rue de la
Harpe, gdje proivljava vrlo teko emotivno razdoblje. U Marseilleu se ukr
cava na brod i poetkom lipnja 1913. stie u Solun. U Solunu dobiva lane
dokumente, koji su mu omoguili da se prebaci u Skopje. Kratki boravak u
Solunu zapamtit e po batinama: Kavazi Njegova Velianstva (sada ve po
kojnog kralja Konstantina), temeljito me iskundaie, kada se u nevjerojatno
drskoj, upravo plebejskoj smionosti usudih da provirim kroz reetke ograde, na
kraljevsku vilu na solunskoj Kale Mariji.9
Nekoliko dana kasnije Krlea je u Skopju.10 O tome pie engi: Stigao
je u Skopje prvi puta juna 1913., kao ludoviceumski bjegunac da se dobrovolj
no prikljui srpskoj vojsci.11 Krlea o tom dogaaju osobno svjedoi: Ponesen
jakim talasom meunarodne politike krize kao posljedica Balkanskog rata u
proljeu devet stotina i trinaeste, u dubokom i nepremostivom unutarnjem su
daru, meni je uspjelo da prijeem ponovno u Srbiju i da se javim kao bjegunac
u srpsku vojsku na svoj vlastiti rizik. Predao sam molbu da me prime u vojsku
na temelju mojih debelih petanskih i peujskih svjedodaba, a to je bilo u
predveerje Drugog balkanskog rata, mjeseca juna, trinaeste.12 Umjesto da
ga prihvate, osumnjien je da je austrijski pijun: Kako nikako nisam mogao
Urednitvo Nove Evrope (uz Krleinu redakturu), Hrvatska rapsodija, 1921., str. 159.
Lasi, Stanko, Krlea kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982., str. 102.
9
Isto, (iz Izlet u Rusiju, 1926., str. 3), str. 104.
10
Rekonstrukcija putovanja preuzeta iz: Lasi, Stanko, Krlea kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod
Hrvatske, 1982., str. 104.
11
engi, Enes, S Krleom iz dana u dan, 6, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990., str. 106.
12
Isto, vidi u: Krlea, Miroslav, Moj obraun s njima, Osloboenje, Sarajevo, Mladost, Zagreb, 1983., str.
223.
7
8
93
doekati odgovor na svoju molbu, (kojoj sam priloio sve vojne dokumente),
ja sam otputovao do Glavne komande u Skoplje, da tamo lino rijeim pita
nje svoje sudbine. Tu sam se naao pred sumnjiavim nepovjerenjem, uhapen
kao nepoznati bjegunac, bez dokumenata, pod sumnjom pijunae, u dizinte
riji, pred opasnou da budem baen u kolerini odio kune bolnice. andari,
hapsane, zatvori, hotelska internacija, zapisnika ispitivanja, bjegunac pod
sumnjom pijunae na ratnom podruju, u djelokrugu Glavne komande, bez
dokumenata, koji su se navodno izgubili, bez identiteta, potpuno u tmini, ja
sam tada prilino duboko pogledao smrti u oi.13
Ovaj je dogaaj spomenut i prigodom posjete delegacije makedonskih
pisaca Krlei na Gvozdu, prigodom uruenja nagrade Zlatni vijenac Strukih
veeri poezije. Na konstantaciju Gane Todorovskog, da je od danas Makedo
nac, Krlea je odgovorio: Ta zaboga, vam mora toa da vi e poznato jas sum
toa ute od 1913-ta godina, ute toga koga imav samo 20 godini jas stanav
Makedonec. Im rekov na srpskite oficeri: gospodinovci moi, ova ne e Srbija,
ovde se zboruva na drug jazik! Me zatvorija... za malku da me strelaat...14
engieva verzija izgleda ovako: Sada ste Makedonac kae Popovski. Bio
sam ja Makedonac davno prije Vas. Koje ste godine roeni kao Makedonac?
Roen sam 1931. Sa mnom je bilo ovako: Idete kao dobrovoljac u Skoplje 1913.
da se borite na strani srpske vojske, ba u vrijeme Bregalnike bitke. I u hotelu
drugog dana dokazujete srpskim oficirima da tamo nitko ne zna srpski i udite
se kad vas sutra uhapse. A jesu li Vas vezali? pita Popovski. Vezali jesu, ali
ne za dugo. I nije to ni vano. Dogodilo se neto normalno: Jer stiete s krivim
papirima i priznajete sami da su vai papiri, odnosno putne isprave, krivo
tvorene, nemate identiteta. A u hotelu u drutvu s oficirima, kao dobrovoljac,
stoprocentno oduevljeni, dokazujete im da tu, zapravo, nitko ne govori srpski
i da je ovdje jezik i narod koji nije srpski i, prema tome, to mi radimo ovdje.15
Isto, str. 223.
14
, , , , , 1987, str. 236.
15
engi, Enes, Krlea ples na vulkanima, 3, Svjetlost , Sarajevo, 1990., str. 275.
13
94
Od sigurne smrti, s obzirom na optubu da je pijun, Krleu spaava vi

soki srpski asnik: Spasio me jedan ovjek, artiljerijski major (ili kapetan prve
klase), u slubi kod glavne komande, jedini ovjek, koji mi je lino povjerovao
da ne laem, da nisam austrijski pijun, da sam doista predao svoje petanske
i peujske dokumente (koji su se navodno izgubili) i taj me je ovjek pod prat
njom svog vlastitog konjikog andarma uputio u Beograd sa vlastitim preporu
enim pismom na komandu mjesta, da me komanda mjesta uputi ministarstvu
vojnom i da se (po mogunosti) utvrdi moj identitet.16 Krlea opisuje kako je
proao sastanak s generalom Vasiem: Primio me u jednoj maloj sobi poslije
podne, poslije ruka, sjedio je u vojnikom kavaletu u vajshemdu, zlatne ribice
u fontani pred kuom, jedan blijedi monah sa kamilavkom melanholino, idi
jotski zuri u te zlatne ribice, pljuti edrvan, a general Vasi u vajshemdu dimi
cigaretu i promatra me kanibalski: evo jedne austrijske pijunine.17
Krlein prvi skopski in zavrava sretno. Nakon to je sproveden u Ze
mun, gdje je dokazao svoj identitet, pri prijelazu granice hapsi ga austrijska
pogranina policija, na temelju tjeralice koja je za njim bila izdana. Nakon is
pitivanja je puten i dolazi u Zagreb sredinom 1913. godine. Kakve je poslje
dice ova umalo pogubna avantura ostavila na Krleu? Krlea dolazi u Skopje
u vrijeme Drugog Balkanskog rata. Njegov mladenaki, romantiarski za
nos, koji je povukao mnoge da se prikljue Srbiji u njihovoj pravednoj bor
bi, naglo splanjava. Oko njega uas, teror srpskih vojnika nad potlaenim
narodom, za kojeg je odmah shvatio da nije srpski. Krvoprolie Bregalnike
bitke definitivno potkopava Krleine ideale o bratstvu junoslavenskih naroda,
Krlea je tu, u Skopju, umjesto slobode, bratstva i kulture sreo agresivnu, mi
litaristiku i ekspanzionistiku dravnu silu.18 Zbog toga e kasnije i napisati:
Neu da budem onaj arnautski transport izmeu Velesa i Krivolaka godine
Lasi, Stanko, Krlea kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982., str. 106 (preuzet tekst
iz Moj obraun s njima, 1932., str. 151).
17
Isto, str. 105. (tekst preuzet iz: Fragmenti iz dnevnika 14. III. 1946., Svjedoanstva, 22. III. 1952., str. 2).
18
Isto, str. 104.
16
95
1913. mjeseca juna. Neu da budem policijski pisar skopski koji ureduje s ku
burom u ruci, neu da budem radikalna prevara, ni ova agramerska glupost, ni
kavana Bauer, ni Arbeiterhilfs kompanija.19 Krlein bunt je razumljiv. Zau
ujue kako mlad Krlea u dobi od dvadesetak godina nazire problem, koji
e trajati narednih tridesetak godina i vie. Uvia da nema June Srbije, ve
da na tim prostorima ive ljudi druge nacionalnosti, koji govore jezik koji
nije srpski, i koji su doslovce ereeni od svojih susjeda na najgore mogue
naine. Zbog toga e Krlea, ne u ali, nego u zbilji rei svojim posjetiteljima
iz Makedonije u njegovom domu na Gvozdu, da je bio Makedonac prije svih
njih: Dakle, tu nije bio nikakav visok stupanj svijesti, ali svakako sam, dakle
prije tebe Makedonac.20
Bregalnika bitka, krvavi obraun dva junoslavenska naroda na utrb
treeg, oito mu proiuje horizonte i rui mladenake ideale o slozi i jedin
stvu junoslavenskih naroda: Nije se, meutim, ni osuila kumanovska krv,
kada je ve osam mjeseci kasnije bitka na Breglanici raznijela kao kartea sve
lirske iluzije o kojima su itava junoslavenska pokoljenja bila uvjerena da
predstavljaju elemente naeg narodnog opstanka. U dimu i poaru Bregalnike
bitke (juna 1913.), mi smi nauili da je ciniki makijavelizam malih balkanskih
dinastija stvarnost, a partitura Lisinskoga, ilirske fantazmagorije, akovaka
idila ili nostalgija za Prizrenom da su pusta retorika. Sva viena stradanja,
uasi i besmislene smrti jaaju mladog Krleu u uvjerenju to mu je nadalje
initi: U onom trenutku sloma svih ovozemaljskih vrijednosti, djeakih dragih
iluzija, samoobmana i megalomanije, meni se objasnilo da jedina prava i tog
poziva dostojna misija umjetnika (u takvome kaosu u kakvome mi ivimo), ne
moe da bude drugo, nego da pripovijeda ljubav prema ovjeku, kao takvom,
Isto, str. 105. (preuzet tekst iz Davni dani, 1956., str. 234)
engi, Enes, Krlea ples na vulkanima, 3, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990., str. 273. Ovdje postoji izvjesna ne
jasnoa, Gane Todorovski u svojoj knjizi navodi da je on vodio ovaj razgovor s Krleom, dok engi to
pripisuje Ante Popovskom, predsjedniku tradicionalne pjesnike manifestacije Struke veeri poezije.
19
20
96
bez obzira na meridijane, paralele, boju masti, drave, nacije ili kontinente.21
U tom kontekstu gledano, ne trebaju nas uditi fragmenti u raznim Krlei
nim djelima, koji su inspirirani ili potaknuti strahotama na tlu Makedonije.
Meutim, to je tema za sebe. Ono to je najbitnije u cijeloj toj 1913. godini
jest Krlein susret s balkanskim jugom, ratom, razaranjima, smru nevinih
i nedunih, animalnim krvoproliem dojueranjih saveznika, to uvjetuje
slom njegovih prijanjih ideala o bratstvu i solidarnosti junoslavenskih na
roda. Mladenaki su ideali za Krleu izgubljeni, no ostaje spoznaja da na
teritoriju koji se unitava, teritoriju na kojem je umalo izgubio ivot, ivi
narod koji ne govori srpski i koji nije srpski. To e mladi Krlea uostalom i
otvoreno kazati gospodi srpskim asnicima. Krleina trauma iz 1913., prem
da o tome kasnije pie s prizvukom ironije i ale, kao i doivljaj uasnog bre
galnikog krvoprolia, neosporno su ostavili dubok trag u njegovoj nutrini,
o emu, uostalom, najbolje svjedoe tekstovi u njegovom knjievnom opusu,
inspirirani Makedonijom i njenom traginom sudbinom.
Drugi in. Skopje 1937.
Nakon izvedbe drame U logoru (Osijek, 12. sijenja 1937.) Krlea
sedam dana nakon toga odlazi u Skopje. Razlog putovanju jest priprema
izvedbe drame U Logoru u skopskom teatru. Prema Lasievim navodima,
Krlea je prisustvovao nekim probama i razgledavao grad. elio je vidjeti
borbu gusana u ciganskoj mahali, meutim, nije uspio, jer je obolio zna
meniti gusan Megdandi-Musa. Dok su prijatelji i on oekivali borbu, do
koje nije dolo, Krleinu je panju privukla jedna ciganska ikona. Ljubomir
Dobrianin svjedoi da je primitivnost tog crtea toliko zainteresirala Krleu
da je zaelio dobiti jedan takav primjerak.22
Dobrianin, Ljubomir. M., Veliki uspjeh premijere komada U logoru od g. Miroslava Krlee u Skopju,
21
22
97
Krleina drama imala je veliki uspjeh, kazalite je bilo dupkom puno,

meutim, Krlea se unato ovacijama i oduevljenju publike nije pojavio na
sceni.23 Ovo je drugi Krlein dolazak u Skopje, znatno oputeniji i manje
opasniji od prvog dolaska u ovaj grad davne 1913. godine. Naime, krajem
1936. godine Krlea je dobio ponudu da se njegova drama U logoru, uz
Osijek i Beograd postavi i u Skopju. U prvom pismu supruzi Beli, Krlea se
dvoumi oko odlaska u Skopje: Hou li u Skoplje jo ne znam, da bi u treem
pismu supruzi napisao: Mene je uprava skopskog kazalita pozvala na general
nu probu U logoru i tako ja sjutra, u nedelju, putujem u jedanaest sati prije
podne brzim vozom u Skoplje kamo stiem u devet naveer.24 Nakon prespava
ne noi, Krlea iz sobe upravnika skopskog kazalita Kralj Aleksandar pie
Beli: Stigao sam u Skoplje nakon devetosatne vonje sino, sjedimo na obali
Vardara, sluam kako ubori ta reka srpska, to je ko rajski Feniks rairila
bela krila (ne Vardar nego orao iz Ilieve pesme), svejedno, dakle, sjedim posle
prvog ina pred generalnu probu, odigrane 40% slabije nego to je bila osjeka,
u uniformama to sjeaju na jesenje (...) 25
Krlea se tijekom svog drugog posjeta Skopju oito osjeao vrlo zadovo
ljan. Za razliku od prvog susreta, u kojem je skoro izgubio ivot, ovo je bio
svijet koji mu je bio mnogo blii, pogotovo kazalini milje: Po garderobama
svjetlucaju uljanice, zaudara po ljutoj, po luku, po bijelim bubrezima na aru,
po bravetini i po vjetrovima iz glumakih crijeva, (od bijela luka, evapia i
drugih mezetluka), a pijani Makedonci i Traani u tim istim scherzo-opancima
i ubarama gaali su gole pjevaice gnjilim krumpirima, upravo tako kao oni
surovi, neoieni mrkavci oekinje u Jani-hanu, vis a vis od crkve Svetoga
Spasa.26 to se tie same izvedbe kazalinog komada, izgleda da je unato
folkloru, koji ga je oito zabavljao, Krlea bio zadovoljan: Sino je bila premije
Pravda, 23. I. 1937.
24
Bojadiski, Ognen, Krlea i Makedonija (fragmenti), Prometej, Zagreb, 2005., str. 184.
25
Isto, str. 185.
26
Isto, str. 187.
ra. Ovdje tu predstavu smatraju najboljom skopskom predstavom (od poetka

svijeta) a uspjeh kao premijerni uspjeh, najveim skopskim uspjehom. Pro
vale temperamenta i vikanja upravo urlanja bilo je gotovo vie nego u Osijeku,
gdje je bilo prilino glasno. Reiser timac je ovjek mlad, ambiciozan iznad
prosjenosti, po mome miljenju neinteligentan i nei... udna mjeavina tempe
ramenta i recimo sposobnosti (po mome miljenju). Kazalite je bilo rasprodano
ve dva dana prije a u subotu se ve prodaju karte (ukoliko ih to zanima). Ovo
je velika fantastina predstava, to se tu vidi na svakome koraku (...) 27
Iz pisama koje Krlea pie Beli, razvidno je da mu je u Skopju bilo ugod
no, da se opustio, da ga je zabavljao taj ivopisni balkanski folklor, bez agra
merske uljudnosti, jednostavan, prisan, blizak. Oito je da uiva u slavi i asti
koju doivljava, a mnogobrojnost i reakcije publike u Osijeku i Skopju hrane
njegov ego i odreenu vrst narcizma. Stoga pie: U vezi s mojim dolaskom u
Skoplje opet se jedanput pokazalo kako po svim tim raznim i mnogobrojnim
gradovima ivi masa sveta koja me ita i koji hoe da me uje i koliko god bi
bilo potrebno raznim predavanjima razbistriti mnoge predrasude oko knjiev
nika na koga jedino ljudi stavljaju ogromne zahtjeve, te bi bilo potrebno da se
na tome radi i to mnogo vie i intenzivnije nego do sada. I u Osijeku i u Skoplju
smatraju Logor dogaajem koji e bez... na sceni afirmisati, a to tampa
laje (upravo ta i takva tampa) to je savreno sporedno.28
Po dolasku u Beograd, Krlea se javlja Beli, dojmovi su odlini, skopski
trenutak ostaje mu u jako lijepom sjeanju: Sve to sam vidio i doivio u Sko
plju je bilo vrijedno da se vidi i doivi, toliko je ogromno po svom pamenju,
da sam apsolutno odluio sprovesti jedno dulje vrijeme tamo na jugu, gdje je
sve toliko dinamino te izgleda upravo nevjerojatno. to se tie predstave (kao
to sam ti ve javio mojim posljednjim pismom iz Skoplja) bila je u relacijama
dobra i tu ne postoji drugo nego biti zadovoljan.29
23
98
Isto, str. 185/6.

Isto, str. 186.
29
Isto, str. 186.
27
28
99
Trei in. Skopje 1960.

Krlea po trei put u svom ivotu 1960. godine odluuje posjetiti Skop
je. Interpretacije razlogu njegovog putovanja su razliite. Osobno sam
sklon prihvatiti razloge koje navodi Kole aule. Inae, aule je bio uistinu
dobar Krlein prijatelj, to je i vidljivo iz njegove prepiske s Enesom en
giem. aule o tome izmeu ostalog pie: Povod posjete Makedoniji, pored
njegove viegodinje elje da nas posjeti, bio je i jedan moj susret s njim u Za
grebu. Tada, izlaui mu knjievnu i ne samo knjievnu situaciju u Makedo
niji, progon koji je prijetio modernistima okupljenim oko asopisa Razgledi,
iji sam glavni i odgovorni urednik bio, ja sam zatraio podrku, ako ne javnu
onda implicitnu. Miroslav Krlea me je veoma paljivo sasluao, postavio je
vie pitanja, razmislio i obeao da e uskoro doi u Makedoniju i da e nam
pomoi. Formalni povod za posjet trebao je biti razgovor s makedonskom re
dakcijom Enciklopedije.31
Krlein dolazak u Skopje popraen je medijski skromno, no ono to je
bitno za dogaanja koja e uslijediti, jest njegov razgovor s makedonskim
modernistima, tada mlaom grupom pjesnika, koji su se nastojali otrgnuti
od partijske cenzure i ablone. Nita manje znaajni nije ni njegovo puto
vanje Makedonijom, koje e rezultirati prekrasnom esejistikom prozom o
ljepotama makedonske povijesne, kulturne i crkvene batine. Naravno da
je prigodom njegovog boravka u Skoplju bilo i odreenih umova na re
laciji vodeih politikih faktora u liku Lazara Kolievskog i liberalne opci
je kulturnjaka, to je Krlea bez vee napetosti sveo na prihvatljive odnose.
Treba navesti da je Krlein vodi kroz Makedoniju bio istaknuti povjesniar
umjetnosti Dime Koco, koji je sa Krleom sudjelovao u realizacije izlobe
srednjovjekovne umjetnosti jugoslavenskih naroda u Parizu. Koco o tome
pie: Na rastanku izrazio je elju da ponovno posjeti Makedoniju i da se bolje
30
Dolazi 25. travnja i odlazi 2. svibnja 1960.

engi, Enes, S Krleom iz dana u dan Krlea post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990., str. 121.
30
31
100
upozna s likovnim vrednostima nae srednjovekovne umjetnosti naroito one u

Ohridu. A nije proputao da kae i koju pohvalnu re o suvremenoj makedon
skoj umetnosti koju je imao priliku da vidi u Umetnikoj galeriji u Skoplju i na
godinjoj izlobi Makedonskih likovnih umetnika u Umetnikom paviljonu.32
Ovo svjedoenje Dime Koca potvruje da je Krlea stvarno elio bolje
upoznati Makedoniju. Unato njegovoj enciklopedijskoj memoriji i znanju,
situacija u Makedoniju nije mu u potpunosti bila najjasnija, o emu svjedo
i zapis razgovora Kole aule i Ognena Bojadiskog.33 Iz zapisa, u kojem
aule Bojadiskom iznosi svoja sjeanja na druenje s Krleom, evidentno
je da su Krleu interesirali makedonsko-bugarski odnosi, o emu je disku
tirao s njegovom suprugom Vanom aule, jer je ona radila na knjizi Od
priznavanja do negiranja, u bugarsko-makedonskim odnosima. Krlei, kako
svjedoi Kole aule, neke stvari bile su poznate, ali vie njih nije poznavao,
stoga je to elio razjasniti u razgovoru s gospoom aule. Krlea je nakon
iscrpnog tumaenja Vane aule postavio pitanje to ona ustvari eli do
kazati tom knjigom, na to mu je ona odgovorila da eli istaknuti koliko je
bugarska politika u svemu bila prevrtljiva i kalkulantska.34
Izvanprotokolarni susret Krlee i aula s predstavnicima modernistike
struje unutar makedonske knjievnosti izuzetno je interesantan. Makedonski
modernisti zalagali su se za veu umjetniku slobodu u izboru tema, u pre
zentaciji, u stihovima, uope za jednu drugaiju stvaralaku kreativnost, van
utjecaja ideolokog koncepta, to je kod vladajuih struktura stvaralo odre
ene ideoloke otpore. To je sutinski razlog zbog ega je aule, koji je imao
revolucionarni kredibilitet, mogao sebi priutiti slobodu da zamoli Krleu za
jedan ovakav razgovor i to u svome stanu. Naravno da je ovaj nenajavljeni
dogaaj iziritirao vladajui establiment, to je i vidljivo u kasnijoj prepisci
Krlee i Kolievskog, no razgovor je po svjedoenju Kole aule bio vie nego
Isto, str. 109.
Bojadiski, Ognen, Krlea i Makedonija (fragmenti), Prometej, Zagreb, 2005.
34
Isto, str. 103.
32
33
101
uspjean: Odmah po njegovu dolasku u Skoplje, susreo sam se s Krleom, te

smo se dogovorili da se on sastane s redakcijom i najistaknutijim suradnicima
asopisa Razgledi. Dogovorili smo se, kako ne bi izazvali neka reagiranja, da
se susret odri u mome stanu. Tako je i bilo. Na poetku razgovora Krlea je po
stavljao pitanja, svakome pojedinano: pitao ga je tko je, to je napisao, objavio
i sl., a radio je to tako metodino da sam bio iznenaen, jer su to bili preteno
mladi ljudi. Zatim smo razgovarali o makedonskom modernizmu, koji se po
mnogo emu razlikovao od modernizma u drugim sredinama, upravo zato jer
je to bio i zahtjev za demokratizacijom, ka osloboenju od dotadanjih stega
koje su kod nas u Makedoniji imale parohijalne metode.35 aule je zbog ovog
sastanka imao odreenih neugodnosti, koje je Krlea, koliko je mogao mi
nimizirao. Na Krleinu zamolbu, sutradan su aule i on proetali Starom
arijom. etnja je, kako svjedoi aule, trajala due. Zastajali su od duana
do duana, propitkivali se o robi, razgovarali s obrtnicima. Krlea se, kako na
vodi aule, o svemu raspitivao, komentirao i bio uzbuen tim susretima.36
Krlein susret s mladim makedonskim piscima, podrka njihovim idejama pa
i odreena vrst zatite, za aulu je bio izuzetan dogaaj: I uza sve pokuaje
zvaninika da Krleinom posjetu daju to zvaniniji karakter, on je nastojao su
sretima s nama, razgovorima, etnjom kroz Skopje, pridodati karakter podrke
naim stremljenjima. I to je odmah dalo odjeka. Neki od pripremanih planova
o progonu modernista (na jednom je sastanku zatraena politika i policijska
intervencija), bili su odgoeni, a neki su izostali.37
Svoja sjeanja na Krlein posjet Skopju donosi i Gane Todorovski: Ni
sam bio obavjeten da e Krlea posjetiti na fakultet. U seminarskoj Sali imao
sam ispite iz hrvatske knjievnosti. Borislavu Naumovskom, koji je tada bio
student, dao sam zadatak da govori o dramama Miroslava Krlee. U tom tre
nutku otvorila su se vrata i na vratima se pojavio Miroslav Krlea u pratnji
35
efa katedre za SH jezik i knjievnost Haralampije Polenakovia i predsjedni

ka Makedonske akademije nauka, Blaa Koneskog. Student je zanijemio. Nije
mogao izgovoriti ni jednu rije.38
Krlea se prilikom svog boravka u Skopju imao prilike susresti i s La
zarom Kolievskim i ostalim partijskim linostima. U razgovoru s engi
em, Kolievski navodi da su Krleu oekivali u Makedoniji i ranije, no to
je ostvareno tek 1960.: Doao je s ve odreenim svojim programom, u prvom
ga je redu zanimao razvoj Makedonije: ljudi, njihov ivot, umjetnost, naro
ito freske, iju je izlobu on organizirao u Parizu 1950. Na ruku u Skopju
okupilo se dosta pisaca i naunika i tad nam je otkrio zanimljivu studiju o
makedonskom nacionalnom biu koju je davno napisao slavist Karl Hron.39
Krlea je u Skopju ipak balansirao izmeu zvanike politike elite i mladih
liberalnih intelektualaca, uinivi pritom veliku uslugu makedonskoj kultur
noj i nacionalnoj batini. Skopskom Institutu za nacionalnu povijest poslao
je popis bibliografije makedonske dokumentacije iz bibliografskog kataloga
Leksikografskog zavoda. Mislim da nisam ni prvi ni zadnji, uvjetno reeno,
istraiva odnosa Krlea Makedonija, koji zakljuuje da je Krlea simpati
zirao makedonski narod, te da je, koliko je god bilo u njegovoj moi i slo
bodnom vremenu, uinio mnogo za Makedonce i Makedoniju. Spomenimo
postavljanje izlobe srednjovjekovne umjetnosti jugoslavenskih naroda, gdje
je Krlea osobno autor teksta o makedonskom srednjovjekovlju, pomoi na
radu enciklopedije Makedonije, do niza literarnih predloaka koji govore o
Makedoniji, njenoj traginoj sudbini, ljepotama i vrijednostima srednjovje
kovne umjetnosti, ljudima i mentalitetu, koji su mu oito bili dragi i bliski.
Negdje na poetku ovoga teksta postavio sam sebi pitanje koliko je Kr
lei u njegovim dvadesetim godinama bila jasna situacija na Balkanu i polo
aj nepriznatog makedonskog naroda, kojeg je ve u toj dobi registrirao kao
narod koji nije srpski, jer ljudi koje je sretao u Skopju nisu govorili srpskim
36
38
engi, Enes, Krlea post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajavo, 1990., str. 120.
Isto, str. 121.
37
Isto, str. 121.
102
Isto, str. 105.

Isto, str. 111.
39
103
jezikom. Teko je sa sigurnou na to odgovoriti, meutim, sasvim je jasno da

ono to je vidio i doivio 1913. godine znailo razbijanje iluzije o zajednitvu
junoslavenskih naroda. Sve vieno i proivljeno iniciralo je i razmiljanja o
zemlji koja se unitava, narodu koji se zatire u ime tko zna ije pravice i istine,
to je kasnije imalo odjeka u njegovim napisanim tekstovima. Gane Todo
rovski je Krleinu povezanost s Makedonom okarakterizirao ovim rijeima:
So svojata studija Illyricum sacrum (1944), Krlea posvedoi deka znae ne
samo za Nerezi, no i za Kurbinovo i Staro Nagoriani, za Skopska Crna Gora i
ohridskata Sveta Sofija, za Stobi i Herakleja, za bogomilite i balkanskite vojni,
za Ilinden i makedonskite traumi i paradoksi. Krlea bee primer na poznava
na Makedonija od najvisok rang.40 Uistinu, Makedonija Krlei nije bila lite
rarni prioritet, meutim, kada je god mogao, uvrtavao je njenu povijesnu
traginost u svoje litararne tekstove. Da je uivao u njenoj prirodi, gradovima,
srednjovjekovnim spomenicima i manastirima, najbolje svjedoe njegovi ese
jistiki tekstovi u Viaggio in Pelagonia, gdje je voen znalcem makedonske
povijesti, povjesniarem umjetnosti Dime Kocom, upoznao iskonsku, izvor
nu Makedoniju. Bio je i ostao, kako navodi Gane Todorovski, veliki, istinski
prijatelj Makedonije, makedonskog naroda i makedonske kulture.
Epilog
Moj stariji brat bio je pod turskom zastavom, pa su doli Srbi i oteli nam
sto i sedam ovaca. A ja sam srpskoga kralja sluio tri puta i povukao se u Al
baniju. Pa su Bugari doli i mater mi odvukli. I sestru. I oca su mi ubili Komite
jo prije. Sve su nam uzeli.
Krlea, Miroslav, In extremis, novela, Knjievna republika, 1923.
, , , , , 1987, str. 243.
40
104
Boo Rude
KRLEA A.D. MMXIII.
1. Krleini europski horizonti
Gotovo da nema ni jedne republike i pokrajine bive jugoslavenske za
jednice, ni jedne znaajnije europske kulturne sredine koja nije kazalinim
predstavama, simpozijima, literarnim veerima, festivalima, radio i TV
emisijama, prijevodima, reprintima, zbornicima ili posebnim izdanjima
obiljeila 120. obljetnicu roenja Miroslava Krlee, jednog od najplodnijih
hrvatskih knjievnika, najutjecajnijih jugoslavenskih pisaca i najznaajnijih
europskih umjetnika XX. vijeka. On je svojom pojavom i veliinom toliko
zapremio na umjetniki, kulturni i drutveni horizont da ga nije mogue
niti zaobii niti previati, koliko god mnogi to eljeli.
Isto tako, malo je koji pisac, prije i poslije Krlee u junoslavenskim i
svjetskim razmjerima, tako kreativno iskazivao svoj umjetniki talent u svim
knjievnim anrovima (lirika, proza, drame, romani, eseji, feljtoni, polemi
ke, kritike, putopisi i dnevniki zapisi, asopisi i uredniki poslovi) kao to
je to inio Miroslav Krlea, ostavi dosljedan svojim estetskim afinitetima,
etikim principima i intelektualnim uvjerenjima1.
Svejedno, i usprkos golemom knjievnom opusu, Krlea (18931981) za svog ivota nije doekao
Sabrana djela. Bilo je nekoliko pokuaja, ali svi su neslavno zavrili. U Koprivnici, 1923. kod Voickog
izlaze samo tri knjige, nakon ega Krlea raskida ugovor. Minerva iz Zagreba 1932. ponudila je piscu
tiskanje 18 svezaka, objavljeno je 9, nakon ega je uslijedila policijska zabrana i hapenje prokurista
Brucka. Zatim, 1937. Sabrana djela pokuava objaviti Stanislav Kopok u Biblioteci nezavisnih pisa
ca. Izlazi nekoliko knjiga, opet dolazi do policijske zabrane, a u to vrijeme, zbog sukoba na ljevici, Kr
105
Uz mnoga poetska i knjievna remek-djela, kao to su: Balade Petrice

Kerempuha, Zastave, Povratak Filipa Latinovicza, Gospoda Glembajevi i dr.,
koja ga svrstavaju u antologiju svjetske literature, Krlea je, kao erudit, polig
lot2 i moda posljednji polihistor ovih prostora, akademskoj, kulturnoj
i drutvenoj zajednici hrvatskog/srpskog/slovenskog/bosanskog/crnogor
skog/makedonskog jezinog izriaja ostavio u nasljee seriju enciklopedij
skih edicija, trajne i univerzalne vrijednosti.3
Krlein enciklopedijski uzor na koji se esto pozivao bijae Dideroto
va Encyclopdie ou Dictionnaire raisonn A razloge te Krleine naklonosti
nije teko ustanoviti. Naime, Diderotova enciklopedija neposredno je pret
hodila revolucionarnim previranjima u Francuskoj razobliavanjem religij
skih dogmi feudalnoapsolutistikih institucija. Takoer, valja podsjetiti da
lea se razilazi s Partijom. Za vrijeme Drugog svjetskog rata, to zbog zabrane, to zbog prezira NDH
reima Krlea nije objavio ni slova. Nakon rata, ni Titovo pokroviteljstvo niti prijateljstvo s Titom,
u tom pogledu, nije mu nita pomoglo. Nakladni zavod pokrenuo je tiskanje SD, ali je izilo samo
6 knjiga. Izdavaka kua Zora dola je najdalje, s 27 naslova, no upada u tekoe i gasi se. Od 1967.
do 1972. godine Krleine knjige ne izlaze. Tek u povodu 80. godinjice autorova ivota, zahvaljujui
Enesu engiu i sarajevskom izdavau Osloboenju, od 1975. do 1988. prvi put tiskana su Sabrana
djela Miroslava Krlee u 50 svezaka.
2
ore Zelmanovi u knjizi Kadet Krlea, kolovanje Miroslava Krlee u maarskim vojnim uilitima,
navodi da je Krlea izmeu 15 i 18 godine, jo u Kadetskoj koli u Peuhu i petanskom Ludoviceu
mu perfektno nauio njemaki, maarski i francuski i da je ve tada na hrvatski prevodio Strindber
ga, Ibsena, Petfija. Posebno vidi poglavlje: Karakteristike akademca Krlee Frigyesa, str. 49. i d.,
kolske novine/Sveuilina naklada Liber, Zagreb 1987.
3
Treba znati da je Miroslav Krlea utemeljitelj, a od osnutka Leksikografskog zavoda FNRJ u Za
grebu 1950. (od 1962. Jugoslavenskog leksikografskog zavoda koji se od 1991. zove Leksikografski
zavod Miroslav Krlea) pa sve do smrti bio direktor, glavni urednik i redaktor Enciklopedije Jugo
slavije i Ope enciklopedije. S Krleinim potpisom i imprimaturom izlaze i ostala enciklopedijska i
leksikografska izdanja: Pomorska, umarska, Medicinska, Tehnika, Likovna i Muzika enciklopedija,
Leksikon JLZ, Atlas svijeta i dr.
Razloge, zbog kojih se u naim (ne)prilikama prihvatio ovog posla, Krlea je objasnio Redakcijskom
kolegiju 1952. sljedeim rijeima: Junoslavljanska Enciklopedija, izmeu ostaloga, treba da formu
lira ili da kodificira ono to su, iz mnogih fatalnih razloga propustila pokoljenja (); treba da bude
negacija svih malograanskih i reakcionarnih lajtmotiva ove palanke duha, negacija ovih samoza
glupljujuih uzajamnih negacija, koje se trajno inspiriraju prije svega neznanjem, a zatim sa svijesnim
izvrtanjem istine (podcrt. B.R.). Broura: Enciklopedijska izdanja LZ FNRJ, Zagreb 1953., str. 19.
106
su lanke za Diderotovu enciklopediju pisali vodei francuski knjievnici,

filozofi i znanstvenici (dAlembert, Condillac, Holbach, Helvetius, Buffon,
Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu i dr.) Posrijedi je dakle projekt oko kojeg
su okupljene snane autorske linosti s vrlo individualiziranim autorskim
stilovima, to je Krlei, koji je oduvijek vie cijenio talent, znanje, invenciju
i izvrsnost od akademskih titula i institucionalnih autoriteta, sklonih frazi i
konvenciji bilo jako vano.
Po tom uzoru, dakle, Krlea je u Centralnoj redakciji EJ okupio najemi
nentnija imena iz jugoslavenske kulture, umjetnosti i znanosti, blistave inte
lektualce i vrsne leksikografske strunjake. Zadaa je naeg enciklopedijskog
pothvata, naglaava Krlea, da sa socijalistikog motrita prevrednuje nau
povijest i razgrade mitovi koje su stvorili graanski povjesniari.4
U to vrijeme, neposredno poslije Drugog svjetskog rata, koje je kod nas
proeto revolucionarnim i obnoviteljskim zanosom u drutvu i kulturi
Krlea paralelno s Enciklopedijom priprema i u Parizu 1950. otvara veliku
Izlobu srednjovjekovne umjetnosti naroda Jugoslavije.
I parika izloba poput Enciklopedije, ima za Krleu isti cilj: izlocima i au
tentinim artefaktima, objektivno argumentirati tezu o kulturnoj samosvojno
sti naroda na jugoslavenskom prostoru te pokazati svijetu kako su tu stvarana
djela koja korespondiraju s vrhunskim dometima onodobne europske umjet
nosti i misli. O tom Krleinom naumu i entuzijazmu dragocjeno svjedoan
stvo ostavlja nam poznati makedonski povjesniar umjetnosti Dime Koco, u
pismu Enesu engiu, nakon Krleina posjeta Makedoniji 1960. godine: Sa
Miroslavom Krleom upoznao sam se prilikom realizovanja izlobe srednjo
vjekovne umjetnosti jugoslavenskih naroda u Parizu. Ja sam bio lan Odbora
za realizaciju ove izlobe, a njegov predsjednik bio je M. Krlea. Krleino po
znavanje srednjovjekovne umjetnosti naih naroda bilo je toliko svestrano da
sam verovao jo u poetku rada ovog Odbora da e uspeh izlobe biti izvanre
O Krleinim enciklopedijskim preokupacijama i ciljevima vie vidjeti u: Krleijana, sv. 1.; Leksi
kografski zavod Miroslav Krlea (gl. ur. Velimir Viskovi), Zagreb 1993., str. 209 i d.
107
dan. Tako je i bilo. Utisak koji je na mene ostavila njegova bogata i definirana
linost kao intelektualca izuzetne sposobnosti, potvrdio se je i tada kada sam
bio u njegovom drutvu prilikom njegove viednevne posjete Makedoniji. Nje
govo interesovanje za razvitak (kulturni, politiki, ekonomski) makedonskog
naroda od ranog srednjeg vijeka do danas, bilo je toliko veliko da sam ja morao
voditi rauna za svaku moju rije koju sam izgovorio pred ovim ovjekom, jer
je on svaku moju misao pratio sa velikim potovanjem. Imao sam utisak da
vjeruje mome izlaganju. Iz razgovora koji smo vodili uvideo sam da Krlea
zna da odvoji istinu od lai i realne vrijednosti od improvizacije, makar ova
bila obojena eljom da se la izjednai sa istinom. Vjerovao sam da je Krlea
u tome nenadmaan. Tokom ovog druenja pala mi je u oi njegova iskrena
radost to je makedonski narod najzad izborio svoju slobodu.
Na rastanku izrazio je elju da ponovo posjeti Makedoniju i da se bolje
upozna sa likovnim vrijednostima nae srednjovjekovne umjetnosti, naro
ito one u Ohridu. A nije proputao da kae i koju pohvalnu rije o suvre
menoj makedonskoj umjetnosti koju je imao priliku da vidi u Umjetnikoj
galeriji u Skopju i na godinjoj izlobi Makedonskih likovnih umjetnika u
Umjetnikom paviljonu isto u Skopju.5
Sve autore enciklopedijskih natuknica koji se u opisu povijesnih inje
nica i dogaaja ne pridravaju principa istine i objektivnosti, koristei se pri
tom provjerenom i izvornom historiografskom literaturom i znanstvenom
metodologijom, Krlea je nemilosrdno kriao i persiflirao, a za tako loe na
pisane ili nepotpune tekstove traio je da se preprave, dopune, djelomino ili
u cijelosti odbace. Za ilustraciju navest emo Krleine urednike primjedbe i
kritike opservacije uz natuknicu Makedonija (Makedonci):
I/1-25.
Uvod bi trebalo prestilizovati ab ovo.
Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem II, Svjetlost, Sarajevo 1990. str. 109.
108
II/9-11.
Bilo bi u svakom sluaju informativno kad bi se ovdje navele egzaktne
cifre o helenizaciji Egejske Makedonije. Bilo bi isto tako informativno, da
se prikae kako i zato je do ubrzane helenizacije dolo. Poslije izgubljenog
rata u Maloj Aziji (1922), kada je Kemal-paa bacio u more milijun i po
Helenskih kolonista starosjedilaca, Egejska Makedonija preostala je kao jedi
ni pied--terre smjetanja ovih brodolomaca i beskunika. Grke vlasti upot
rijebile su ovu katastrofu za helenizaciju Egejske Makedonije, to im ovako
brzo i ovako rezulutno ne bi bilo polo za rukom bez masovne imigracije
VII/6-7
U vezi sa kolonizacijom Makedonije navodi se jedina konkretna cifra
VII/6 u Makedoniji je naseljeno oko 4.000 kolonistikih porodica i t. d. to
zapravo nije mnogo, a trebalo bi rei u kom vremenskom razmaku, jer ako
je ovih 4.000 porodica jedini uspjeh kolonizacije, onda se i po tome vidi da u
trajnost takvog pothvata nisu vjerovale iroke mase i t. d. Prikaz ovog histo
rijskog perioda od Versailleskoga mira nije naroito precizan pa i u onom
sluaju kad bismo ga ovdje preradili. Od ovog teksta ne bi nastalo neto to
bi se moglo imprimirati bez nekih naknadnih izmjena. Ne moe se poeti je
dan prikaz jednog takvog historijskog perioda kao to je ovaj od 19181941
sa jednim datumom, u ovom sluaju sa Versailleskim mirom, jer bi trebalo
rei da je datum Versailleskog mira od juna 1919, koji kroji sudbinu Ma
kedonije za slijedeih dvadeset i tri godine, samo jedan od datuma u ovom
krvavom kalendaru, koji traje pedeset i vie godina.
Ili, kada npr. strogo uredniki Krlea upozorava na propuste oko
Bogumila:
V/3-4.
Sve to je reeno o Bogumilima V/22-25 i VI/1-8 nita nije tano! Lai
cizacija crkvene hijerarhije srednjovjekovne nije nigdje uspjela. To bi trebali
109
prestilizirati. Arijanstvo na Balkanu traje jo od prakranskih dana na ovom

istom terenu i tvrdokorno se odrava sve do druge polovice XV st.6
Dakle, Krlea je od svojih suradnika traio da povjerene im teme obra
uju temeljito i cjelovito, bez ideolokih magli ili politikih primjesa, bez
fraza i naknadnih (re)konstrukcija. Jer, za Krleu, pisati o umjetnosti, kultu
ri, povijesti, drutvenim pojavama i dogaajima, pisati o bilo emu, znailo
je isto to i misliti; pisati i misliti slobodno i kritiki, i na taj nain svjedoiti
umjetniku (i znanstvenu) istinu o ovjeku i svijetu u kojem ivimo.
A da nered u mislima i nered u reenicama moe biti posljedica nereda
u drutvu, emu i danas svjedoimo, na svim stranama, Krlea lucidno zapa
a jo 1932. godine kada u polemikom tekstu Moj obraun s njima, svojim
protivnicima malograanske provenijencije, koji mu osporavaju moralni i
knjievni kredibilitet poruuje: Nered u reenicama je posljedica nereda
u mislima, a nered u mislima je posljedica nereda u glavi, a nered u glavi je
posljedica nereda u ovjeku, a posljedica nereda u ovjeku je posljedica ne
reda u sredini i u stanju te sredine.7
Uz takvu knjievnu nadarenost, erudiciju i enciklopedijsku irinu, kao
umjetnik i intelektualac, Krlea je bio politiki i drutveno angairan na lje
vici, branei kutijom olovnih slova slobodu i ljudsko dostojanstvo, istinu i
socijalnu pravdu. Zato za Krleu nije pitanje da li se neki pjesnik posvetio
politikoj akciji ili ne, nego kako on tu politiku aktivnost i drutvenu stvar
nost obrauje literarno. Ovdje se radi o daru i umjetnikom temperamentu
kao prvom i jedinom preduslovu bilo kakvog artistikog angamana, bio on
usmjeren lijevo ili desno.8
S takvim moralno-intelektualnim vrlinama, s takvom graanskom hra

brou, Krlea doista pripada plejadi blistavih erazmovskih intelektualaca
koji ni pred najteim izazovima nisu podlegli iskuenjima neslobode (Da
hrendorf9), niti su poinili izdaju intelektualaca (Benda10).
I Krlea je, jo od Ludoviceuma, Balkanskih ratova, raspada K.u.K. Mo
narhije, Vidovdanskog ustava i estojanuarske diktature do endehazijskih
represalija11 i poslijeratnih socijalistikih aberacija bio proganjan, zatvaran,
zabranjivan, osporavan i marginaliziran. Bio je trajno izloen iskuenjima
neslobode, ali je do kraja ivota ostao uspravan i dosljedan svojim moral
no-politikim uvjerenjima i shvaanjima smisla ovjekova ivota.
tovie, Krlea se kao osvjedoeni humanist i pacifist, erudit i pisac, sva
kim svojim knjievnim djelom potvrivao kao iznimna stvaralaka linost,
koja svojim bogatim spektrom misli i izuzetnom magijom rijei osvaja i
nadahnjuje generacije itatelja.
Iz Krleine ostavtine: Marginalia lexicographica, Izbor, Kolo, asopis Matice hrvatske, br. 1, proljee
2007, str. 392, 393, 394 i 395.
7
Moj obraun s njima je polemika knjiga s najboljim obiljejima Krleina stila. O tome vie vidjeti u:
Stanko Lasi, Krleiologija ili povijest kritike misli o Miroslavu Krlei, II., Zagreb 1989., str. 315.
8
Predrag Matvejevi: Razgovori s Krleom, 6. izdanje, Prometej, Zagreb 2002, str. 93.
O duhovnim velikanima i ljudima sudbine, o slobodi i vlasti (moi), o drutvenoj ulozi i javnom an
gamanu intelektualaca, od Sokrata i Erasmusa, preko Galilea, Markantuna de Dominisa i Voltaiera
do Karla Poppera i Sartrea ispisane su mnoge studije i knjige. I uvijek je u meritumu spora: da li
intelektualac (pisac, filozof, umjetnik, znanstvenik, izumitelj, genije) svoje vrline, svoju izvrsnost,
svoj etos stavlja u slubu ovjeka, istine i humanistikih ideala, ili svoj dar i um stavlja u slubu lai i
obmana, sistema i reima, koji su gospodari ivota i smrti. Povijest poznaje obje vrste javnointelek
tualnog angamana. A naroito onog iz XX. vijeka kada su se rasplamsala tri totalitarizma: faistiki,
nacistiki i komunistiki (boljeviki), a mnogi intelektualci podlegli su tim bremenitim kunjama.
Rijetke i asne izuzetke koji su odoljeli iskuenjima neslobode Dahrendorf naziva erasmovci. O
erazmovskim intelektualcima i (ne)kompromitiranim formativnim linostima koji su svojim ivo
tom i djelom obiljeili i dali peat svojoj epohi, vie vidjeti u: Ralf Dahrendorf, Iskuenja neslobode.
Intelektualci u doba kunje, Prometej, Zagreb 2008.
10
Zanimljivo je da je Julien Benda svoju uvenu i esto citiranu knjigu Izdaja intelektualaca napisao i
objavio jo 1929., a na hrvatski jezik prevedena je tek 1997., izd. Politika kultura, Zagreb.
11
Poznato je da je nakon sukoba na ljevici (19391940) Krlea ostao u posvemanjoj izolaciji. Sve se
vrtoglavo kretalo prema katastrofi, sve je ukazivalo da dolaze teki i tragini dani. Tako su ga usta
ke vlasti dovele u zatvor, o emu je ostalo Krleino autentino svjedoanstvo: Vode me u zatvor u
Petrinjskoj ulici. Dugaak hodnik, polusvjetli. Jedina lampa na plafonu. Prema meni ide grupa omla
dinaca, vode ih. Jedan me je prepoznao. Viknuo je: trockista! Pljunuo mi u lice. A kad su to vidjeli
drugi, pljuvali su i oni. Bio sam sav popljuvan. Doao sam u eliju, sjeo na pod i uhvatio me gr, bol,
sram, ponienje. Zaplakao sam kao gorka godina. Zvane rnja: Sukobi oko Krlee. Argumenti i svje
doanstva za jo jedan obraun s antikrleijanstvom, NIRO Osloboenje, Sarajevo 1983., str. 69.
110
111
A sudei po interesu mlaih narataja za njegovom prozom i dramama,

romanima i esejima, polemikama i ogledima Krlea nije samo pisac pro
losti nego pisac sadanjosti i budunosti. Njegova je pojava dala peat cijeloj
epohi. Rodio se s bogatim duhom u vremenu oskudnosti. Moe se mjeriti
samo s najveima i najboljima.
A kad je rije o svjetskoj knjievnoj pozornici, za Georgija Para, uspored
ba Leonea Glembaya s Shakespeareovim Hamletom namee se sama od sebe.
Leone Glembay dolazi u Zagreb na proslavu banke Glembay upravo kao to
se i Hamlet vraa iz Wittemberga u Dansku kako bi se zatekao na kraljevskom
ustolienju strica uzorpatora. I jedna i druga sveanost sadravaju u osnovi
moralnu trule i nagovjetaj rasula. Leone i Hamlet obojica autsajderi i mar
ginalci, melankolici i neurastenici, moralistiki istunci i intelektualna zano
vijetala, jednako tako pripadaju kako to ne pripadaju glembajevskom domu,
odnosno danskome dvoru. Leone i Hamlet postavljaju se poput hladnog i
beutnog zrcala nasuprot svojim svjetovima. Pokazuje se meutim, zaklju
uje Paro, da se igra zrcala ne moe nekanjeno igrati; odraz se upija u zrcalo,
rastae ga i razbija. I Hamnlet i Leone postaju ubojice i bivaju povueni u
propast zajedno s danskim dvorom, odnosno kuom Glembay12.
Drugim rijeima, i Hamletovo i Leoneovo Biti ili ne biti odnosi se na
traenje vrline, suoavanje s istinom i dramatini trenutak donoenja od
luke. Dok je Hamlet zaokupljen milju kako epat savjest grenog kralja,
dotle Leone ini sve kako bi se, kao isti, nepatvoreni, stopostotni Glembay
izvukao iz mutne glembajevtine i prokletih Glembajevih koji su zloinci,
prevaranti i ubojice!
Kompleksno tkivo ovog Krleinog dramskog teksta sjedinjuje motive
drutvene nepravde, zloupotrebe bogatstva, neodgovornosti i razuzdanosti
s motivima degeneracije, hipertrofirane osjetilnosti i moralno-intelektualne
otuenosti. Ovo najizvoenije Krleino dramsko djelo, s napetim dijalozima,
Georgij Paro: Gospoda Glembajevi na sceni HNK, Programska knjiica u povodu 100. obljetnice
roenja Miroslava Krlee, Zagreb, 1993, str.12.
psiholokim nijansama i umjetniki iznijansiranim karakternim linostima

puno je aluzija na filozofiju i znanost, slikarstvo i medicinu, glazbu i bankar
ske spekulacije, drutveni ugled i novarske manipulacije, to nam zapravo
govori da, ni onda ni danas, internacionalni karakter kapitalistikog podu
zetnitva ne poznaje i ne priznaje granice, ma kakve prirode te granice bile:
jezine, politike, kulturne, dravne. Svugdje je doma, a rtve ionako nitko
ne broji, i o tome, stalno je Krlea ponavljao ne treba imati nikakvih iluzija.
Stoga danas ponovo itati i iitavati Krleu znai liavati se preostalih iluzija.
S druge pak strane, nitko se prije njega nije s takvom energijom i ta
kvim stilom uhvatio u kotac s naim fatalnim nesporazumima i razdori
ma; obruio na nae palanake mentalitete; okomio na ljudsku glupost.
Nitko prije, a danas moemo rei, ni poslije Krlee, nije s takvom odlunou
i hrabrou, znanjem i smjelou raskrinkavao nae mitove i svetinje, po
sebno hrvatske knjievne lai i srpske obmane.
Upravo o takvom antidogmatskom, duhovitom, provokativnom, pole
minom i inspirativnom velikom piscu, beogradski krleijanci i krleiolozi
organizirali su prole godine Festival Miroslav Krlea: San o drugoj obali. Fes
tival je posveen stogodinjici prvog dolaska i stupanja na tle ovog Zagrep
anina u Beograd, na jednu od svojih brojnih drugih obala. Organizator,
Beogradski kulturni centar, autorica koncepta i koordinatorica Festivala Oli
vera Stoi Raki, itavim nizom izlobi, okruglih stolova, kazalinih pred
stava, radio-dramskih i filmskih radionica pokazali su sva naa i Krleina
lica i nalija, i na iznimno pouan i edukativan nain pribliili pisca Krleu
mladim ljudima. Dakako, uz vano upozorenje: Ako se igrate sa Krleom,
onda se igrate sa vatrom! Pa beogradski Festival i nije organiziran u slavu
Krlee nego je to bio javni poziv na ponovno zajedniko itanje Krlee da
se propita koliko je Krlea bio u pravu, u svojim tekstovima i drutvenom
angamanu, danas toliko neophodnom. Za one koji (naj)manje poznaju
ili su zaboravili vana mjesta Krleina bio-bibliografskog opusa i globusa,
beogradski dramski umjetnici realizirali su interaktivni perfomans Izvjetaj
112
113
12
s druge obale. Drugu tekstualno-vizualno-zvunu i dokumentarnu etnju

kroz Krleinu djelo nudi multimedijalna izloba San o drugoj obali, na kojoj
je bio izloen i original Krleinog Divotvelepisma (nadrealistika kola-epis
tola) upuenog Marku Ristiu 1936. Pored toga, posjetitelji su mogli vidjeti i
film o Petru Dobroviu Put u raj (1957), koji je po Krleinom scenariju rei
rao Aleksandar Petrovi. Festival je takoer producirao i originalnu grafiku
novelu Miroslavljevo jevanelje: apokrifna verzija, koju je, po scenariju Bore
osia realizirao tim strip-crtaa. Beogradski centar za kulturnu dekonta
minaciju (Borka Pavievi) producirao je Izlet u Rusiju, prema dramatizaciji
Miroslava Belovia, a u reiji Jovana irilova. Od 10. svibnja do 10. lipnja,
za vrijeme trajanja Festivala, sva tri programa Radio-Beograda emitirala su
radio-drame nastale prema Krleinim tekstovima. Radio- televizija Srbije
emitirala je dokumentarne filmove o Krlei. Za srednjokolce organizirane
su radionice za itanje i razumijevanje Krleinih tekstova i djela. Program
Festivala odvijao se pod pokroviteljstvom Ministarstva kulture.
Beogradski festival pokazao je da Krleina rije, bila ona polemika
ili esejistika, poetska ili dramska, romaneskna ili memoarska ni danas
u radikalno promijenjenim kulturno-politikim i drutvenim okolnostima
Balkana i Europe ne gubi na otrici, snazi i svjeini. Naprotiv, Krlea, koji
je smjeten duhovno i intelektualno izmeu Balkana i Europe, lucidno ana
lizira oba ta duha, on ih gradi i razgrauje, i arm njegova govora i pisanja
je upravo u tome to ga on negacijski oblikuje. Taj znak negacije kljuna je
toka Krleine poetike i poimanja svijeta.
2. Krlea i hrvatsko iskustvo
Kada je, pak, rije o hrvatskim duhovnim horizontima, onda se moe ka
zati da hrvatska kultura, od svojih davnih poetaka, ne poznaje knjievnu rije
koja je tako mono utjecala na njen ivot, na njenu sudbinu, kao to utjee
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rije Miroslava Krlee. Njen plodonosni utjecaj odrazio se jednakim intenzi

tetom na hrvatsku knjievnost i onda kada je ta rije prokazivala nae slabo
sti, ruila lane idole, rastakala mitove i iluzije. I onda kada je ta rije svojom
estinom i sugestivnom snagom otvarala perspektive i gradila mostove prema
budunosti. Zato je naratajima Krleina rije bila i ostajala jedini svjetionik,
kriterij i kompas, naroito u vremenima pomrina, sumnji i kriza. Nakon Kr
lee, doista, u hrvatskoj knjievnoj republici nita ne ostaje gdje je prije bilo.
Sve o emu i komu je Krlea pisao i govorio u svojim polemikama, kriti
kama, razgovorima i dnevnim zapisima, od Pijane novembarske noi (1918)
do posljednjeg teksta iz 1981, sve njegove slutnje i dijagnoze, lucidne prosud
be i poruke i danas su podjednako aktualne, tovie, veoma bliske i prepo
znatljive novim naratajima itatelja. Od one da je dolo vrijeme da se spali
i uniti i razbije la hrvatske knjievnosti (1919); da Evropa za nas ionako
ve ima pripremljen trik (1933); strahujui od toga hoe li ga progutati
endehazijski mrak (19411945); jer, u konanici i trajnom obraunu vlasti s
intelektualcima i ljudima duha piscu je svejedno od koga e stradati: od
Dide ili ide13; uz opomenu ezdesetosmaima da e i oni jednoga dana
13
Rije je o Milovanu ilasu, politiaru, knjievniku i publicisti koji je za vrijeme Drugog svjetskog rata i u
jugoslavenskom komunistikom pokretu obnaao najvie politike i vojne dunosti, lan Politbiora CK
KPJ i lan Vrhovnog taba NOV. Krlei se zamjeralo zato nije napustio Zagreb i (poput Ivana Gorana
Kovaia i Vladimira Nazora) preao na drugu obalu, u partizane. O tome je 1945. Krlea razgovarao
s ilasom u Beogradu. Taj susret se esto spominje i navodi u raznim izvorima (povijesno-knjievnim,
dnevniko-memoarskim i historiografsko-politikim), ali autentino Krleino svjedoanstvo zabiljee
no je samo na dva mjesta: u knjizi Zvane rnje Sukobi oko Krlee i monografiji Enesa engia: Krlea,
koji su gotovo identini. Tih dana Krlea je u hotelu Maderi posjetio i Milovana ilasa u njegovoj sobi.
Razgovarali smo o raznim stvarima, a onda mi je ilas, u jednom trenutku postavio pitanje:
Reci ti meni, Stari, iskreno, zato nisi doao u partizane?
Nisam, jer bi me ubili.
Tko bi te ubio?
Recimo, ti!
ilas je skoio sa stolice i iziao na balkon. Ubrzo se vratio i rekao mi: Moram biti poten, ubio bih
te do 1942. godine, a zato nisi doao na zasjedanje AVNOJ-a, kad smo te zvali?
Niste mi poslali ovjeka moga povjerenja; u ljude koji su mi dolazili ja nisam vjerovao, a uostalom,
moj stil nije da dolazim na kraju balade (Enes engi: Krlea, Zagreb 1982., str. 412.)
Dido Kvaternik bio je ministar policije u NDH.
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doivjeti ostvarenje svojih ideala; a proljearima da meu Hrvatima nije

zahvalno svjedoiti istinu (1971); dok je svima ostalima, na odlasku 1980.,
poruio: Tito14 je uinio za poloaj Hrvata vie nego itko ikada u njihovoj
povijesti. U nekoj ne znam koliko dalekoj budunosti, doi e vrijeme kada
e biti objektivno valoriziran i kada e mu se priznati velike zasluge.
Da je Krlea danas u prilici sagledati turobno stanje kulturnih, drut
venih i politikih fakata u Hrvatskoj i svijetu, vjerojatno bi ponovio, po
tko zna koji put: Glupost je svemirska sila. A moda bi, s tridesetgodinje
distance i dodao: Glupost i svemir su doista beskonani. Ali za ovo drugo
vie nisam siguran!
engievi dnevni zapisi, kronika jedne epohe S Krleom iz dana u dan15
autentina su svjedoanstva jednog knjievnika, njegova burnog ivota, en
ciklopedista i angairanog intelektualca o najznaajnijim pojavama, dogaa
jima i linostima XX. vijeka. S velikom erudicijom i slobodom iskaza u knji
gama se autentino oituju Krleina intima, emotivnost, artistike sklonosti,
Tito je, za razliku od ilasa, 1945. posve drukije primio Krleu, kako navodi Zvane rnja: Tito se
uistinu obradovao tome susretu! to je bilo, bilo je, idemo dalje! I dok mene vidi, ne boj se, nitko u
ime Partije nee s tobom polemizirati! (Sukobi oko Krlee, str. 118.) Po Krleinom kalendaru jo nije
dolo vrijeme za objektivnu valorizaciju Titove uloge u novijoj hrvatskoj povijesti. Naprotiv, i Tito i
Krlea, poslije smrti, u hrvatskoj nacionalistiki ostraenoj svijesti i meu klerikalnodesniarskim
korifejima dijele istu sudbinu: trajno ih se, bez argumenata, osporava, anatemizira, zaobilazi.
15
Enes engi: S Krleom iz dana u dan (Balade o ivotu koji tee, Truba u pustinji duha, Ples na vulka
nima, U sjeni smrti), Zagreb, Globus 1985. Knjige su koncipirane u formi dnevnika, pisane su krono
loki i obuhvaaju razdoblje od 1956. do 1980. Poslije Krleine smrti engi objavljuje jo dvije knjige
S Krleom iz dana u dan: Krlea, post mortem 1(19811988) i Krlea, post mortem 2 (19891990), Sa
rajevo, Svjetlost 1990. Njihovu svrhu engi je obrazloio rijeima: Mirogojski oprotaj nije bio i moj
rastanak s Krleom. Krlea je rijeka, pria kojoj kraja nema. Njegovim odlaskom, ostao sam da ivim
i s njim i s njegovim djelom, da se ponekad peem i na eravici isturen nesklonim vjetrovima koji su
je na mnoge naine raspirivali i u plamen eljeli pretvoriti. to je meni ostalo? Da se branim? Ne! Da
odgovaram na podvale? Ne, ve da se prihvatim pjesnikova amaneta da zavrim ponajprije Sabrana
djela i uinim sve da se taj rijetko opsean i nadasve vrijedan opus ne potisne na sporedne kolosijeke,
kako je ve u smrti bivalo s mnogim znamenitim imenima. (Krlea, post mortem 1, str. 13)
Za 120. obljetnicu Krleina roenja, Silvana engi Voljevica priredila je skraeno izdanje S Krleom
iz dana u dan (dva sveska) s uvodom Ivana Lovrenovia i predgovorom Boe Rudea, Zagreb, Jutar
nji list 2013. A cijela kronika S Krleom iz dana u dan IVI zapravo pokazuje da su putevi knjievni
nedokuivi kao i Gospodnji.
14
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intuicija i refleksija, ljudi i dogaaji, a takoer i niz iskaza o nepoznatim ili

manje poznatim privatno-biografskim injenicama. engi je, suradniki i
uredniki, druei se i prijateljujui s Krleom, uspio zabiljeiti sve njegove
misli, meditacije i nedoumice, monologe i dijaloge, iz irokog registra umjet
nikih, kulturnih, drutvenih i politikih tema.
Jedno je sigurno: Nitko se, prije i poslije Krlee, nije tako strasno i takvim
stilom uhvatio u kotac s naim fatalnim nesporazumima i razdorima, pala
nakim mentalitetima, tromostima duha i mitovima. Svaka stranica ove knjige
izraz je i glas intelektualne i moralne savjesti, koja tako nedostaje danas i ovdje.
Pred nama je opet erudit i polihistor Krlea, sa svim svojim senzibiliteti
ma i otvorenim ranama, mudrou i lucidnou, prokletstvima i protuslovlji
ma, preokupacijama i artistikim sklonostima. Iz dana u dan svjedoimo
Krleinim monolozima i dijalozima, sa ivima i mrtvima, ponovno smo s
Krleinom literaturom i Krleinom epohom. I ovi dnevniki zapisi pokazuju
da sve ljubavi i mrnje krleijane plamte prekogrobno.
Hrvatska je bila Krleina sudbina, a on je bio njezin usud. Ali nikad nije
bilo dobro, nikad nije bilo preporuljivo Krleu voljeti javno. Jer, kako istie
Mladen Kuzmanovi, predstavljajui esterosveanu Krleologiju16:
Krleijanstvo je bilo mnogo vie od izbora pisca, ono je bilo izbor svi
jeta. Ponekad je znailo i izbor smrti i umiranja, a uvijek je svjedoilo stil,
ukus i pogled na svijet.17 Krlea je Hrvatsku volio bez stida, bez iluzija, bez
Stanko Lasi, teoretiar i povjesniar knjievnosti, ponajbolji je poznavatelj i izuavatelj Krleina ivota
i djela. Izmeu ostalog objavio je knjige: Sukob na knjievnoj ljevici 19281952, (1970); Struktura Kr
leinih Zastava (1984; Krlea. Kronologija ivota i rada (1982); Mladi Krlea i njegovi kritiari (1987);
Krleologija ili povijest politike misli o Miroslavu Krlei, IVI, 19891993. Ovako Lasi definira po
jam krleologije: Postoje dva temeljna njegova smisla, iri koji oznaava svako znanstveno ili kritiko
istraivanje usmjereno prema ivotu i radu Miroslava Krlee; ui, prema kojemu je krleologija takvo
istraivanje koje treba da objasni rezultate do kojih je doao studij o ivotu i djelu Miroslava Krlee.
17
Velimir Viskovi (gl. urednik KRLEIJANE, trosveane enciklopedije o Miroslavu Krlei, prvi sve
zak 1993., drugi svezak 1999., a trei svezak Bibliografija Miroslava Krlee, 1999) navodi kako je
njegov stari prijatelj i profesor Aleksandar Flaker esto priao kako su zagrebaki gimnazijalci
potkraj tridesetih godina bili podijeljeni na krleijance i antikrleijance. Vidi: Knjievna Republika,
srpanjrujan 2012, str. 3.
16
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uljepavanja, krastavu, gladnu, nepismenu i provincijalnu, oboavao ju je ne

milosrdno i bez pratanja (prata se, naime, samo djeci i slaboumnicima) i
to mu Hrvati tu i takvu njegovu ljubav hrvatske stvarnosti, hrvatske istine,
nikada nisu oprostili.
Pa, ako bismo razdoblje od prvih Krleinih javnih nastupa s poetka XX.
vijeka do njegove smrti, u dijaloko-polemikom smislu, mogli svrstati pod
Moj obraun s njima, onda bismo sve ono to se dogaa s Krleinim imenom
i djelom, od njegove smrti do danas, po crti hrvatske prosvjetne, kulturne i
dravne vlasti mogli nazvati Njihov obraun s njim.
A sve je poelo ceremonijom sahrane na zagrebakom groblju Mirogoj,
gdje mu je prireen dravniki sprovod uz poasne plotune i vojne poasti,
govore najviih partijskih i dravnih funkcionera.18 Boe, kakva li paradok
sa i ironije sudbine: zakletog antimilitarista i velikana pera na posljednji po
inak ispraaju poasni plotuni. ast i dostojanstvo kulturne Hrvatske tada
je spasio pjesnik Jure Katelan koji se od Krlee oprostio rijeima: Veliki
brate, svih nas koji drimo pero u ruci, stojim pred vama u nekoj vrstoj
vjeri da vi niste mrtvi. To uvjerenje nije privid. Vi ste sugestivnom snagom
pjesnike rijei prevladali granice vremena i prostora i uspostavili razgovor
mrtvih i ivih i onih buduih.
Sljedeih deset godina pisalo se i prialo po zagrebakim kulturnim
krugovima tko je sve i zbog ega provaljivao i krao rukopise iz Krleinih
zapeaenih ormara u Leksikografskom zavodu, kojem je Krlea od osnutka
bio glavni ravnatelj i glavni urednik. Kreo Vranei, Krlein nasljednik i uz
Enesa engia izvritelj Krleine Oporuke, navodi da je ormar, kad su ga
doli slubeno zapeatiti, u Krleinom uredu bio potpuno prazan, a njegova
je gornja ploa ak bila odvaljena pajserom.19
Eliza Gerner, Milan Arko: Svjedoci Krleina odlaska, Prometej, Zagreb, 2002., str. 129.
Milan Gavrovi: ovjek iz Krleine mape, ivot i smrt dr. ure Vraneia, Novi Liber, Zagreb, 2011.,
str. 233.
18
Dolaskom hadezeove vlasti, od 1990. do 1997. u Hrvatskoj nije tiska

na ni jedna Krleina knjiga (!), a saborski zastupnici ultimativno trae da
se Leksikografskom zavodu oduzme ime Miroslava Krlee.(!!!) tovie, sa
znanjem i odobrenjem glavnog ravnatelja Leksikografskog zavoda i glavnog
urednika Opeg religijskog leksikona, otisnuta je i imprimirana denuncira
jua, osvetnia i herotstratska natuknica KRLEA, u kojoj se za ovog hr
vatskog prvosveenika knjievnosti kae da je najradikalniji osporavatelj
religije (Apage Satanas!), te da je Krlea u estetizmu naao nadomjestak za
religioznu duhovnost, a u pozitivizmu i evolucionizmu dogmatsko uporite
svog svjetonazora, u komunistikoj revoluciji i partiji potraio je surogat za
izgubljenu vjersku zajednicu. I ne samo to, pakuje ovaj Religijski leksikon da
je Krlea pjevao hvalospjeve totalitarnim diktaturama... i da je svojim anti
religioznim stavovima snano obiljeio liberalnu graansku i komunistiku
inteligenciju, te neosporno pridonio protukatolikoj kampanji u komunisti
kom porau.20
Pravu i iskrenu mjeru hrvatstva Krlea je iskazivao esto i na razliite
naine, a za ovu prigodu citirat emo samo jednu Krleinu propovijed i
jedan Krlein blagoslov.
Hrvatstvo nije Jedno Jedinstveno Hrvatstvo kao Takvo, i to je osnovno
kod ovog razmatranja. Biskup grof Drakovi, koji potpisuje smrtnu osudu
Matiji Gupcu, hrvatski je feudalac, a Gubec hrvatski kmet. Nema hrvatstva
koje je u stanju da pomiri hrvatskoga kmeta sa hrvatskim grofom. Ja, dakle,
hrvatstvo biskupa i grofa Drakovia ne priznajem za svoje hrvatstvo, i takvo
feudalno hrvatstvo, stoljeima kulturno jalovo, a politiki parazitsko i rene
gatsko, ja izrazito poriem, to jo uvijek ne znai da sam i negator hrvatstva
kao takvog, kao da biskup i grof Drakovi ima monopol na svoje biskupsko
i grofovsko hrvatstvo, a ja na svoje puko i narodno nemam. Hrvatstva kao
takvog, hrvatstva ansich, hrvatstva po sebi uope nema, i bilo bi dobro da
19
118
Opi religijski leksikon, Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krlea, Zagreb, 2002., str. 479. i 480.
20
119
se u uvodu ovog razmatranja sporazumijemo o vrijednosti i o smislu nekih

pojmova. Nieg na ovoj planeti kao takvog ili po sebi nema, pa ak ni nae
planete kao takve po sebi same. Po sebi, ovo nae hrvatstvo ne postoji,
jer nije balon da lebdi nad vremenom i nad prostorom, a nije ni Platonska
Ideja da bi nae misli o njemu bile tek boanski odraz jednog vrhunaravnog
pojma. Hrvatstva u prolosti bilo je itav niz, jer ta hrvatstva u neprestanom
protjecanju vremena i sama protjeu u trajnoj fluktuaciji pojmova i odraza,
i, prema tome, protjeui, ta su hrvatstva u prelijevanju uvijek druga i druga,
jedno na drugo nalik, ali nikad podudarna, u sukcesivnom nizu i sama samo
odrazi okolnosti i prilika kroz koje se probijaju.21
I postoji li u naoj historiji lice koje je prolo svijetom kao simbol hr
vatstva, to je bio ovaj ingeniozni dominikanac, Juraj Kriani, koji je petnaest
godina jalovo proamio u Sibiriji, pod ljagom da je Latin, a koji je u Rimu
pao u nemilost pod sumnjom da je slavenofil, koji se priklanja izmi.22
Na dvadesetu godinjicu Krleine smrti, 2001. godine, u Nacionalnoj i
sveuilinoj biblioteci, u prisutnosti hrvatskog dravnog vrha i kulturne
vlasti, sveano se otvaraju, po Krleinoj Oporuci, na dvadeset godina zape
aeni sanduci s Kreinim rukopisima, mapama, skicama, pismima i mar
ginalijama. Kreo Vranei, oevidac, koji je zajedno s Enesom engiem,
uz slubene predstavnike Ministarstva pravosua i Ministarstva kulture,
spremao i peatio ostavinsku rukopisnu grau, opet je primijetio da je net
ko otvarao sanduke i radio inventuru. Preciznije: Na etrnaest zapeaenih
sanduka nije vie bilo ni jednog peata, nekoliko konopa je pokidano ili pre
sjeeno, vijci su odarafljeni, a poklopci deformirani... (ovjek iz Krleine
mape, str. 235)
Prije nekoliko godina HAZU, iji je dugogodinji potpredsjednik bio
Miroslav Krlea, u suradnji s jednom zagrebakom izdavakom kuom, pok
renula je projekt Kritikog izdanja Sabranih djela Miroslava Krlee u ezdeset
Miroslav Krlea: Deset krvavih godina, Jubilarno izdanje, NIRO Sarajevo 1979, str. 106 i 107.
Miroslav Krlea, Eseji, III, Zagreb 1963, str. 52.
21
22
120
svezaka. Izila su samo tri kola (dvadeset i dvije knjige) i stalo se. Muk, nitko
nita ne pita, zato je i gdje zapelo?!23
Na tridesetu obljetnicu Krleine smrti, u prosincu 2011., u organizaciji
Drutva hrvatskih pisaca prireen je znanstveni simpozij na kojem su su
djelovali nai najeminentniji krleiolozi, redom sveuilini profesori, efo
vi katedri, akademici, vrsni publicisti i ugledni nakladnici, svi jedinstveni
u ocjeni da je Krleino djelo i danas podjednako aktualno; da je Krlea
arhitekt nove kulturne paradigme; da je Krlea bitna, ako ne i najbitnija
karika u nacionalnom knjievnom i intelektualnom kanonu XX. stoljea, ali
da mu se, naalost, vodee nacionalne institucije, kako za ivota tako i post
humno, nisu primjereno oduile, tovie, neke su ga zatajile, neke ga ustrajno
nijeu, a neke mu, latentno i manifestno, zatiru svaki trag, izbacujui ga iz
hrvatskog javnog ivota. U emu su uglavnom i uspjeli, usprkos nacionalnim
anketama jednog zagrebakog tjednika koje Krleu svrstavaju meu najve
e Hrvate i najcjenjenije hrvatske pisce. ak je jedan od sudionika simpozija
postavio nimalo retoriko pitanje: U ime ega se i zato hrvatska ljevica i hr
vatska socijaldemokratska misao, ergo, hrvatska Vlast i Drava odriu svojih
protagonista i velikana: Josipa Broza Tita i Miroslava Krlee?!24
ini se, ipak, da je Krleinu duhovnu batinu u toj prigodi najlucidnije
rekapitulirao Zdravko Zima, ustvrdivi: To to su hrvatski narod i hrvatska
inteligencija i dalje tako manihejski podijeljeni u odnosu na jednog pisca
moe znaiti samo dvoje: (1) da je u ovom dijelu svijeta vrijeme stalo, fiksira
no u mitovima i stoljeima sedimentiranim obmanama ili (2) da je Krleina
dimenzioniranost takva da ga Hrvati u svojoj nacionalno i povijesno deter
miniranoj skuenosti nisu u stanju apsolvirati.25
A knjige iz prva tri kola mogu se nai i kupiti samo kod izdavaa knjiara Ljevak, i to povremeno
i na hrpi, u rasprodaji i na akciji pod modernim marketinkim sloganom: Plati 2 uzmi 3 knjige!
Vie o zloj kobi Krleinih Sabranih djela vidi fusnotu 1.
24
Vidi: Knjievna Republika, godite X., 79, srpanj/rujan 2012.
25
23
121
A da je u ovom dijelu svijeta doista za mnoge hrvatske intelektualce vri

jeme stalo i da Hrvati jo uvijek nisu u stanju apsolvirati Krleine europske
horizonte (mega) i njegovo znaenje za nacionalnu pismenost i kulturu,
potvruju to i aktualne, une rasprave o hrvatskom pravopisu, hrvatskom
pismu i jeziku, kako bi ga se, odralo istim i pod svaku cijenu sauvalo od
raznih internacionalnih kontaminacija ili, boe te sauvaj, istonih inai
ca. O tim hrvatsko-srpskim, srpsko-hrvatskim jezinim pitanjima Krlea je
govorio, a engi biljeio: Hrvatski ili srpski su jedan jezik, koji su Hrvati
uvijek nazivali hrvatskim, a Srbi srpskim... Otkako piem, piem hrvatski,
upravo tako kao to svi srpski knjievnici piu srpski. () Drim da jezik
nije stvar administrativnog dogovaranja nego je on iva materija koja ne
moe biti predmetom nekog propisa i zakona. () to ne znai da o svemu
tome ne bi trebalo progovoriti sa svom naunom i knjievno-historijskom
nepristranou. ()
Ali, kad smo ve kod jezika, sjetih se da mi je Krlea na Brionima pri
ao o raspravi koju je s Aleksandrom Beliem vodio o nazivu jezika. Kako je
Beli inzistirao na nazivu srpskohrvatski, odnosno hrvatskosrpski, na koncu
ga je Krlea upitao:
Na kojem vas je jeziku majka odgajala?
Na srpskom, odgovorio je.
E, pa mene je moja mati odgajala na hrvatskom, rekao je tad.
Kad je Krlei trebao biti dodijeljen Zlatni vijenac Strukih veeri poezije
neki pjesnici postavili su poznatom profesoru knjievnosti dr. Haralampiju
Polenakoviu pitanje:
Zato ba Krlei, kakve on veze ima s Makedonijom!
Odgovorio im je protupitanjem:
Jeste li itali njegove Zastave?
Nismo.
E, pa proitajte ih. U tih ete pet knjiga nai brojne stranice koje govo
re o Makedoniji.
Dakle, ljudi zapravo nita ne itaju.26

Zato je od osamostaljenja Hrvatske, dakako, uz izdanu dravnu potpo
ru, tiskano nekoliko razlikovnih rjenika, pravopisa i pravopisnih prirunika
koji izluuju djecu u vrtiima i njihove roditelje, uenike i nastavnike, lekto
re i korektore, a u medijima (radiju, TV, novinama, asopisima) i izdavakim
kuama uvedeni su politiki komesarijati koji nas tite od istonih inai
ca.27 Pa zar Krlea nije imao pravo kad je 1956. na redakcijskom kolegiju
enciklopedijskih izdanja zagrmio: Treba vidjeti to je nivo naih intelektu
alaca. Kad bih ja publikovao 5% primjedbi na njihove dopise (lanke) oni bi
svi otili!
Ali nita bolje od Krleina misaonog i duhovnog naslijea nije se obrela
ni Krleina materijalna batina koja bi nas trajno podsjeala na ovog knjiev
nika. Naime, u sjeni smrti (1980), pita engi Krleu to e biti s ovim sta
nom28 nakon njegova odlaska. Krlea odgovara: A to se ovoga stana tie,
tolika je masa stanova u historiji koji su razoreni i koji su bili nerazmjerno
vaniji nego moj i Belin dom. U udnim naim prilikama, odravanje ovog
stana znai veliku investiciju, a takvog faktora tko bi to financijski izveo, u
mom sluaju teko da ima. Ali ako je nekome stalo da sauva uspomenu
na jednog pjesnika i jednu glumicu koji su tu ivjeli tri decenije, neka to
uini.29
122
123
Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem 2, str. 117

Snjeana Kordi: Jezik i nacionalizam, str. 40 i d., Durieux. Zagreb, 2010. U meuvremenu, s pre
porukama i blagoslovom Ministarstva kulture, Ministarstva znanosti i prosvjete, HAZU i Matice
hrvatske, objavljeno je nekoliko novih rjenika, pravopisa i pravopisnih prirunika hrvatskog jezika.
Razlikovni rjenik srpskog i hrvatskog jezika Vladimira Brodnjaka doivio je nekoliko izdanja, a, ovih
dana najavljuje se i prvi Srpsko-hrvatski objasnidbeni rjenik Marka Samardije, koji e, kako pret
postavlja Krlea, naunom i knjievno-historijskom nepristranou objanjavati razliku izmeu
juhe, supe i orbe.
28
Rije je o stanu na Gvozdu, danas Krleinu Gvozdu 23, u kojem su Bela i Miroslav Krlea stanovali
zadnje tri dekade svoga ivota.
29
Nakon nekoliko neuspjenih pokuaja ipak je na prijedlog Sabora i Skuptine Grada Zagreba 1987.
formiran Odbor za ureenje Krleina Gvozda u kojem su bili ugledni krleijanci i krleiolozi: Jure Ka
telan, Saa Vere, Andre Mohorovii, Boidar Gagro, Milivoj Solar, Boidar Raica, Rade erbedija
26
27
Knjievnik Saa Vere u programskoj knjiici o integralnom ureenju

KRLEIANUMA zapisao je:
Za ovaj grad i za ovaj narod od posebna je interesa da bude sauvan
Krlein dom na Gvozdu, kua koja je u mnogoemu i zrcalo Krleine intime.
Pisac koji je godinama bio smioni negator svega mranjakog, neskladnog,
provincijalnog i egoistinog, enciklopedist i snova koji razlistava nae au
tentine stijegove, Krlea je tijesno povezan s radnikim pokretom, revolu
cionar prijemljiv i za Erazmovu rije Kua na Gvozdu bila mu je ne samo
ona posljednja luka i posljednja tacija nakon svakojakih seoba ve i sigurno
utoite, majstorska radionica, hia u kojoj se osjeao bez ostatka kod kue.
I dok je za sve Krleine prijatelje ova kua bila slina svjetioniku u kome
velebnik pera i snova otkriva neslueno suglasje, za Krleu je ovo mjesto
predaha i planiranja, kreiranja i kontemplacije, mjesto neke idealne distance
da se sagleda sve dramatiniji svijet... Ono to je Francuzima dom Balzacov,
to su za Ruse tako idealno sauvani Tolstojev dom u Jasnoj poljani, ili, pak,
stan Dostojevskog, Ostrovskog, Majakovskog i jo nekih drugih velikana,
za nas bi morao biti Krlein dom na Gvozdu, mjesto dinamike strukture i
pozornica permanentnih okupljanja.
No ostavimo po strani memorabilije i sentimentalne uspomene na jed
nog pjesnika i jednu glumicu, moda se ulaskom Hrvatske u EU30 nae
faktor koji e dovriti ovu investiciju, i vratimo se Krleinu knjievnom

opusu.
Krlea, stalno je govorio: Ja nemam djece, knjige su moja djeca; i najvi
e je to se za jednog pisca moe uiniti to je da se njegove knjige tampaju
i itaju.
Enes engi31, od 1956. godine, kada upoznaje Krleu, i otkada vodi
dnevnike zapise, postaje Krlein bliski suradnik, a poslije, kao urednik i
izdava, postaje Krlein prijatelj i osobni tajnik. engi je pokreta i urednik
20 svezaka Izabranih djela M. Krlee tiskanih 1973., u povodu osamdesete
obljetnice autorova ivota. Pokreta je Panorame, pogleda, pojava i pojmova
u djelu Miroslava Krlee u 5 tomova (1975). Takoer je pokreta projekta
6 knjiga kolske lektire pod nazivom Krlea u koli (1976/77). Od 1975. do
i Krleini nasljednici Kreimir Vranei i Enes engi, a vodio ga je potpisnik ovih redaka. Odbor je
1990. izradio integralni projekt KRLEIANUMA, kulturno-umjetnikog i znanstveno-istraivakog
centra (zgrada, u kojoj su Bela i Miroslav Krlea imali stan, sa etiri etae, ukupne povrine 1300 m2
i okolnog perivoja od 5.000 m2). Bila su prikupljena i dostatna sredstva za adaptaciju, kanili smo ga
sveano otvoriti na Krlein roendan 7. 7. 1991., ali nova vlast je projekt obustavila, a Odbor raspus
tila. U meuvremenu, Grad Zagreb (Muzej Grada Zagreba) u Krleinu stanu uredio je Memorijalni
postav Bele i Miroslava Krlee,koji je otvoren dva puta tjedno po dva sata, po dogovoru i unaprijed
najavljenoj posjeti! U ostatku zgrade na Krleinu Gvozdu 23 stoluju predstavnici nekih multinacio
nalnih kompanija, a neko vrijeme tu je bilo sjedite 5 trgovakih drutava koja, koliko mi je poznato,
s kulturom i knjievnou nemaju nikakve veze.
30
Nitko bolje o stanju hrvatske svijesti i Evropi danas, poslije Krlee, nije pisao od Stanka Lasia: Moe
li hrvatski narod u ovom tekom trenutku prihvatiti dijalog o kakvoj je Hrvatskoj rije kada se kae
da emo braniti Hrvatsku svim sredstvima: da li je to Hrvatska vlasnika vila, deviznih rauna u vi
carskoj, vikendica na tri kata, BMW-a, elektronskih ureaja, svile i kadife, dijamantnih narukvica,
zlatnih kalea i krznenih kaputa, ili je to Hrvatska iz vlaka (Krleine) Hrvatske rapsodije, Hrvatska
podrumskih stanova, Hrvatska koja se die u etiri ujutro da bi ila na posao, Hrvatska poderana,
pokrpana, gladna i neispavana? Nema jedinstva nacije u naciji koja ne inicira i ne iri ovakav dijalog,
koja nema smjelosti da sebi otroumno pogleda u lice i izrekne istinu, stranu i optuujuu. Ili, malo
dalje, kad Lasi kae: U svjetlu ove analize, a na pitanje to je to Evropa, mogue je sada dati tri
odgovora:
1) Evropa je iskreno nesretna, jer zbog dravnike logike mora odstupiti od (univerzalnih) principa na
kojima poiva demokratski poredak, u kojima se utjelovljuje ljudskost;
2) Evropa uope nije nesretna, jer ona razumije samo glas topova, a sve je ostalo dodatni teatar koji
treba da uvjeri i nju samu i one oko nje da ona ne postoji kao sebina i besmislena praksa, nego kao
humanistiko bie s povijesnom misijom;
3) Evropa je i jedno i drugo, ona je i iskreno nesretna i igra humanistiki teatar kojim ublaava svoju
nesretnu svijest i olakava posao politikoj pragmatici koja ostaje dominantna komponenta u po
naanju Evrope. Stanko Lasi, Tri eseja o Evropi, izd. Hrvatsko vijee europskog pokreta, Zagreb
1992, str. 22, 37 i 38.
31
Enes engi (Foa 1926 Zagreb 1994) publicist i knjievnik, porijeklom je iz stare plemike obitelji.
Godine 1955. dolazi u Zagreb kao dopisnik sarajevskog Osloboenja, a poslije postaje direktor Infor
mativno-poslovnog centra za Hrvatsku te novinsko-izdavake kue. U brojnim listovima i asopisi
ma objavio je mnoge lanke, komentare, reportae, putopise, a posebno su ostali zapaeni njegovi
intervjui s istaknutim linostima hrvatske kulturne i umjetnike scene. Bavio se i fotografijom, te je
kao foto-kroniar snimio veliku zbirku portreta znamenitih suvremenika i niz Krleinih portreta,
susreta i javnih nastupa, velike dokumentarne vrijednosti. engi je i sam autor 11 knjiga, a svojom
Oporukom Miroslav Krlea na engia prenosi doivotno upravljanje svim autorskim, izdavakim i
reprodukcijskim pravima te zatitu knjievnog djela.
124
125
1988., na engievu inicijativu i njegovim zalaganjem objavljena su, najzad,

Sabrana djela Miroslava Krlee u 50 svezaka, pa su Krleina djela tiskana i ra
sprodana u viemilijunskoj nakladi. Naalost, Krlea za ivota nije doekao
izlazak svojih Sabranih djela. Tek tree kolo, komplet od 15 knjiga, koje je
engi donio Krlei na bolniki krevet, tjedan dana prije smrti.
engi naputa bolnicu, a Krlein lijenik, primarius Ivo Mlinari pita od
lazeeg pisca: Pa dobro, recite mi, gospodine Krlea, tko je ovaj Enes engi
u koga imate toliko povjerenja da vas moe posjeivati kad god on zatrai?
Krlea me nekako upitno pogledao, kao da se udi da ja to ne znam, malo
zaklimao glavom, i bez razmiljanja odgovorio Gospodine moj, Enes engi
je plemi, da, da, plemi ne samo porijeklom nego i po duhu. engii su ple
mii, koljenovii koji dre do svog dostojanstva, ali boga mi i do dostojanstva
drugih. Radi toga je engi ovjek moga povjerenja i moj prijatelj. to hoete
vie, ako vam kaem da je onda kad je Krlea kao pisac bio potisnut sa svrhom
da se zaboravi i on i njegovo djelo, taj isti engi naao snage da uz sve rizike
bude urednik mojih Sabranih djela? On je tako u pravi as uskoio u brod koji
je bio zadobio bezbroj rupa i kad mu je prijetilo potonue. On je taj brod spasio
i osposobio za plovidbu. Vi, dragi moj, ne znate to znai za jednog pisca kad
se njegovi radovi ne tampaju i ne itaju. Teak je to osjeaj biti zaboravljen. Ja
nikada nisam elio utjehu, ali sam oekivao da se prizna ono to sam zasluio.
To je najbolje shvatio Enes engi i ja sam mu zahvalan ne samo kao uredniku
nego i ovjeku koji je prema meni nastupio s puno takta i potovanja, a ja mo
ram priznati da imam teku narav, u to ste se i sami mogli do sada uvjeriti.32
U Zagrebu je za 120. obljetnicu Krleina roenja, jedan krleijanski glu
mac, entuzijast i fantast, Goran Matovi, organizirao Drugi Festival Miroslav
Krlea pod sloganom: Zagreb ima Sljeme i ima jednu spiritualnu, artistiku
planinu. Ta druga planina to je Miroslav Krlea. Festival je smjestio na Krle
in Gvozd (kao i 2012) to se pokazalo sretnim susretitem Krlee, umjetni
Iz pisma dr. Ive Mlinaria Enesu engiu, datiranog 22. prosinca 1986., Arhiv obitelji engi.
32
126
ka i publike. Preko Krlee opet je uspostavljen novi i ivi dijalog sa svijetom,

i to uz sudjelovanje prvaka hrvatskog glumita, teatrologa, redatelja, sineasta
i glazbenika, krleijanaca i krleiologa.
Prve veeri, u reiji Zlatka Svibena s blistavom Brankom Cvitkovi i
glumcima arkom Potonjakom, Franjom Kuharom i Mladenom Vujiem
izveden je Krlein kola Evropa danas: glasovi, pojave, lica, osobe. Cjelina
se Krleina eseja Evropa danas (1933) dopunjala reenicama iz Glembajevih,
Na rubu pameti, iz Zastava i stihovima Balada Petrice Kerempuha. Predsta
va nas je podsjetila kako je Krlea jo davne 1933. u ovom uvenom eseju
radikalno zasjekao u rak-ranu suvremene rascijepljene Evrope; one na vrhu
piramide ogrezle u luksuzu i moi i one u podzemlju koja se valja u blatu
siromatva i drutvene nepravde. Apokalipsa lanih vrijednosti i pobunjeni
pojedinac u temeljima su njegove ideje knjievnosti kao radikalne negacije
postojeeg svijeta. Krlea je pisac tog fatalnog dvojstva suvremenoga doba,
to podjednako vrijedi za nae provincijalne komplekse hrvatske kulture na
rubu Evrope kao i za univerzalna pitanja slobode, istine i pravednosti, kako
je istakao domain veeri arko Paji.
Za drugu veer Mani Gotovac, uz tonske zapise i ulomke iz filmova,
osmislila je umjetniki projekt Gospoda Glembajevi, s naglaskom na treem
inu predstave i sudbini barunice Castelli, Krleina lika demonske ene. A
ta barunica, koja se rodila s nevjerojatno mnogo ivotnog talenta nije samo
subjektivno drala da je ensko tijelo vana tema za ensku pamet ve je tvrdo
i po iskustvu nepokolebljivo znala da od kakvog provincijalnog biskupa pa do
bezobraznog onog kelnera da sva ta gospoda vjeruju i misle da je iskljuivo
tijelo i tjelesno ono to enu ini enom
Treu veer nastupili su gosti iz Srbije. Redatelj Jovan irilov i dramaturg
Miroslav Belovi s izvrsnim glumcima, priredili su Izlet u Rusiju, kao odgo
vor na posttranzicijske izazove u regiji. Kazalite Petfi iz Budimpete gosto
valo je s drugom dramom iz glembajevskog ciklusa, U agoniji, Krleinom
najizvoenijom dramom, u kojoj se ljubavni trokut (barun LenbachLaura
127
pl. Kriovec) iskazuje kao Laurina anatomija ponienja. Blistava predstava

maarskog ansambla koja je popraena burnim ovacijama.
Pa kad se ovim kazalinim predstavama dodaju dvije tematske izlobe:
Europski Krlea (u NSK koja pokazuje Krlein kozmopolitizam i irinu Kr
leinih intelektualnih interesa za europske teme), Portreti Miroslava Krlee
(Antun Augustini, Ljubo Babi, Josip Vanita, Mersad Berber, Marija Uje
vi i dr.) glumaka magija Pere Kvrgia i Rade erbedije, znanstveni sim
pozij i Serbus Krlea (dokumentarni film eljka Seneia), uz veliku posje
enost i oduevljenje razdragane publike onda se moe rei da je Drugi
festival Miroslava Krlee razbudio velik interes za ovog umjetnika rijei.
Svi Krleini tekstovi, davno pisani, kao da su napisani danas, toliko su
suvremeni i aktualni.
Nad Festivalom zastor se spustio, a Krlea je ostao ono to je i bio:
Za Hrvate sam od poetka bio Srbin i unitarista. Za Srbe frankovac i
ustaa, a za ustae opasan marksist i komunist, za neke marksiste salonski
komunist, za klerikalce i vjernike anti-krist koga treba pribiti na sramni stup.
Za malograane poslije rata sam kriv da je do svega ovoga dolo, za partijce
zato to nisam doao u partizane, za vojnike zato to sam antimilitarist, a za
antimilitariste to sam boljevik (M. Krlea: 1973).
3. Krlea i Makedonija
Hrvatsko-makedonski odnosi, povijesni, knjievni, jezini i kulturni do
diri potjeu jo iz vremena Solunske brae, od kojih batinimo i nasljeujemo
zajedniku irilometodsku tradiciju. I, bez obzira to je legenda o svetome i
rilu i Metodu napisana post mortem apostolorum i to nosi u sebi sve elemente
najtipinije propagandistike improvizacije da bude Rim sit i glagoljaka koza
128
cijela s jedne strane, a da se Grci ne dosjete s druge33 pismo glagoljica poe

tak je nae pismenosti i duhovne pripadnosti srednjovjekovnoj Evropi.
Glagoljica i glagoljai, stijeeni izmeu latinista i grecizma, u borbi za
primat izmeu Bizanta i Rima, odigrali su odluujuu ulogu u jaanju i kon
stituiranju junoslavljanske jezine i etnike svijesti.
Makedonci svake godine 24. svibnja obiljeavaju i slave kao Dan svesla
venskih prosvjetitelja. A u crkvenoj i kulturnoj povijesti Hrvata utjecaj irila i
Metoda bio je dvojak: oni nisu svojim misionarstvom i pismenima samo irili
kranstvo nego su poloili temelje nacionalnom jeziku i knjievnosti. tovi
e, Solunska braa, po uvjerenju hrvatskih glagoljaa (izraenom u Mavrovu
brevijaru) najzasluniji su to vse knigi hrvatski tlmaie.34
Njihovi uenici, krajem IX. stoljea, Kliment i Naum, kao to je poznato,
na Ohridu osnivaju uvenu Ohridsku knjievnu kolu. Na tisue uenika te
kole takoer je irilo (mimo sveta tri pisma: hebrejskog, grkog, latinskog!)
glagoljaku pismenost i kulturu ne samo po Makedoniji i Bugarskoj nego i
po hrvatskim krajevima.
A koliko je irilometodska batina inspirirala i pridonosila emancipaciji
makedonske nacionalne svijesti, razabire se iz rijei Vatroslava Jagia, izgovo
renih 1922., posveenih Klimentu Ohridskom: On je shvatio zadau, tako da
napie jezikom lako razumljivim i prostim nainom izlaganja... Bit e dosta
velike njegove zasluge ve u tome to je slavenski narod Makedonije njegovom
brigom znatno odskoio u kulturi, te se ne samo etnikim osobinama, ve pi
tomou, odvojio od istonih oblasti bugarske drave, gdje je u ono doba jo
bilo mnogo neslavenskog u prvobitnom znaenju bugarskog naselja.35
Krlea: Panorama pogleda, pojava i pojmova, priredio Anelko Malinar, NIRO SarajevoZagreb
1975., str. 583.
34
Kulturni radnik, asopis za drutvena i kulturna pitanja, Zagreb, 5/1985, str. 58. Posebno vidi: temat
ski blok s tekstovima Andre Mohoroviia, Eduarda Hercigonje i Boe Rudea, posveen tisuu i
stotoj obljetnici Metodijeve smrti.
35
Blagoja Jovanovski: Hrvatsko-makedonski odnosi kroz stoljea, izd. Zajednica Makedonaca u RH, Za
grebOsijek, 2002., str. 15.
33
129
U XIX. stoljeu za proirenje hrvatsko-makedonskih knjievnih i kul

turnih dodira najzasluniji je akovaki biskup, prosvjetitelj i mecena Josip
Juraj Strossmayer, koji, kao zagovornik narodnog jedinstva, u glagoljskom
pismu vidi zlatni most izmeu Istoka i Zapada.
U XX. stoljeu boljoj i svestranijoj makedonsko-hrvatskoj suradnji pri
donosili su mnogi Makedonci na polju umjetnosti, kulture i znanosti, koji
su djelovali u Hrvatskoj, i obratno: hrvatski kulturni stvaratelji (istraiva
i i putopisci, povjesniari i makedonisti, pjesnici i knjievnici, glazbenici
i kazalitarci) koji su krae ili due vrijeme svog ivotnog i radnog vijeka
proveli u Makedoniji.
Sve je to Krlei bilo veoma blisko i dobro znano.
Meutim, Krlein senzibilitet i naklonost, njegov polivalentni i multi
disciplinarni interes za makedonsku povijest i kulturu, njegove knjievne i
prijateljske veze s vodeim makedonskim intelektualcima i drutveno-poli
tikim protagonistima, ad personam i ad institutionem, makedonske teme i
motivi u Krleinoj literaturi, ine posebno poglavlje hrvatsko-makedonskih
odnosa i veza.
Za ovaj zbornik i u obljetnikoj prigodi, u najkrae i kronolokim re
dom, podsjetimo se na te najznaajnije susrete i lajtmotive.
Prvi put Krlea je u Skopju 1913., i tada je prilino duboko gledao smrti u
oi. Tu se zatekao kao bjegunac iz Ludoviceuma, bez identiteta i dokumenata,
osumnjien da je austrijska pijunina. Sa mnom to je bilo ovako kazuje
Krlea pjesniku Anti Popovskom idete kao dobrovoljac, u Skoplje 1913. da
se borite na strani srpske vojske, ba u vrijeme Bregalnike bitke. I u hotelu
drugog dana dokazujete srpskim oficirima da tamo nitko ne zna srpski i udite
se kad vas sutradan uhapse (). Kao dobrovoljac stoprocentno oduevljeni,
dokazujete im da tu zapravo nitko ne govori srpski i da je ovdje jezik i narod
koji nije srpski i, prema tome, to mi radimo ovdje. (potc. B.R.) Oficiri, dabome,
gledaju jednog majmuna i jave to naelstvu, dolaze andari i hapse ovjeka.36
Jagi i Krlea, razliitim povodima, kad se paljivije analizira, zapravo

govore o istom: o makedonskoj autohtonosti!
Nema dvojbe da su Balkanski ratovi trajno odredili sudbinu Makedonije,
podijelivi je na bugarski, srpski i grki dio, a Bregalnika bitka finale je tog
ratnog obrauna meu zemljama pobjednicama. Za Krleu i cijelu njegovu
generaciju, Bregalnika bitka znaila je sudbonosni slom junoslavenskih
narodnih ideala. U dimu i poaru Bregalnike bitke mi smo nauili da je
ciniki makijavelizam malih balkanskih dinastija stvarnost, a partitura Li
sinskoga, ilirske fantazmagorije, akovaka idila ili nostalgija za Prizrenom
da su pusta retorika Bregalnica samo je posljedica proklete dravotvorne
logike, jer kad se bilo kakva plemenita misao pretvori u dravnu politiku,
ona se ostvaruje topovima i bajunetama.37
Slijedom propasti svih mladenakih ideala i oslobodilakih zanosa, Ka
milo Emeriki, glavni lik Krleinih Zastava, rezignirano e, regnikolarcu i
ratnom profiteru, Amadeu Bogoljubu Trupcu, iji je ivotni ideal otvori
ti kartanicu na Margitszigetu izloiti turobnu i mranu sliku ondanjeg
svijeta i konstelaciju snaga: Ta, uzmite, molim vas, na primjer, sve narode
u Austriji, sve narode na Dunavu, na Karpatima, na Balkanu, s onu stranu
Karpata, od Finske do Estonije, pa sve do Albanije, do Arnautluka, po itavoj
Evropi, sve zajedno primitivna glupa sinagoga, svi larmaju, svi se nadvikuju
istim frazama o tradiciji, o rasi, o poslanstvima, o narodnoj dui, svi imaju
svoje narodne genije i svoje tambure i gusle i poeziju i historiju i barjake, a
ovo nae dananje bezidejno brbljanje o Kosovu, o caru Lazaru, o Metrovi
u, o Vidovdanskom Hramu, o belim orlovima, o ikonostasima, o kraljevima,
sve mi izgleda, oprostite, nedostojno zdrave pameti, prosto bezidejno, glupo,
dosadno, da, upravo izazovno dosadno, bespredmetno, da, vie od toga, sla
boumno, a pogotovo danas, suoeno s makedonskim dogaajima38
Enes engi: S Krleom iz dana u dan (19751977), Ples na vulkanima, Globus, Zagreb, 1985., str. 273.
Miroslav Krlea: Zastave, knjiga 2, Jubilarno izdanje, Sarajevo 1976., str. 246.
Isto, str. 251. i posebno poglavlja: Veera kod starog Kamaratha, Zbogom mladosti, Zov carske
trube.
130
131
36
37
38
O Krleinom drugom posjetu Makedoniji 1937. godine, Stanko Lasi u

knjizi Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada biljei: Sedam dana nakon osjeke
premijere Krlea je stigao u Skoplje. I tu se pripremala premijera drame U
logoru. Krlea je prisustvovao nekim probama, razgledavao grad. elio je
prisustvovati glasovitim borbama gusana u ciganskoj mali. Ali borbu nije
vidio jer je znameniti gusan Megdandi-Musa bio obolio. Dok su on i prija
telj ekali na me, Krleu je zainteresirala jedna ciganska ikona. Primitivnost
ovog crtea toliko je zainteresirala g. Krleu, da je zaeleo da dobije jedan
takav. Durmi mu je to obeao i ispunio obeanje. (Ljub. M. Dobrianin, Sa
g. Miroslavom Krleom po Skoplju, Pravda, 11588, 25. I. 1937, str. 6). Drama
je imala veliki uspjeh, kazalite je bilo dupkom puno. Ali valja istai da je
predstava izazvala kod publike oduevljenje, koje je raslo naporedo sa raste
njem napetosti i zbivanja u komadu (Kad je pala zavjesa, oduevljenju nije
bilo kraja) ali se Krlea nije pojavio na bini. (Ljubomir M. Dobrianin, Veliki
uspjeh premijere komada U logoru od g. Miroslava Krlee u Skoplju, Pravda,
11586, 23. I. 1937, str. 10.)39
U pismu Beli, Krlea pie: Ovdje tu predstavu smatraju najboljom skop
skom predstavom (od poetka svijeta), a uspjeh kao premijerni uspjeh najve
im skopskim uspjehom. Provale temperamenata i vikanja, upravo urlanja,
bilo je gotovo vie nego u Osijeku.40
Godine 1950. Krlea je zaokupljen monumentalnom Izlobom srednjo
vjekovne umjetnosti naroda Jugoslavije, odranoj u Parizu, s Krleinim pred
govorom u Katalogu. Nadzirao je i pripremne radove u kojima je sudjelovalo
stotinjak likovnih strunjaka. Osim predgovora Katalogu napisao je i esej
Povodom izlobe jugoslavenskog srednjovjekovnog slikarstva u Parizu, s na
mjerom da bude ductus generalis parike izlobe, a objavio ga je u Republici
(1950, br. 6). Zamiljen kao plaidoyer pro domo, pred Evropom, prua obilje
kulturno-povijesnih podataka za razdoblje od XIII. do XVI. stoljea, kada
Stanko Lasi: Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada, GZH, Zagreb 1982, str. 263264.
40
39
132
su nastale izloene umjetnine. Posebnu pozornost Krlea posveuje make

donskoj umjetnosti: freskama iz Fundusa Sv. Sofije, Ohrid i Sv. Pantelejmona
(Nerezi), ikonama i ikonostasima, nakon ega je makedonska srednjovje
kovna umjetnost, u punom sjaju, doekala meunarodnu afirmaciju. Krlea
pie: Tajna ovih slikara lei u tome to ljepota njihova djela i nije drugo do
halucinantan doivljaj, vidovit i uvijek podjednako sugestivno neposredan
upravo u onim temama koje bez njihovog subjektivno nadarenog tumae
nja ne bi nama danas znaile mnogo, jer ne vjerujemo u istinitost biblijskih
objavljenja niti smo uvjereni da je sveti Luka otac svetog crkvenog slikarstva.
Te svete slike ive su i dobre zato jer su ive, a ne zato jer su svete. One su
dobre jer vie nisu svete nego ljudske, i jer je ovjek koji ih je slikao prevla
dao u njima ono hijeratino to je bilo kanonizirano Njihova tamnoljubi
asta, smaragdnozelena, pastelnozelenkasta, ultramarinska, skrletna, zlatna,
pastelnoplava i cinober-paleta tajna je ovih majstora te su uspjeli da proire
krtu i ubogu paletu Duecenta i da postignu na nekim svojim kompozici
jama istu baroknu seteentistiku i najkasniju, impresionistiku rasvjetu.
Neke od tih slika mogao bi danas da crno-bijelo i pastozno naslika Braque,
zeleno van Gogh ili bilo koji kasniji s programatskim akcentom razbarueni
pojedinac iz fovistike pariske dekadentne kole.41
Ve smo u uvodu istaknuli s koliko se entuzijazma Krlea prihvatio pos
la na izradi Enciklopedije, okupivi najbolje strunjake, znanstvenike, inte
lektualce i leksikografe. elei, i parikom Izlobom i Enciklopedijom po
kazati svijetu da su Juni Slaveni jo davno postojali kao vrijedan i sastavni
dio evropske kulture.42
U tom kapitalnom kulturnom projektu Krlea je zaokupljen idejom
kako Enciklopediju objaviti kao posebna izdanja na slovenskom i makedon
skom jeziku, te na srpskom i irilinoj verziji. Stoga 30. sijenja 1968. Krlea
Miroslav Krlea: Likovne studije, Srpska i makedonska freska Jubilarno izdanje, NIRO Osloboe
nje, str. 32, 33.
42
Prirunik Leksikografskog zavoda (interno), JAZU, 1952, str. 12.
41
133
pie prijateljski, u etiri oka (diskretno) Blai Koneskom da bi bilo dobro

da se konzultira s drugovima Crvenkovskim i Minevim te da se Opa en
ciklopedija (u est svezaka) tampa kao makedonska opa enciklopedija na
makedonskom jeziku. U istom pismu Krlea sugerira da bi u tom sluaju
Makedonska redakcija trebala da vodi kontrolu nad prevoenjem tekstova, a
inicijativu za taj posao mogla bi preuzeti Makedonska Akademija Copyri
ght Leksikografskog zavoda nee biti u pitanju. Slinu korenspodenciju, per
analogiam macedonicam, o enciklopedijskim izdanjima na makedonskom
jeziku Krlea je ve ranije upuivao Lazaru Kolievskom, Haralamfiju Pale
nakoviu i Koli auli.43 A sve to sa svrhom temeljitog i cjelovitog predstav
ljanja i boljeg poznavanja Makedonije.
Godine 1960. Krlea je ponovno u Skopju, sada kao direktor Leksi
kografskog zavoda. Formalni povod za posjet trebao je biti razgovor s make
donskom redakcijom Enciklopedije, ali prave motive i razloge Krleina dola
ska u Makedoniju objanjava Kole aule u pismu Enesu engiu: Odmah
po njegovu dolasku u Skoplje, susreo sam se s Krleom, te smo se dogovorili
da se on sastane s redakcijom i najistaknutijim suradnicima asopisa Razgle
di. Dogovorili smo se, kako ne bi izazvali neka reagiranja, da se susret odri
u mom stanu. Tako je i bilo...
Na poetku razgovora Krlea je postavljao pitanja, svakome pojedina
no: Pitao ga je tko je, to je napisao, objavio i sl., a radio je to tako metodino
da sam bio iznenaen, jer su to bili preteno mladi ljudi. Zatim smo raz
govarali o makedonskom modernizmu, koji se po mnogo emu razlikovao
od modernizma u drugim sredinama, upravo zato to je to bio i zahtjev za
demokratizacijom, ka osloboenju od dotadanjih stega (...).
I uza sve pokuaje zvaninika da Krleinom posjetu daju to zvaniniji
karakter, on je nastojao susretima s nama, razgovorima, etnjom kroz Skoplje,
pridodati karakter podrke naim stremljenima. I to je odmah dalo odjeka.
Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, str. 108122.
43
134
Sasvim razumljivo posjet nije mogao proi bez obilaska Ohrida, putova
nja kroz Makedoniju i sl. Krlea ne bi bio ono to je bio, njegova ljubav i zani
manje za Makedoniju ne bi bili to to su bili da nije proputovao i razgledao...
Ponosim se prijateljstvom koje me je s njim povezivalo, to mi je njegov
dom bio otvoren, kao i njemu moj, to je poznavao moju obitelj, moju djecu i
to je veoma esto, kad mi je to bilo potrebno ili teko, nalazio rijei podrke
i okrepe. Razumijevanje i savjet.
Ali, nezaboravno ostaje, ne samo za mene, ve razgledaima, podrka
koju nam je on dao tokom njegova posjeta 1960.44
Kole aule Krleu je doista drao svojim uiteljem i bio mu je zahvalan,
jer, kako kae, on nas je nauio kako ostati uspravan, kako se izboriti za
svoje miljenje!
O tom treem boravku u Makedoniji Krlea je napisao i putopisnu bi
ljeku, koja je, kao i mnogi drugi njegovi zapisi, naalost, ostala samo kao
podsjetnik za vee studije i eseje, za neto ime se valjalo naknadno pozaba
viti i emu se tek trebalo posvetiti. Biljeku je naslovio Viaggio in Pelagonia,
30. IV1.V, 2.V i tako umjetniki ovjekovjeio svoje makedonske putopisne
impresije: U sivoj kopreni kie, serpentine, preko Resena i evo nas u Ohri
du sa turskim doksatima od hartije. To su gradovi koji imaju svoj Bit Pazar,
Cigansku Mahalu, Kurumli-han, Bezistan, Daut Pain hamam, damije i
tvrave, zapravo kulise.
Hotel Palace ohridski kao simbol vremena. (...) Melasa, svjetiljke od
ive, rasvjeta od keja nou, a tu je ona mramorna villa o kojoj su sanjala po
koljenja. U toj mramornoj villi kao u Kranjevievoj poemi meni je hladno.
Drugog jutra i etnje Ohridom. (...) Sveti Kliment, Klimentov grad sa ras
cvjetalim jabukama, enevsko jezero... Galiica u snijegu, Sunce na brdu, de
set vjekova sunca! Klimentove godine nije teko upamtiti, doao je one 886,
a umro 916. Od ovog punkta do Moravije i Kijeva irio je Bizantovu i svoju
Isto, str. 120, 121 i 122.
44
135
mo i autokratsku viziju slavenskog govora i pisma. Galiica 2287 i Ovozem

sk Mokr i Drimkol i Jablanica sve oko 2200 u snijegu. Poslije podne preko
Petana do Sv. Nauma prvomajski izlet na izvor Crnog Drima
Preko Struge i Veleta via Skopje45
A da je hrvatski knjievnik Miroslav Krlea bio i ostao Voltaire naih
prostora i osvjedoeni prijatelj Makedonije, potvruju to i rijei Gane Todo
rovskog na predstavljanju Krleinih knjiga na makedonskom jeziku, u Skop
ju 1983.
Krlea ostaje u naoj svijesti kao autor najsugestivnije knjievne rijei
koju su poznavali junoslavenski narodi otkad se rije biljei. Bio je Voltaire
naeg vremena. Bio je vietomni kroniar svete i proklete Ilirije, bio je pisac
pronicljivog uma i neimar asocijativnih pohoda golih, gladnih i bosih sla
venskih putnika koji noeni ivotnim elanom pjeae i krstare od Samojeda
i onkraj sibirskih tajgi do Splita i Ohrida, bio je pisac koji je dao svojevrsni
peat umjetnosti Titove Jugoslavije, knjievnik koji je zagovarao i pretvarao
u djelo ideju vjene ljepote i apsolutne istine. (...) Bio je i ostao veliki prijatelj
Makedonije i makedonske kulture!46
Gane Todorovski
Krlea i Makedonija1
Jedan vaan kulturni dogaaj, recimo dogaaj prvog reda, okupio nas
je danas, u Makedonskom narodnom teatru, pod ovim sigurnim krovom
koji uvijek, i danju i nou, umjetnosti daje sigurno utoite i zakrilje, okupio
nas je da bi se jo jednom potsjetili, bar na tren, da sve ono to se radi na
prostorima umjetnosti izgleda apsolutno pravovremeno i uvijek dobrodolo,
jer tu nikada nita nije kasno, kao da smo u carstvu devet muza, devet bo
ginja i pokroviteljki znanosti i umjetnosti, te svaki razumni poduhvat slii
boanskom inu
Tako smo se i mi danas okupili u ovom skopskom naturbetonskom He
likonu, da bi promovisali pet novih svezaka djela Miroslava Krlee koje je na
makedonkom jeziku izdala skopska nakladna kua Naa kniga:
I. Izbor poezije i poema Balade Petrice Kerempuha;
II. Hrvatski bog Mars, pripovijetke;
III. Povratak Filipa Latinovicza, roman;
IV. Glembajevi, drame; i
V. Izabrani eseji.
Rije pri promociji Izbora Krleina stvaralatva, objavljenog na makedonskom jeziku u pet svjezaka
u izdanju nakladne kue Naa kniga, Skopje, 1983. godine. Promocija je odrana u maloj dvorani
MNT, 18. studenoga 1983. godine. Fragmente iz Krleinih djela itali su i govorili glumci Nada Ge
ovska, Ilija Milin i Risto ikov.
Isto, str. 109 i 110.

: , , , 1987, str. 242, 243.
45
46
136
137
Iza ovog kulturnog ina, kojim se trajno, na makedonskom jeziku prire

uje najznaajniji dio od vieznaajnog Krleinog knjievnog djela, pulsira
napor nekoliko naih kulturnih radnika, te je red ovdje spomenuti njihova
imena: Ilija Milin, Georgi Stalev, Evtim Manev, Dime Biljanovski, Atanas
Vangelov i, ukoliko nemate nita protiv i autor ovih redova.
Ovim povodom pristojnost nalae da ne smijemo zaboraviti da su za
objavljivanje Krleinog makedonskog petosveznika vrlo zasluni i:
uposlenici nakladne kue Naa kniga iz Skopja, sa direktorom
Metodijom Razmoskim,
urednik edicije, Vidoe Podgorec,
tehniki urednik, likovni umjetnik Tome Filipov,
korektor Spasija Burekovi,
radnici tiskarne Goce Delev iz Skopja,
Republika zajednica za kulturu, Skopje, pa, dakako, i svi ovi spo
menuti i nespomenuti ljudi imaju svoj evidentni udio u pripremi i
realizaciji ovog projekta koji za SRM ima vaan kulturni znaaj.
Objavljivanjem jednog dijela stvaralatva Miroslava Krlee na makedon
ski jezik, stvaralatva koje je impozantno pa time i neobuhvatno, makedon
ska kultura je obogaena novim vrijednostima, makedonski jezik je poloio
jo jedan ozbiljan i teak ispit, a umjetnika rije vrhunskog jugoslavenskog
autora svih vremena potvruje svoju trajnost i kroz ovaj in najnovije objave.
I u ovakvim je prigodama dobro pomenuti neto to spada u kategoriju
informacija koje su manje dostupne javnosti, da bi time odbjegli i opasnost
nabrajanja i ponavljanje ope poznatih injenica: da je Miroslav Krlea ro
en tad i tad, tamo i tamo, da je napisao to i to djelo itd. Dakle, svi mi, ovdje
sakupljeni, kao pristojni ili primjerni graani SFRJ (iz vremena prije apsurda
zajednikih programskih jezgra za srednje kole u SFRJ), znamo bar neke
stvari tko je Miroslav Krlea. To znamo, djelimino izvorno, iz djela pisca,
a znamo i iz veeg broja knjiga, broura, tekstova i komentara i jo iz inspi
rativnih impresija i studija Milana Bogdanovia, pa preko prve monografije

Krlea od ime Buetia, sve do pronicljivih i privlanih knjiga i studija pu
nih izazova, a iji su autori Stanko Lasi, Pregrad Matvejevi, Zvanje rnja,
Ivo Frange, Marijan Matkovi, Marko Risti, Aleksandar Flaker i jo puno,
puno drugih. O Krlei znamo i iz svega onoga to se na makedonskom je
ziku sakupilo o njemu kao odglas ili kritika svijest, iz tekstova Blae Kone
skog, Dimitra Mitreva, Kola aula, Milana urinova itd. Najzad, o Krlei
znamo i iz djela Enesa engia, koji je tu, meu nama, kao njegov zvanini
zastupnik, kao njegov najblii poznavatelj.
Ipak, Miroslav Krlea, u ijem se ogromnom djelu kriju i brojni i zanim
ljivi podaci o Makedoniji, za nau zemlju i za na narod vezan je sa dvije
zlatne karike u njegovom ivotnom lancu, koje uvijek svijetle kao najprepoz
natljiviji punktovi jedne bogate i duge ivotne povijesti.
Naime, rije je o dva trenutka, epifanijski neobina, koja je on po sop
stvenoj elji (sponte sua) naglasio u svojim djelima i biografskim zapisima u
Mom obraunu s njima i u Zastavama te u razgovorima koje smo s njim vodili
1960. i 1979. godine, a koji su potencirani i u djelima Stanka Lasia, Enesa
engia i Aleksandra Flakera. O emu je rije? Prvi je trenutak vezan za mje
sec listopad 1913. godine, kada je Krlea prvi puta, kao dvadesetgodinjak,
boravio u Skopju i umalo izgubio glavu, branei makedonsku kauzu; a drugi je
trenutak vezan za 1979. godinu kada smo mu u Zagrebu, u njegovom domu, u
ime Strukih veeri poezije uruili Zlatni venac SVP, budui zbog bolesti koja
ga je poela muiti nije bio u mogunosti doi u Strugu i primiti nagradu.
Eto, danas, na ovoj promociji ukratko bih elio ukazati na ova dva inte
resantna poglavlja na relaciji Miroslav Krlea i Makedonija, na temelju poda
taka kojima raspolaem a koja su vana i zanimljiva, rekao bih, kljuna pog
lavlja u njegovom ivotu, koja bi i za nau kulturnu javnost imala znaenje
informacije vieg stupnja.
U knjizi Enesa engia Krlea (naklada zagrebake Mladosti i sarajev
skog Osloboenja, 1982.) na stranicama 552553 data je kratka infomacija
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139
o posjeti delegacije SVP u sastavu: Risto Milevski, predsjednik skuptine

Struge, Ante Popovski, predsjednik SVP, Jovan Strezovski, direktor SVP i
Gane Todorovski i Petre Bakevski, lanovi Savjeta Strukih veeri poezije,
koja je ostvarena 19. rujna 1979. godine, u popodnevnim satima.
Taj mi je dan ostao u svjeem sjeanju, kada smo negdje izmeu 12 i 13
sati sa Enesom engiem (neka mi oprosti to mu ime pominjem ve trei
put!) krenuli ka ulici Gvozd br. 23, u Krlein dom da bi ga pozlatili... Sve
nas je, predpostavljam, fasciniralo unutranje ureenje njegovog radnog ka
bineta, pretrpanog knjigama, antikim raritetima, umjetnikim slikama, ko
pijama fresaka, vrijednim relikvijama, ime li sve ne! Ante Popovski, Mijak,
lucidan, brzih refleksa i smisla za odabranu rije, odmah nakon pozdravlja
nja, jo pri ulasku, onako s nogu, dok smo jo uvijek zadihani od penjanja
nebrojenim stubama na ulazu, predajui mu Vijenac u ulozi predsjednika
Savjeta SVP, nije propustio rei:
Jo jedan raritet da bi bila bogatija ova Vaa bogata kolekcija!
Jovan Strezovski dodaje:
Sedamnaest djevojakih ruku je tkalo zlato...
U ulozi velikodunog domaina Krlea nas je lukavo pogledao osmje
hom, nalik onome Petrice Kerempuha, te odsjeno ree:
Nije vano, bitno da je lijep!
Sjedamo. Bela Krlea, supruga pisca koji je pozlaen makedonskim zla
tom, poastila nas je kavom i francuskim konjakom. Dakako, originalnim.
U maloj pauzi ubacujem se predhodno osmiljenom reenicom od pet
rijei (koja je, naime kao i ovo dananje kazivanje, imala svoju ulogu u po
vezivanju sa sutinom ovog promocijskog ina, t.j. objavljivanjem Krleinih
djela na makedonki jezik i sjeanjem na njega). Kaem mu:
Sad ste Makedonac...!
Odmah, rutinom vjetog dramskog autora, Krlea munjevito reagira:
Ta, zaboga, ovo bi vam trebalo biti poznato ja sam to jo od 1913.
godine, tada sam postao Makedonac. Onda kada sam imao samo 20 godina,
rekao sam srpskim oficirima: Gospodo moja, ovo nije Srbija, ovdje se govori
drugim jezikom! Uhapsili su me... Za malo da me strijeljaju...
Prekida, tek za mali predah, pa me zatim pita:
Kada si roen?
Kaem mu. Odmah dodaje: Eto, vidi: ja sam Makedonac petnaest-es
naest godina prije tebe... Nakon toga poinje brzo, teno i izvrsno logino
govoriti o Skopju, Strugi, Bizantu, Anni Komnenoj, o povijesti, o Miladinov
cima, Misirkovu, Vatroslavu Jagiu, o sprsko-bugarskom sporu oko Make
donije. Ne dozvoljava nam da ga prekinemo, a i ne mora. Jasno, pred nama
imamo vrlo krhku linost od 86 godina, i kvalificiranog Makedonca...
Ima neeg impresivnog u svim ovim asocijacijama, poreanih napreac,
o relaciji KrleaMakedonija. Evo zbog ega:
Da bi sudjelovao u Balkanskim ratovima (u Prvom i Drugom) u redovi
ma srpske vojske, Krlea, kao dvadesetogodinjak (roen je 7. sprnja 1893.),
u Makedoniju dolazi kao ratni bjegunac iz austrougarske armije. Dolazi pre
ko Francuske. U Marseilleu ulazi u brod za Solun. Negdje travnja 1913. go
dine, on je u Makedoniji.
O ovim svojim prilikama i neprilikama autor nam govori u knjizi Izlet u
Rusiju iz 1926. godine.
Nekoliko dana kasnije, negdje poetkom svibnja iste godine, Krlea do
lazi u Skopje. U knjizi Davni dani, 1956., (v. str. 148149) biljei da mu se
idejni i politiki horizonti zatvaraju da bi vee predimsvo prepustio smislu
za umjetnost. Eto, u tome je veliki smisao ovog podatka. Krleina skepsa je
ipak roena u Skopju, na makedonskom tlu. Stanko Lasi (vidi: Krlea kro
nologija ivota i djela, Zagreb 1982., str. 104) govori nam da se u potapanju
ideala i u ratnom vihoru umjetnost namee kao mogue rijeenje. Krlea
nam o ovome priopava sljedee:
Godine 1913., mjeseca lipnja, u Skoplju sam o svemu ovome imao ne
obino jasne slike, uvjeren da se sve to moe izraziti stihovima dva i po metra
dugim. U onome trenutku sloma svih ovozemaljskih vrijednosti, djeakih
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141
dragih iluzija, samoobmana i megalomanije, meni se objasnilo da jedina pra

va i tog poziva dostojna misija umjetnika (u takvome kaosu u kakvome mi
ivimo), ne moe da bude drugo, nego da propovjeda ljubav prema ovjeku
kao takvom, bez obzira na meridijane, paralele, boju masti, drave, nacije ili
kontinente. Ne, dakle, za nekog rasnog ili narodnog ovjeka u iskljuivom
smislu, nego za sve ono bijedno i najbijednije ljudsko u nama uope. To je
meni izgledalo da je doprinos jedne civilizacije koje jo nema, drugim umi
ruim civilizacijama, i ja sam bio uvjeren, da je to ono novo ili da bi to trebalo
da bude ono novo, kod nas u naim kobnim kanjenjima, to bi trebalo da nas
uzvitla spiralama duha i zanosa na vii stepen! (Davni dani, 1956., str. 148)
Dakle, jo prije bitke na Bregalnici (1725. V. 1913.) koja e definitivno
pokopati Krleine ideale o bratsvu junoslavenskih naroda, Krlea, ovdje u
Skopju, umjesto slobode, bratstva i kulture susree agresivnu, militaristiku i
ekspanzionistiku dravnu silu (vidi: Lasi, Krlea, str. 104).
Krlea biljei:
Neu da budem onaj arnautski transport izmeu Velesa i Krivolaka
godine 1913. mjeseca juna. Neu da budem policijski pisar skopski koji ure
duje s kuburom u ruci, neu da budem radikalna prevara, ni ova agramerska
glupost... Da bi ovjek mogao izraziti ovo svoje antikanibalsko osjeanje, tre
balo bi da poznaje ovu temu, a zatim i knjievno da je savlada. (Davni dani,
1956, str. 234)
Optuen kao austrijski pijun, Krlea je uhapen u Skopju.
Kroniari biljee ovo (Lasi, engi, Matvejevi), dok sam Krlea ovu
svoju skopsku avanturu vrlo suzdrano opisuje u svom Kratkom ivotopisu
pievom:
Bez dokumenata, priman s nevjericom, osumnjien i uhapen, u ona
dva, tri tjedna dok stie u Skoplje (do Vrhovne komande) doivljava u mjeri
u kojoj mu je potrebno da se ohladi u svom nacionalnom oduevljenju...
Pred sami kraj rata prolazi ga volja za avanturama i ratnim ivotom... (Hr
vatska rapsodija, 1921; str. 159160)
Tako, Skopje u Krleinoj ivotnoj povijesti postaje sudbonosna stanica,

preobraaj, naboj od uspomena, i doivljaj prvog reda koji se nalazi u mno
gim njegovim tekstovima.
I, ne ove 1983. godine, ve tono prije 70 godina, tj. 1913. godine, Krle
a se pribliava Makedoniji, razjanjavajui velike istine o ratu, o ovjeku, o
ljudima i samostalnosti Makedonije.
Uostalom, u romanu Zastave, u etvrtoj knjizi, kroz pisma Joakima (Joja)
Dijaka, osobito u njegovom Drugom skopskom pismu (bez datuma), Krlea nam
poneseno govori o Skopju, o manastiru Sv. Andrija, o Ilindenu i Makedoniji:
A sada, da se raspiem o jednom doivljaju grandioznom, vie od toga,
jedinstvenom, to ga je doista vrijedno bilo doivjeti. Ima, naime, ovdje, po
ovoj nesretnoj zemlji, minijaturnih bazilika, sakrivenih po planinskim gudu
rama, po zabaenim vrletima, gdje je avo rekao laku no svima, i ne bi ovjek
mislio koliko je taj primitivni svijet posazidao ovih hramova. To su zadubi
ne makedonskih baruna, i ovdje kraj Skoplja, desetak kilometara uzvodno uz
Tresku (a Treska je divlji, alpinski torrente, to hui u mranom kanjonu kao
luda voda) visoko iznad ogledala vode, pedesetak metara, na kozjoj stazi, na
hridini stoji takva jedna mala kapela, Sveti Andrea, i tu smo se popeli prole
nedjelje, a vrijedilo je da se vidi i to udo, curiosum mundi iz Treenta.
I ta se ve moe otkriti u ovakvoj jednoj zabaenoj ruevini, pod
prorupljenim krovom, u brlogu, usred ovjeg tora punog sjena, slame, sme
a, balege i govna, ali u potpunom mraku, uz slabu svijetlost svijee (koju
smo sreom bili ponjeli), a vodio me je jedan makedonski ak narednik,
kome su oca Ilindenca ubili ljudi Vane Mihajlova u Solunu jo prije ulaska
srbijanskih eta u Makedoniju. ovjek je ljubavnik ovoga slikarstva: to mu
je neka vrsta, kako da kaem, utjehe za nacionalni ponos i kulturnu svijest...
I ima ovaj bata pravo da je to nae. Nikada se nisam bavio tim pitanjem, a
sad mi se je objasnilo kojeta. Sve je buknulo odjednom s takvom snagom
da, eto, ve dvije nedjelje poslije tog udnog doivljaja, nikako da se otmem
velianstvu svoje impresije.
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...I kao to ne zna, jadna moja, to je znailo biti i glavu izgubiti kao
Ilindenac, tako pojma nema ni o tome to su makedonske freske, a to nisam
znao ni ja, draga moja gospoice, dok mi se nisu prikazale u punom svom
dostojanstvu... Sve je tu krv i sve je tu alost, pa samo krv i samo alost zrae
iz ovih krvavih slika...
Do dananjeg dana dubinu ove tragedije nitko nije opisao, vanost ovih pu
stolovina nikada nitko nee znati ni umjeti ocjeniti, upravo kao to nee znati
ocjeniti ni znaenje nae vlastite pustolovine, kada se, rtvujui sebe, svoju sre
u, da mila moja, svoju ljubav, obmanjujemo da bi ove vode makedonske, ova
Treska, ovaj Vardar, ova Pinja prestale da teku, da se tu nismo mi velevano
pojavili pod ajkaama kao oslobodioci. (Zastave, Beograd, 1969, str. 523524)
U najnovijoj litaraturi (vidi: Aleksandar Flaker, Poetika osporavanja, Zag
reb 1982) uvedena je sintagma: Krlein Makedonac (vidi: str. 142154). Rije je
o Krleinoj pripovijeci In extremis, od 1932. godine, gdje je otkrivena vizija
o Makedoniji i balkanskom prostoru. U ovoj Krleinoj pripovijeci, prema Fla
keru, Makedonac je predstavnik opebalkanskih patnji, kao autentini pred
stavnik prostorne ekstenzije, kao dno adskog cirkulusa (kruga). Krleina vizija
o Makedoniji je vie nego traumatina. Flaker nam istie da glavni lik u pri
povijeci In extremis, Kunej, u dijalogu s Makedoncem koga je sreo tamo neg
dje u maslenicima Kvarnera, kao vojnik na strai pored brijega, konkretizira
balkanski prostor kao prostor nacionalne i socijalne obespravljenosti, prostor
neprekidnih ratova u kojima, seljak (itaj: proletariziran) kome je uskraena
zemlja, samo je objekt, isto tako, balkanskih zastava i kraljeva (str. 148).
Predstavljajui Makedoniju kao dno adskog cirkulusa, glavni junak Kr
leine pripovijetke poslije susreta sa napaenim Makedoncem otvara novi
prostor, kae Flaker, koji nije vie geografski, ve iskljuivo moralni. Krlein
Makedonac govori sa teinom dramatine optube.
Moj stariji brat bio je pod turskom zastavom, pa su doli Srbi i oteli
nam sto i sedam ovaca. A ja sam samo srpskoga kralja sluio tri puta i povu
kao se u Albaniju. Pa su Bugari doli i mater mi odvukli. I sestru. I oca su mi
ubile Komite jo prije. Sve su nam uzeli (str. 331332).
Krlea je svojom knjievnom rjeju, prvi od velikih pisaca na Balkanu i

u Europi, ne kao u nekom novom georafskom prostoru, pokuao otkriti novi
moralni prostor.
U svojim Balkanskim impresijama (1924.), pisanim povodom Albanije i
kao odgovor na knjigu Koste Novakovia Makedonija Makedoncima, u zavr
nom fragmentu, sa motivom operetnog ustolienja prvog Mbret kipnije,
(vidi: Eseji, knjiga 5, str. 91) kao da nam daje optimalnu projekciju balkanskog
prostora o kom je bilo rijei u analizama Flakera o Krleinom Makedoncu.
Krlea se javlja u ulozi proroka aktuelan je i posljije esdeset godina: 1924
1984! Citiranjem ovog prorokog pasusa, iji smisao i u ovim naim danima
dobiva svoju novu reaktualizaciju, zavrit emo i nae izlaganje:
Danas, vie nego ikada, na Balkan treba gledati integralno. Vie nego
ikada, treba vjerovati u balkansko jedinstvo zbog spasa naih dua kao i onih
nevinih rtava koje svakodnevno ginu po krivinama i po planinama balkan
skim. Treba postavljati konstruktivne teze da bi se povezale tranice svih bal
kanskih dolina, uzdu i poprijeko, budui da tamo gdje se uje zvuk stroja,
tamo umire krvna osvjeta i gasi se nepismenost. Treba eznuti za aavim
dimnjacima i osmosatnom radnom danu! Tamo, gdje se stvaraju sindikati i
gdje se razvija klasna borba, tamo se gase panski ceremonijali i mbretovti
na! Ne bajunetima i vjealima, ve knjigama.
Eto, na tom prostoru balkanskom i inferalnom, i ove 1983. Godine, Kr
lea dolazi na makedonsko tlo, sa svojih pet knjiga, tako rei, opet u ulozi im
pozantnog mirotvorca, da bi nas oplemenio snagom svoje umjetnike rijei.
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* * *
Krlea ostaje u naoj svijesti kao autor najsugestivnije knjievne rijei
koju su poznavali junoslavenski narodi odkad se rije biljei. Bio je Voltai
re naeg vremena. Bio je vietomni kroniar svete i proklete Ilirije, bio je
pisac pronicljivog uma i neimar asocijativnih pohoda golih, gladnih i bo
sih slavenskih putnika koji poneseni ivotnim elanom dopjeauju onkraj

Samojeda i onkraj sibirskih tajgi do Splita i Ohrida, bio je pisac koji je dao
svojevrsni peat umjetnosti Titove Jugoslavije, knjievnik koji je zagovarao i
prtvarao u djelo ideju vjene ljepote i apsolutne istine. Miroslav Krlea je bio
najvei duhovni svjetlonosac u povijesti jugoslavenskih naroda.
Ova ponosna zemlja tek e se uzvisiti u svijetu onda kada taj vanjugo
slavenski dio svijeta sazna kakvu su i koliku veliinu punu ivota i svijetlosti
imali nai narodi u svojoj sredini u toku pet ili est desetljea dvadesetog sto
ljea. Veliki moto ovog naeg pisca, najimpozantnijeg formata bio je da knji
evnost ne moe biti izolirana od pojma u kom je uronjena i zove se stvar
nost! I jo je govorio kada je ve knjievnost vezana za stvarnost, u tom
sluaju, ona se zove zemlja u kojoj ivimo i jezik koji govorimo, budui je to
ta materija prima i jedino sredstvo naeg vlastitog knjievnog izraavanja.
Bio je i ostao veliki prijatelj Makedonije i makedonske kulture. Sa impo
zantnog pijedestala svog ogromnog znanja i moralne odvanosti za promatra
nje injenica (kao to je i sam esto znao rei) izjavio je da upravo Nerezi pored
Skopja predstavljaju epohalni datum u povjesti bizantskog i zapadnoeurop
skog slikarstva. A kada smo ga pozlatili strukim poetskim Vijencem, izjavio
je da se kao Makedonac osjea jo od 1913. godine, kada je u Skopju trebao
biti strijeljan zato to je pokuao braniti makedonsku kauzu. Svojom studijom
Illyricum sacrum (1944.) Krlea je potvrdio da zna ne samo o Nerezima, ve
i o Kurbinovu i Starom Nagorianu, o Skopskoj Crnoj Gori i ohridskoj Svetoj
Sofiji, o Stobiju i Herakleji, o bogumilima i balkanskim ratovima, o Ilindenu
i makedonskim traumama i paradoksima. Krlea je bio primjer poznavaoca
Makedonije i to najvieg ranga. Imamo puno razloga i itati ga i potivati ga.2
Prijevod s makedonskog na hrvatski:
Biljana Jovanovska
, . . : , 1987, 232243.
146
: ,
: (),
Tome Serafimovski: figura Miroslava Krlee (detalj), bronza
Tome Serafimovski: figure of Miroslav Krlea (detail), bronze
Katica ulavkova
The Return of Miroslav Krlea
A Hundred Years of His First Coming to Macedonia
Those individuals who surpass their own times belong to more than one
time. Those individuals who enrich a culture never stop being part of that
culture even when they are out of the spotlight and off the centre stage. Their
cultural mission may be transformed, but it cannot disappear. Such an indi
vidual was Miroslav Krlea (18931981), who has not been among the living
now for more than 32 years.
The clock of history has measured 120 years since Krleas birth in Za
greb on 7th July, 1893. Miroslav Krlea has enriched Croatian culture and all
other South Slavonic literatures, including Macedonian culture and litera
ture. Today he is regarded as a prominent contributor to European and world
cultural heritage. It does not matter any longer whether Krleas work be
longs more to the South Slavonic, Balkan, Central European or even the Aus
tro-Hungarian cultural tradition. That work, unfortunately, has been pushed
to the literary and social margins, mostly by the right-wing representatives of
Croatian national discourse in independent Croatia. Ironically, however, one
can hardly imagine the continuity, fullness and value of Croatian culture,
literature, and lexicography in the 20th century without Krlea.
If there is any individual who has left a deep and lasting impact on con
temporary Croatian language and literature, as well as on the cultural strat
151
egies and policies of former Yugoslavia, it is undoubtedly Miroslav Krlea.

He was a poet, novelist, playwright, encyclopaedist, publicist, political com
mentator, and an intellectual interpreter of his own century, a person who
constantly and assiduously created rich and exceptional literature, who cre
ated the dominant opinions and enhanced the processes of development in
Croatia and throughout the territory of former Yugoslavia. His cultural role
undoubtedly matches that of August Strindberg in Nordic dramaturgy and
that of Thomas Mann for Germanic literatures. Miroslav Krlea expanded
the boundaries of the poetic word; he established the most representative
forms of Yugoslav existentialism in the novel and in drama; he generated
Croatian modernism by applying methods to achieve distance from tradi
tion and from predominant stereotypes. He introduced methods in writing
that include historicism, psychologism, autobiographism, essayism, lyri
cism, theatricalism, and reflections of the humanist left ideology, but also
reminiscences of the society which was dying away He possessed the par
adigms and the methodology of lexicographic encyclopaedic work in former
Yugoslavia and was a living example of the fact that modern encyclopaedism
was possible without excluding the aesthetic code, imagination, and fiction.
Today Krlea is returning home. In the days when independent Cro
atia entered the European Union in July 2013, the Croatian and European
public recalled the visions Krlea cherished about the future of the Euro
pean Idea and his always plausible constellations of European civilization.
Post nubile Phoebus. After all the euphoric, traumatic misconceptions, con
flicts, and paradoxes, the South Slavonic realms have begun to articulate a
more rational, acceptable and dialogical logos. Cultural memory should no
longer be obstructed. The freedom of memory is an introduction to a new,
contemporary re-reading of inherited literary and cultural values, and, in
that context, of re-interpreting the literary opus Krlea left behinda pro
cess that can raise our spirits. The home of Miroslav and Bela Krlea will yet
again be open for new dialogues among Croatian, Central European, South
Slavonic and European perspectives and histories. A new light will be cast
upon those segments of the past that might overlap with those of the future,
upon the points where history repeats itself or prophetically announces the
future. Such points register the existence of great individuals like Miroslav
Krlea, an exceptional shared historical figure of all Yugoslav peoples and
culturesneither less of a Croat, nor more of a Yugoslav, and a little bit of a
Macedonian.
Miroslav Krlea returns again to Macedonia. And he rightly belongs to
it. He enriched this culture, too. He inscribed himself in its more recent his
tory with his emphatic love of the Macedonian medieval arts. He generated a
consciousness that Glagolitic literacy and culture constituted all Slavic iden
tities, especially along the route from Macedonia, to Bosnia and Herzegovi
na and Croatia. He also expressed deep sympathy for all the historical and
national tragedies of the Macedonian people, for their enforced division and
ensuing injustices. He always showed great interest in the development of
Macedonian literary and cultural modernity. He developed a clear under
standing of Macedonian identity and selfhood, bearing throughout his life
his own Macedonian scar after having had to face the absurdity of the Ser
bian campaign in Macedonia during the Balkan Wars, conceiving his own
vision for the publication of a separate Macedonian encyclopaedia, etc. Some
say that even Krleas kin may be traced in the vicinity of the Dojran Lake.
This symbolical and yet indicative and necessary return of Miroslav
Krlea to Macedonia has been achieved after an invitation of the Macedo
nian sculptor Tome Serafimovski, a homegrown Macedonian but a Croa
tian by his format of education and his familial, existential, linguistic, and
cultural ambience. It was on his initiative that two excellent academic texts
were written on the life and work of Miroslav Krlea: the first one by Goran
Kalogjera, professor at Rijeka University and a foreign member of the Mac
edonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the second one by Boo Rude,
an essayist, publicist and publisher from Zagreb. Goran Kalogjera produced
152
153
a narrative regarding Krleas visits to Skopje and to Macedonia: his first visit
in 1913 just before the outbreak of the First World War, when as a defector
from the Austro-Hungarian army he enlisted in the Serbian forces only to
understand how absurd their campaign was in what they called Sothern
Serbia and to express his belief that the Macedonians were not Serbs but a
separate people with their own distinct language (a belief which endangered
his life and landed him briefly in prison); and his second visit in 1939 on the
occasion of the premiere of his play In the Camp on the stage of the Skopje
Theatre; and his third visit when he toured the Macedonian historical and
cultural monuments and met the Macedonian political and literary elite. Af
ter that he wrote about Macedonia in several of his works and articles. He
was also the co-organizer (together with Dime Koco) of an exhibition of
Macedonian medieval arts in Paris. Boo Rude has prepared an excellent
and very thorough study on Krleas European and Croatian spiritual hori
zons, including his attitude towards Macedonia viewed from a relevant con
temporary perspective on the development of the European and the Yugo
slav concept of a community of various peoples. Both Rude and Kalogjera
make use of Gane Todorovskis speech on the occasion of the Macedonian
publication of Krleas Selected Works in five volumes (1983), where Todor
ovski referred to Krleas relationship with Macedonia.
The concept of this special edition on Krlea and Macedonia, which
marks the 120th anniversary of his birth, is based on the idea of commemo
rating the anniversary and historical importance of Miroslav Krlea as a key
figure in Croatian culture and of his study and affirmation of Macedonian
culture. Consequently, the texts in this book are published in three languag
es: Croatian, Macedonian, and English. They have not been published pre
viously, except for the text of Gane Todorovskis inspirational speech, full
of personal reminiscences and interpretations of Krleas texts (In Extremis,
Balkan Impressions, Flags, etc.). However, without Todorovskis text this book
would lose its spiritual wholeness, would not be able to articulate its ideo
logical essence, notable in Krleas profoundly emotional, almost prophetic,

recognition of the Macedonian national, linguistic and cultural being. He
achieved that notion when he was only twenty years old and would cherish
it throughout his life, supporting it with a number of scientific arguments.
This book has been financially supported by the Trifun Kostovski
Foundation, fully approved and supported by the Macedonian Academy of
Sciences and Arts. This book is the least we could do to pay due respect to
the personality and work of Miroslav Krlea, one of the greatest and closest
friends to Macedonia in the 20th century. As the saying goes: once a friend,
always a friend.
154
155
Skopje, November 2013
Goran Kalogjera
Krlea in Skopje in Three Acts
Act I. Skopje, 1913
:
,
Tome Serafimovski:
figura Miroslava Krlee, bronza
Tome Serafimovski:
figure of Miroslav Krlea, bronze
Not diligent enough, smart, not enough open, nervous. Sufficiently dili
gent, somewhat stubborn, closed in on himself. Serious, good-natured, some
what slow. Averagely gifted. Very sensitive, still unformed personality. When
approached well, responds well. Significantly inclined to tenacity, but tries
to cover it with sensitivity. Wistful by nature, proud. Involved in philosophy,
though aware of its impractical outcome. The wrong conclusions drawn from
there, he applies to other things, even to life. Consequently, he produces noth
ing, despite his capability. He does not belong here.
These are the evaluation notes young Krlea received from his superi
ors after his first semester at Ludovica Military Academy.1 Under the heading
Features of character and mood, it says: Somewhat withdrawn, but with ener
getic character, serious, childish at times, difficult and stubborn, self-conscious,
arrogant, pensive, euphoric.2 Under Capability, diligence special skills it
says: Very talented, with unruly beliefs, insufficiently diligent, somewhat super
ficial, indulged in abstract ideas, not interested in military subjects, almost no
The evaluators were: first, Lieutenant Dome, Professor Lesak, Captain Tot, First Lieutenant Hajto, Ma
jor Dobrentej, Lieutenant Vamosh, and Captain Klimko. See in: Lasi, Stanko: Krlea Kronologija
ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982, p. 100.
2
Ibid., p. 101. On the basis of the text: Zelmanovi, ore. Njihov obraun s njim, Veernji list, 8. 12.
1973, p. 7.
1
157
prospects of becoming a good soldier.3 Captain Klimko believes Krlea is not

worth having in the military academy. First Lieutenant Kranenbrock notes
categorically that he is not good for the army. And Captain Orban concludes
in a laconic military manner that he is a knowledgeable yet lousy soldier.4
The evaluations of his superiors were certainly not the reasons for his de
fection from the Ludovica Military Academy. Krleas physical and psycho
logical characteristics and predispositions could neither make a soldier of
him nor an officer. He realized this fact early enough. There was no room for
him in the army barracks. His odious feelings about the army, his repulsive
attitude towards the militarism in general, Krlea would explain on several
occasions: In the army barracks there is as much beating as on the battlefield.
Either with sabre or with boots and hands. Tying knots on the extremities. A
very heavy punishment: the mans arms are tied crosswise behind his back and
hanged on a pole so that he can barely touch the ground with his feet. His own
weight produces so much pain in his body that he often collapses. The soldiers
were often punished like dogs by being tied like balls of yarn: left hand tied to
the ankle of the right leg and vice versa. They were to remain like that for more
than nine hours and, after everything, dumped into a trench. The cause of this
punishment lack of respect towards his superiors.5
What follows is Krleas evidence which, in a dramatic way, relates him to
his stay in Skopje, Macedonia: From the very beginning of my journey I found
myself tied, chained, imprisoned, waiting for my name to be called, which meant
I was to face the firing squad. All human fear, like that of a hare, is gathered in his
arsehe would dart like an arrow, but is tightly chained.6According to Stanko
Lasi, one of his biographers, Krlea left the Academy because he knew about
the events in Serbia and wanted to be personally involved in them. It meant put
ting an end to his previous kind of life, departure from his fathers desires, giv
ing the whole incident a deep emotional note. Bearing in mind that as a result of
the Balkan Wars the borders were closed, he had to find another route in order
to reach Southern Serbia. He first came to Paris with the intention of boarding
a ship in Marseilles and reaching his destination, Skopje, via Thessaloniki.
There is yet another version explaining his defection from the Academy.
From Krleas interpretation of the event it becomes evident that he came to
Serbia by chance because he failed to join a colonial army.7 Lasi disagrees
with this version found in the editorial of New Europe because he believes
that Krlea had no intention of making his way to any of the British colonies
and therefore discards that statement as incorrect and hastily written.8 It is be
yond any doubt, however, that Krlea found himself in Paris at the beginning
of May 1913 residing in Hotel Rue de la Harpe and going through a very dif
ficult emotional period. After that he boarded a ship in Marseilles and arrived
at the port of Thessaloniki at the beginning of June. There he acquired forged
documents enabling him to travel to Skopje. He remembers his short stay in
Thessaloniki by another beating he received there: The guards of His Majesty
(King Constantine, by then already dead) beat me horribly with their rifle-butts
when I tried to peep through the grid of the iron fence of the Royal Palace Ma
ria on the top of the Thessaloniki Fortress, with my insolent, plebeian boldness.9
Several days later, Krlea found himself in Skopje.10 Here is what engi
writes about it: He arrived in Skopje in June 1913 as a defector from the Lu
dovica Military Academy in order to join the Serbian army as a volunteer.11
Krlea himself clarified this event in his life, saying: Deeply affected by the
Editorial in Nova Evropa (ed. Krlea), Hrvatska rapsodija, 1921, 159.
Lasi, Stanko. Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982, 102.
9
Ibid., (from Izlet u Rusiju, 1926, p. .3), p. 104.
10
The reconstruction of the journey was taken from Lasi, Stanko. Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada,
Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982, p. 102.
11
engi, Enes: S Krleom iz dana u dan, 6, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, . 106.
7
8

5

6

3
4
Ibid., p. 101.
Zelmanovi, ore. Njihov obraun s njim, Veernji list, 8.12.1973, 7.
Matvejevi, Predrag. Stari i novi razgovori s Krleom, Spektar, Zagreb, 1982, p. 107.
Ibid., p. 107.
158
159
wave of international political crisis as a result of the Balkan War, in the spring
of nineteen thirteen, overwhelmed by deep and unresolvable inner conflict, I
managed to dislodge myself to Serbia and took the risk, as a defector, to enlist
in the Serbian army. I handed my application to volunteer in it on the basis
of my thorough reports about Peshta and Pechuj at the outbreak of the Sec
ond Balkan War in June, 1913.12 Instead of being accepted wholeheartedly,
Krlea was accused of being an Austrian spy: As I could no longer wait the
response to my application (after having submitted all my military papers with
it), I went to the High Command in Skopje without any documents in order
to resolve in person the issue of my future engagement. There I was met with
suspicion and mistrust and was immediately arrested as an unknown defector,
without documents, on the grounds of espionage, infected with dysentery and
threatened with being placed in the Cholera Ward of the hospital riddled with
plague. Gendarmes, prison cells, hotel internment, interrogations, defector sus
pected of espionage in a war zone, placed in custody of the High Command, no
documents, in total darkness, I looked deep into the eyes of death.13
This event was also mentioned during the visit to Gvozd by the delegation
of Macedonian writers from the Struga Poetry Evenings on the occasion of
delivering him the Golden Wreath Award of the festival. When Gane Todor
ovski told Krlea that from that day on he was a Macedonian, Krlea replied:
My goodness, you should know that I have been a Macedonian since 1913. I
became a Macedonian when I was only 20. Then I told the Serbian officers: If
you allow me, gentlemen, this is not Serbia. These people here speak a different
language! They put me in prison and almost took me to the firing squad14
The account of the same event as presented by engi is the following: Now
you are a Macedonian, said Ante Popovski. I became a Macedonian long
before you did. When were you born? In 1931. This is what happened to
Ibid., Krlea, Miroslav: Moj obraun s njima, Osloboenje, Sarajevo, Mladost, Zagreb, 1983, . 223.
Ibid., . 223.
14
Todorovski, Gane. Neodloni ljubopitstva, Misla, Skopje, 1987, p. 236.
12
13
160
me: I went to Skopje in 1913 to enlist as a volunteer in the Serbian army and
just before the Bregalnica battle. During the second day of my stay in the hotel
I started arguing with the Serbian officers that no one spoke Serbian there and
much to my great surprise, I was arrested the following morning. Did they tie
you up? asked Popovski. They did, but not for long. But it does not matter.
What happened was quite normal. I came with false documents, that is travel
documents. They were forged and I openly said that I had no identity in a hotel,
among Serbian officers. And moreover, I said to them that no one spoke Serbian
there and that the language of the people was not Serbian. So what would they
think I was doing there?15 Accused of espionage, Krlea avoided the death pen
alty thanks to a high-ranking Serbian officer. I was saved by a man, an artillery
major (or perhaps a first-class captain), who served in the High Command. He
was the only person who believed my claim that I was not an Austrian spy, that I
truly handed in my documents from Peshta and Pechuj in Thessaloniki (which, I
was told, had been lost). That man sent me to Belgrade accompanied by his per
sonal cavalry gendarme with a letter addressed to the military authorities there,
asking them to take me to the Ministry of War and (if possible) to determine
my identity.16 Krlea describes how the meeting with General Vasi went: He
received me that afternoon in a small office, after lunch. He sat in a simple mili
tary chair, wearing a sweatshirt. In front of the house there was a fountain with
goldfish in its basin; a palemonk sat in front of it, gazing at the fish. The spout
splashed water drops about and General Vasi in his shirt, a cigarette smoking in
his hand, looked at me with a cannibal look: one more Austrian spy.17
The first act in Skopje ended happily for Krlea. As soon as he was es
corted to Zemun, where he proved his identity and was allowed to return to
engi, Enes. Krlea ples na vulkanima, 3, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, p. 275.
Lasi, Stanko. Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982, p. 106 (the text was
taken from Moj obraun s njima, 1932, p. 151).
17
Ibid., p. 105. (The text was taken from: Fragmenti iz dnevnika, 14. III. 1946., Svjedoanstva, 22. III.
1952, p. 2).
15
16
161
Austria, he was arrested by the Austrian border police with an issued war
rant. He was taken for questioning and then given permission to leave for
Zagreb, where he arrived in the middle of 1913. What were the consequences
of this nearly fatal adventure on Krlea? He came to Skopje at the time of the
Second Balkan War; his youthful, romantic ideals had drawn him, like many
other young people, to join Serbia in its righteous struggle, but these ideals
soon waned. All about him sheer horrorthe terror of the Serbian soldiers
over the oppressed people that he immediately understood were not Serbian.
The bloodbath of the Bregalnica battle undermined Krleas ideals about the
brotherhood of the South Slavonic people. Instead of freedom, brotherhood and
culture, Krlea in Skopje met with an aggressive, militarist and expansionist
power.18 As a result of this experience, he later remarked: I did not want to
have any role in the Arnauts transport between Veles and Krivolak in June
1913. I did not want to be a police scribe in Skopje who handles matters with
a revolver in hand; I dont want to be a part of a radical treachery, nor of an
ordinary nonsense, nor anything to do with the Bauer Cafe, or the Arbeiterhilfs
Company19 Krleas revulsion is evident and understandable. It is amazing
how Krlea, as young as he was then, managed to anticipate the problem that
would persist for more than thirty years after these events. He realized that
there was no Southern Serbia and that on the territory of that name there
was another nation who spoke a different language than Serbian, a nation
torn apart by its neighbours in the worst possible way. Consequently, Krlea
very seriously (not jokingly at all) pointed out to his visitors from Macedonia
that he had become a Macedonian long before they had: Not that I had any
highly developed consciousness, but I became a Macedonian before you did.20
Ibid., p. 104.
Ibid., p. 105.
20
engi, Enes: Krlea ples na vulkanima, 3, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, 273. It remains unclear whether
it was Gane Todorovski, as he claims in his book, who had the conversation with Krlea or, as engi
claims, Krlea addressed Ante Popovski, the president of the Struga Poetry Festival Council.
18
19
162
The Battle of Bregalnica was a clash between two South Slavonic peo
ples which caused the tragedy of a third. It cleared Krleas horizons and
ultimately destroyed his youthful ideals about the friendship and unity of
the South Slavonic peoples. However, before the blood spilt near Kumanovo
could dry up, only eight months later, the Bregalnica battle June (1913) dis
persed like mortar all the lyrical illusions of several generations who had been
convinced that they were all elements of the common existence of the South
Slavs. From the cinder and smoke of the Bregalnica battle we learned that the
cynical Machiavellianism of the small Balkan dynasties was a reality, and that
Lisinskis musical composition about the Ilyrian phantasmagoria, the Gjakovo
idyl or the Prizren nostalgia had been mere rhetoric.
The suffering, horror and absurd deaths he witnessed only strengthened
young Krleas conviction as to how to proceed: In that moment of sheer col
lapse of all earthly values, of all my childish illusions, self-deceptions and meg
alomaniac ideas, it became clear to me that the only real and plausible mission
of the artist (in the present chaos of our lives), cannot be anything else but to
preach love for our fellow human beings, disregarding the meridians and the
parallels that divide them, the colour of their skin, the country, the nation, the
continents they live in, etc.21
Viewed in this context, the fragments that appear in different works of
Krlea should not seem puzzling to us, as they were really inspired by the
horrors he had seen on Macedonian soil. However, this presents a theme for
another analysis. What matters most here is the fact that throughout 1913,
Krlea established a relationship with the south of the Balkans, became in
volved in the wars, experienced the destruction, the death of innocent and
oppressed people, witnessed the bestial bloodshed between two previous al
lies; all of these shattered his previous ideals for brotherhood and solidarity
among the South Slavonic peoples. Krlea lost his youthful ideals, but what
Lasi, Stanko. Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982, p. 10.
21
163
remained was his gained awareness that on the territory which was being
ravaged, on the territory where he had almost lost his life, there lived a peo
ple that did not speak Serbian and consequently were not Serbian. In fact,
Krlea stated this notion in front of the Serbian officers. Krleas traumas
from 1913 (although he later wrote about these events with a dose of irony
and light-heartedness), together with the horrendous experience of the Bre
galnica bloodbath, left a significant and deep trace in his soul, as evident in
his literary works inspired by Macedonia and its tragic fate.
Second Act. Skopje, 1937
Seven days after the premiere of the play In the Camp (Osijek, 12th Jan
uary, 1937), Krlea left for Skopje. The reason for this journey was to carry
out the preparations, rehearsals and premiere of the same play at the theatre
in Skopje. According to Lasi, Krlea visited several rehearsals and spent his
time sightseeing. He wanted to attend a goose fight in the Gypsy quarter, but
it was cancelled due to the illness of the champion goose, Musa the Fighter.
While waiting for the fight with his friends, which was eventually cancelled,
Krleas attention was caught by a Gypsy icon. Ljubomir Dobrianin notes
that the primitive quality of the drawing appealed so much to Krlea that he
wanted to have a copy of the same icon.22
Krleas play achieved great success. The performance was sold out. But
despite the ovations and the long and loud applause, Krlea did not appear on
the stage.23 Krleas second visit to Skopje had been much more relaxed than
the previous, dangerous one in 1913. In late 1936, Krlea received an offer
for his play In the Camp to be produced in Skopje in addition to Osijek and
Dobrianin, Ljubomir. M., Veliki uspjeh komada U logoru from g. Miroslava Krlee u Skopju, Pravda,
23.I.1937.
23
Lasi, Stanko. Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada, Grafiki zavod Hrvatske, 1982, p. 264.
22
164
Belgrade. In a letter to his wife Bela, Krlea expressed his hesitation about
going to Skopje: I still dont know whether Ill go to Skopje, but then in anoth
er (third) letter to her he says: The management of the Skopje theatre invited
me to the dress rehearsal of my play In the Camp, so tomorrow, on Sunday, at
11:00 Ill take the express train to Skopje where I should arrive about 9:00 in
the evening.24 After spending the night in Skopje, Krlea wrote another letter
to his wife while in the office of the manager of the King Aleksandar Theatre.
In it he wrote: Last night I arrived at Skopje after nine hours on the train. Now
we sit by the banks of the Vardar and I hear how that Serbian river warbles
along its way, as if the heavenly Phoenix has spread its white wings (I dont
mean the Vardar River, but make an allusion to the eagle in Ilis poem), So,
be it as it may, I now take a break after the dress rehearsal of the first act of the
play which was of 40% less the quality it had at the Osijek performance. I sit
with people in uniforms that remind me of autumn25
During his second visit to Skopje, Krlea evidently felt very satisfied.
Unlike the first visit when he almost lost his life, during this second visit he
found himself in a world much closer to himthe world of the theatrical
stage: Kerosene lamps glimmered in the wardrobes that reeked of grappa, on
ions, grilled liver, mutton, and of the gasses the actors released through their
intestines (mixed up with grilled meat-balls, kebabs, garlic and other meze),
while drunk Macedonians and Thracians wearing the same type of scherzo
peasant shoes and fur-caps threw rotten potatoes at the semi-naked singers,
and at the rough, dirty, drooling oek dancers at Jone-Inn, opposite the
church of the Holy Saviour.26 As for the theatrical performance, it seems that
besides the pleasure he found in the local folklore, he was also happy with the
performance of his play: Last night was the premiere. Here it was regarded as
the best performance at the Skopje theatre (since the beginning of the world),
Bojadiski, Ognen, Krlea i Makedonija (fragments), Prometej, Zagreb, 2005, p. 184.
Ibid., p. 185.
26
Ibid., p. 187.
24
25
165
and the premiere success was regarded as the biggest success of Skopje. There
was greater outburst of temperament and ovations, i.e. screaming, to be more
exact, than in Osijek, where it was also rather loud. The director of the play, Mr.
timac, is a young man ambitious above average, but to my notion, unintelli
gent and un a strange mixture of temperament and, for instance, capability
(Id say). The performance was sold out two days before, but there were still
tickets to be bought (if anyone was interested). The performance was regarded
as a fantastic event and there was evidence of it anywhere one cared to look.27
From the letters that Krlea sent to his wife Bela, it is obvious that he felt
pleasant in Skopje, that he became relaxed and greatly enjoyed the colourful
Balkan folklore in its directness and intimacy, free from artificial etiquette.
He certainly enjoyed the fame and honour, as the numerous positive reac
tions of the audiences in Osijek and Skopje fed his ego and his specific kind
of narcissism. This is what he says about it: Regarding my coming to Skopje, it
is clear to me that in all these different and various cities there live many people
who read my works and want to hear my words, so I find it necessary that their
prejudices about the role of the writer should be cleared up by means of lectures.
The people expect a lot from him, so it may be important to work on that issue
more intensely than before. Both in Osijek and Skopje, the audience found the
Camp an event that would certainly achieve success on the stage, so what the
newspapers bark about (there are such barking newspapers) is utterly unim
portant.28
Upon his return to Belgrade, Krlea wrote again to Bela about his ex
cellent impressions, saying that the moments he had experienced in Skop
je would remain among his pleasant memories: Everything I saw and ex
perienced in Skopje was worth seeing and experiencing. The impressions are
so great that I resolutely decided to remain longer here, in the south, where
everything is so dynamic that it all seems unbelievable. As for the performance
Ibid., pp. 1856.
Ibid., p. 186.
(I have already written about it in my previous letter from Skopje), all went
very well and there remains nothing else to me but be very content.29
Third act. Skopje, 1960.
In 1960, Krlea decided to visit Skopje for a third time in his life.30 Ac
counts differ as to the reasons for his visit. Personally, I am ready to accept
the reasons given by the writer Kole aule. He was a really good friend
of Krleas, which is evident from his correspondence with Enes engi.
Among other things, aule wrote the following: The reason for Krleas visit
to Macedonia, besides its being a desire he had cherished for years, resulted
from a meeting I had with him in Zagreb. On that occasion I had elaborated for
him the situation of Macedonian literature and told him that there was a real
danger of the modernist wing of writers gathered around the magazine Raz
gledi, whose editor-in-chief I was, being persecuted. Krlea listened to me very
carefully and then asked me a series of questions, deeply pondering over my
answers and promising to come to Macedonia to assist in the problem. The for
mal reason for his visit was to meet the Editing Board of the Encyclopaedia.31
The coming of Krlea in Macedonia was poorly covered by the media,
but what matters most is the fact that during the days of his stay he talked
to the Macedonian modernists, a group of younger poets who tried to free
themselves from party censorship and literary clichs. His journey around
Macedonia is no less important because it would later result in the wonder
ful essayistic prose about the beauty of Macedonian historical, cultural, and
church heritage. His stay in Skopje must have provoked some contradictory
rumours within the leading political circles, especially between those around
Ibid., p. 186.
He arrived on 25th April, and left on 2nd May, 1960.
31
engi, Enes, S Krleom iz dana u dan Krlea post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, p. 121.
29
30
27
28
166
167
Lazar Kolievski and those who belonged to the more liberal culturalists.
However, Krlea managed to smooth the situation over without producing
any great tension and to make the relationship between the two sides toler
able. It should also be noted that Krleas companion and guide during his
visit of Macedonia was Dime Koco, an exceptional art historian who had
previously worked with Krlea on the organization of the Exhibition of Me
dieval Art from the territory of Yugoslavia in Paris. Here is what Koco writes
about this: On departure, he expressed his wish to visit Macedonia again and
to become better acquainted with the artistic values of our medieval art, espe
cially the art of Ohrid. He also uttered several sentences of praise as regards
Macedonian contemporary art, which he had the opportunity to see in the
Skopje Art Gallery and at the annual art exhibition of the Macedonian artists
organized in the Art Pavilion.32
This account of Dime Koco confirms the fact that Krlea genuinely
wanted to acquire more knowledge about Macedonia. He did not have a clear
understanding about the situation, which is best seen in the account Kole
aule gave Ognen Bojadiski.33 aule recalls his discussions with Krlea
and the conversation he had with his wife, Vangja aule, who then worked
on the book From Recognition to Negation: Bulgarian and Macedonian Rela
tionships. According to aule, Krlea had sufficient knowledge of the issue,
but lacked better and more detailed insight, so he wanted to obtain more
details from the conversation with Vangja aule. He asked her what she
wanted to prove with that book, and she answered that she wanted to eluci
date the hypocrisy and insincerity of Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia.34
The unofficial meeting of Krlea and aule with the representatives of
the modernist current in Macedonian literature was also very interesting.
The Macedonian modernists insisted on greater artistic freedom in choice of
32
subject, outside the influence of ideological concepts and influences, which

created a certain ideological resistance among the ruling political circles.
That was actually the real reason why aule, who had the credibility of a
revolutionary, could take the liberty of asking Krlea for such a meeting in
his apartment. Certainly, this non-protocol informal meeting irritated the
ruling establishment, which is evident from the ensuing correspondence
between Krlea and Kolievski. However, according to aule, the meeting
had been more than successful: I met Krlea immediately after his arrival in
Skopje and we made an agreement to meet the editorial board of the magazine
Razgledi and its most renowned contributors. In order to avoid any official
reactions, we agreed to have the meeting in my apartment. So it happened. At
the beginning of the discussion Krlea asked questions, a question to each of the
present authors: he asked them their names, what they wrote and published,
etc. He operated so methodically it inspired awe in me because the present
authors were mainly young people. Then we talked about Macedonian mod
ernism, which in many ways differed from modernism in other literatures for
the simple reason that it asked for democratization, freedom from the existing
pressures that here, in Macedonia, had elements of parochial methods.35 After
this meeting, aule experienced certain inconveniences that Krlea tried
to minimize as much as he could. The following day, on Krleas request,
they both took a promenade through Skopje Old Bazaar. Their promenade,
according to aule, lasted a rather long time. They stopped at a number of
shops, asked about the goods and talked to the tradesmen. Krlea showed
great curiosity about everything he had seen, conversed with them about
various issues and expressed his great excitement.36 Krleas meeting with
the young authors, the support he gave them and their ideas without any
reservation, and even protection, if necessary, made aule believe that it
was of great importance: Despite the great effort on behalf of the institutions to
33
35
Ibid., p. 109.
Bojadiski, Ognen, Krlea i Makedonija (fragments), Prometej, Zagreb, 2005.
34
Ibid., p. 103.
168
engi, Enes, Krlea post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, p. 120.

Ibid., p. 121.
36
169
give Krleas visit the most possible official character, he tried the best he could
during the meetings with us, during the discussions, and even during the walk
through Skopje, to give his visit a specific character of support for our ideas
and wishes. And that had an immediate effect. Some of the prepared plans for
chastising the modernists were dropped (during one such meeting of the offi
cials, both political and police intervention had been demanded), postponed or
cancelled altogether.37
Gane Todorovski also gives his own account about Krleas visit: I was not
informed that Krlea was going to visit our faculty. In the seminar hall where I
carried out oral exams in Croatian literature. I asked Borislav Naumovski, who
was a student of mine then, to talk about the plays of Miroslav Krlea. At the
very same moment the door of the seminar opened and there appeared Krlea
himself, accompanied by the head of the Department of Serbo-Croatian lan
guage and literature, Professor Haralampie Polenakovi, and by the President
of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Professor Blae Koneski. The
student lost his breath and fell silent. He could not pronounce a single word.38
During his visit to Skopje, Krlea had also the opportunity to meet Lazar
Kolievski and other political dignitaries. engi writes that in his conversa
tion with Kolievski he expected Krlea to make his visit to Macedonia much
earlier, but it was eventually made possible in 1960: He came with an already
prepared programme about the visit. He was, above all, interested in seeing the
development of Macedonia, its people, their life, the situation in the arts, and
especially the Macedonian frescoan exhibition of which he had organized in
Paris in 1950. The dinner given in his honour in Skopje was attended by a large
number of writers and academics. In their presence he revealed to us the exist
ence of an interesting study about the Macedonian nation, written long ago by
the famous Slavicist, Karl Chron.39
Ibid., p. 121.
Ibid., p. 105.
39
Ibid., p. 111.
37
38
170
While in Skopje, Krlea balanced the situation between the official po

litical elite and the young liberal intellectuals, at the same time doing a great
favour to the Macedonian cultural and national heritage. Later he sent the
Institute for National History a list of bibliographical entries related to Mace
donian issues found in the catalogue of the Lexicographic Institute in Zagreb.
I believe I am neither the first nor the last to have investigated the rela
tionship between Krlea and Macedonia to conclude that Krlea cherished
great sympathies for the Macedonian people and did, as much as time al
lowed him, a great deal for Macedonia and the Macedonians. Let us remind
ourselves of the Exhibition of Medieval Arts of the Yugoslav peoples in Paris,
where Krlea himself wrote the text on Macedonian Medieval Arts, and the
help he provided on the Macedonian section of the Encyclopaedia, as well
as a number of literary works in which he speaks about Macedonia and its
tragic fate, about its beauty and the values of its medieval art, about its people
and their mentality, so appealing and dear to him.
At the beginning of this text I posed myself a question as to how much
Krlea had a clear view, at the age of twenty, about conditions in the Bal
kans and about the situation of the Macedonian people, whom he regard
ed, as early as then, as a people who were not Serbian because the language
they spoke in Skopje had not been Serbian. It is difficult to relate to this
with certainty; however, it is clear that what Krlea saw and experienced in
1913 destroyed any illusions he had entertained about the unity of the South
Slavonic peoples. Everything he had seen and lived through must have in
formed his thinking about a country which had been devastated, about a
people ravaged in the name of whoever and whatever in the name of justice
and trutha perspective that would echo throughout his writings.
Gane Todorovski characterized Miroslav Krleas relationship with Mac
edonia in the following words: In his study Illyricum sacrum (1944), Krlea
reiterates his notions not only about Nerezi but also the churches in Skopska
Crna Gora, the St Sophia church in Ohrid, the church in Kurbinovo, as well as
171
the ancient sites of Stobi and Heraclea, the Bogomil movement and the Bal
kan wars, the Ilinden Uprising and the Macedonian traumas and paradoxes.
Krlea was a rare example of an utmost connoisseur of Macedonia.40
Macedonia was close to Krleas heart. Whenever he had the opportuni
ty he addressed Macedonia in his literary works. The fact that he enjoyed its
nature, its cities, and its medieval monuments is best seen in his essays Viag
go in Pelagonia, where he gives an account of how, guided by the great con
noisseur of arts Dime Koco, he came to know the essential, true Macedonia.
He was and remained to be, as Gane Todorovski claims, a great and true
friend of Macedonia, the Macedonian people and the Macedonian culture.
Epilogue
My older brother fought under the Turkish flag, then the Serbs came and
took a hundred and seven sheep from my family. I served the Serbian king three
times and withdrew with his army to Albania. Then came the Bulgarians and
took my mother and my sister away, whereas my father was killed before by the
komitadjis. I have nothing and no one now.
Krlea, Miroslav, In extremis, novella, Knjievna republika, 1923.
Boo Rude
KRLEA, THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2013
Krleas European Horizons
There is almost no republic or province from the former Yugoslav fed
eration, nor a significant European cultural environment that did not mark
the 120th anniversary of the birth of Miroslav Krlea, one of the most prolific
Croatian authors, one of the most influential Yugoslav writers and one of
the most significant European artists of the twentieth century, with theat
rical performances, symposia, literary nights, festivals, radio shows and TV
shows, translations, reprints, proceedings or special editions. With his work
and his greatness, he has so significantly occupied our artistic, cultural and
social horizon that it is impossible to neglect or overlook him, despit the fact
that many desire to do so.
Additionally, hardly any writer, before or after Krlea, in Yugoslavia or
the world, has expressed his or her artistic talent so creatively in all liter
ary genres (poetry, prose, drama, novels, essays, feuilletons, polemic writ
ing, pieces of criticism, travel literature and diary, magazines and editorial
work) as did Miroslav Krlea, remaining consistent to his aesthetic affini
ties, ethical principles and intellectual views.1
Despite his large oeuvre, Krlea (18931981) did not live to see the publication of his Collected Works.
There were several attempts, but they all finished unsuccessfully. In Koprivnica in 1923, only three
books appear at Voshicki, and after that Krlea terminated the contract. Minerva from Zagreb in
1932 offered printing 18 books, published 9, which was followed by a police restraint and the appre
Todorovski, Gane. Neodloni ljubopitstva, Misla, 1987, pp. 242, 243.
40
172
173
Besides the many poetic and literary masterpieces, such as: The Ballads of
Petrica Kerempuh, The Banners, the Return of Philip Latinowicz, The Glembays
etc., which ensure his place in the anthology of world literature, Krlea, as
an erudite, polyglot2 and perhaps the last polymath on these territories,
also provided the academic, cultural and social community of the Croatian/
Serbian/ Slovenian/ Bosnian/ Montenegrin/ Macedonian linguistic domains
a legacy of series of encyclopaedia editions of lasting and universal value3.
The exemplary encyclopaedia that Krlea frequently referred to was
Diderots Enciklopdie ou Dictionnaire raisonn... It is not difficult to un
derstand the reasons for that inclination. Didrots encyclopaedia preceded
hension of the manager Bruk. Then, in 1937, Stanislav Kopchok attempted to publish the collected
works in the Library of Independent Writers. Several books are published, followed again by a police
restraint and at that time, because of the conflict with the Left, Krlea distanced himself from the
Party. During the Second World War, because of restraints or because of contempt towards the NDC
regime Krlea did not publish a single word. Nothing will change in that regard even after the war
not even the auspices of Tito or the friendship with him. Nakladni zavod started the printing of SD,
but only six books were published. The Zora publishing house published as many as 27 books, but it
encountered problems and was closed down. From 1967 to 1972, Krleas books were not published.
It was at the 80th anniversary from the birth of the author that, thanks to Enes Chengic and the Sara
jevo publisher Osloboenje, the Collected Words of Miroslav Krlea in 50 Books were published for the
first time, in the period from 1975 to 1988.
2
ore Zelmanovi, in his book Kadet Krlea, kolovanje Miroslava Krlee u maarskim vojnim
uilitima, states that between his 15th and 18th year, at the Cadet School in Pechuh in the Pestan Lu
doviceum he learned perfectly German, Hungarian and French and that he was translating in Croa
tian even then Strindberg, Ibsen, Petefi. See specifically the chapter Karakteristike akademca Krlee
Frigyesa, p. 49 and on, kolske novine /Sveuilina naklada Liber, Zagreb 1987.
3
It should be known that Miroslav Krlea is the founder, and, since the founding of the Leksikografski
zavod FNRJ in Zagreb in 1950 (since 1962, Jugoslovenski leksikografski zavod which, since 1991 is
called Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krlea) to his death was a director, editor-in-chief and editor
of Enciklopedija Jugoslavije and of Opa enciklopedija. With Krleas signature and approval, the oth
er encyclopedic and lexicographic editions are printed: Pomorska, umarska, Medicinska, Tehnika,
Likovna i Muzika enciklopedija, Leksikon JLZ, Atlas svijeta etc. Krlea explained the reasons why he
decided to do this job under difficult circumstances to the Editorial Board in 1952 with the following
words: The South Slavic Encyclopedia, among other things, should formulate or codify what gen
erations have missed because of many fatal reasons (); it should be a denial of all parochial and
reactionary leitmotifs of this province of the spirit, denial of these senseless mutual denials that get
permanently inspired by ignorance and then by conscious twisting of the truth (emphasized by B.R.).
Brochure: Enciklopedijska izdanja LZ FNRJ, Zagreb (1953), 19.
174
directly the revolution in France and undermined the religious dogmas of

the feudal-absolutist institutions. We should also remember that the leading
French writers, philosophers and scientists wrote for Diderots Encyclopedia
(DAlembert, Condillac, Holbach, Helventius, Buffon, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Montesquieu, etc.). It was obviously a project that gathered together promi
nent authors, with many individualised authorial styles, which was very im
portant to Krleza, who always revered the talent, knowledge, invention and
exceptionality rather than academic titles and institutionalised authorities,
prone to phrases and conventions.
On the basis of this example, the central editorial board of EJ, meaning
Krlea, gathered the most eminent names in the Yugoslav culture: arts and
sciences, prominent intellectuals and exceptional lexicography experts. The
task of our encyclopaedic undertaking, as Krlea emphasizes, is to re-eval
uate our history from a socialist aspect and undermine the myths created by
the civil historians.4
In that time, immediately after the Second World War, which in our so
cial and cultural environment was marked by a revolutionary and revival
passion, Krlea in 1950 in Paris, while working on the Encyclopaedia was
simultaneously working on and opening the great Exhibition of Medieval Art
of the Yugoslav Peoples.
Just as the Encyclopaedia, the Paris exhibition has the same aim for
Krlea: to objectively argue, with the help of the exhibits and the authentic
artefacts, in favour of the thesis that the peoples in Yugoslavia have cultural
awareness, and to show the world that the works created there correspond
to the masterpieces of the then contemporary European art and thought.
Dime Koco, the well-known Macedonian art historian, leaves valuable tes
timony of Krleas ideas and enthusiasm in his letter sent to Enes engi,
after Krleas visit to Macedonia in 1960: I met Miroslav Krlea at the exhi
Krleas interest for encyclopedias could be followed up in: Krleijana, sv. 1; Leksikografski zavod
Miroslav Krlea (editor-in-chief Velimir Viskovi), 209 i d.
175
bition of medieval art of the Yugoslav peoples in Paris. I was a member of the
Board in charge of realising this exhibition, and Miroslav Krlea was its pres
ident. Krleas knowledge of the medieval art of our peoples was so broad
that, ever since the start of this Boards work, I believed that the exhibition
will have excellent success. And it was indeed so. The impression made on
me by his rich and well defined personality of intellectual with exceptional
skills was also confirmed when I was in his company during his several-day
visit to Macedonia. His interest in the development (cultural, political and
economic) of the Macedonian people, from the early Middle Ages till today,
was so vast that I had to be careful about each word I said in the presence of
this man because he followed all my thoughts with great respect. I had the
impression that he believed in my presentation. During the conversation we
had, I realised that Krlea knew how to distinguish between truth and lies,
and between real values and improvisation, even when there was a desire to
present lies as truth. I believed that nobody could compete with Krlea in
this. While we were spending time together, I noticed his honest joy because
of the fact that the Macedonian people have finally achieved their freedom.
When he was leaving, he expressed his desire to visit Macedonia again
and acquaint himself better with the artistic values of our medieval art, es
pecially the one in Ohrid. And he would always say a word of praise for the
contemporary Macedonian art, which he could see in the Artistic Gallery in
Skopje and at the annual exhibition of the Macedonian Visual Artists in the
artistic pavilion also in Skopje.5
Krlea mercilessly crossed out the encyclopaedic entries of all authors
who, in the description of historical facts and events, were not faithful to the
principles of truth and objectivity, and Krlea did this using substantiated
and authentic historiography sources and scientific methodology, and he de
manded that the badly written or partial texts be rewritten, supplemented,
Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem II, Svjetlost, Sarajevo 1990, 109.
176
partially or fully rejected. We shall list, as an example, the editorial remarks

and critical observations for the entry Macedonia (Macedonians):
I/125.
The introduction should be rewritten ab ovo.
II/911.
It would certainly be more informative if exact numbers were listed here
regarding the Hellenisation of Aegean Macedonia. It would also be inform
ative to show how and why the process of Hellenisation had a more rapid
momentum. After the lost war in Asia Minor (1922), when Kemal-Pasha
threw in the sea one and a half million Hellenic colonists inhabited since
olden days, Aegean Macedonia remained the only shelter for situating these
shipwrecked and homeless people. The Greek authorities used this catastro
phe for Hellenizing Aegean Macedonia, something that would have not been
so easy and efficient without mass immigration
VII/67.
In regard to the colonisation of Macedonia. Only one specific number is
stated VII/6 about 4,000 colonial families populated Macedonia, etc., which
is not a high number, but it should also be stated in which period this took
place, because, if these 4,000 families are the only success of the colonisation,
then after this it would be obvious that the people in general did not see per
manence in this undertaking, etc. The illustration of this historical period
of the Treaty of Versailles is not very precise even if it was revised here. No
printable text could come out of this text here without additional amend
ments. An illustration of such an historical period, as this one, stretching
from 1918 to 1941, cannot begin with one date, in this case the one of the
Treaty of Versailles, as it should be said that the Treaty of Versailles dates
from June 1919, when Macedonias destiny for the following twenty three
177
years was being decided, that is only one date in this bloody calendar that
lasts for more than fifty years.
Or, for example, when Krlea, as an editor, severely warns of the omis
sions in regard to the Bogomils:
V/34.
All that is written about the Bogomils in V/22-25 and in VI/1-8 none
of it is true! Laic description of the medieval church hierarchy has never
worked. It should be rewritten. Arianism is present on the Balkans ever since
the pre-Christian days on this ground and obstinately persists all the way to
the second half of the fifteenth century.6
So, Krlea demanded from his collaborators to investigate thoroughly
and meticulously the topics they were in charge of writing, without ideolog
ical interference or political comments, without phrases and additional re(
constructions). Because, to Krlea, to write about art, culture, history, social
phenomena and events, to write about anything was to think; to write and
to think freely and critically and, in such a way, to convey the artistic (and
scientific) truth of the mankind and the world we live in.
Krlea lucidly noted as early as 1932 that the chaotic thoughts and sen
tences could be a result of the chaos in society (which is true even today),
when, in his polemical text (My Conflict with
Them), he addressed his parochial adversaries who disputed his moral and
literary credibility, saying: The chaos in sentences is a consequence of the
chaos in thoughts, and the chaos in thoughts is a consequence of the chaos
in the head, and the chaos in the head is a consequence of the chaos in man,
and the chaos in man is a consequence of the chaos in the environment and
the situation in that environment.7
With such literary gift, erudition and encyclopaedic knowledge, as an

artist and as an intellectual, Krlea was politically and socially engaged in the
Left, defending with a box of steel letters the freedom and human dignity,
the truth and social justice. Therefore, for Krlea, it is not a matter of wheth
er a poet dedicated himself to political action or not, but how he literarily
discusses that political activity and social reality. That is a matter of the
talent and the artistic temperament as a first and only precondition of any
artistic engagement, regardless of whether its left or right oriented.8
With such moral and intellectual virtues, with such civil courage, Krlea
really belongs to the line of shining Erasmus-like intellectuals who did not
succumb even to the most difficult challenges of the un-freedom (Dahren
dorf9) or betrayed the intellectuals (Benda10).
Krlea was persecuted, imprisoned, forbidden, disputed, marginalised
ever since the time of the Ludovicium, the Balkan Wars, the disintegration
of the k.u.k. monarchy (Austro-Hungary)11, Vidovdan Constitution and the
6 January Dictatorship all the way to the Endehasia reprisals12 and the post
From Krlezas legacy: Marginalia lexicographica, Izbor, Kolo, asopis Matice hrvatske, br. 1, proljee
2007: 392, 393, 394, 395.
7
Moj obraun s njima is a polemical book with the best characteristics of Krlezas style. See more in:
Stanko Lasi, Krleiologija ili povijest kritike misli o Miroslavu Krlei, II., Zagreb 1989., 315.
Predrag Matvejevi: Razgovori s Krlem, 6. izdanje, Prometej, Zagreb 2002, 93.

Many studies and books have been written about the spiritual leaders and men of fate, about the freedom
and authority (power), about the social role and the public engagement of the intellectuals, from Socrates
to Erasmus, through Galilee, Markus Antun de Dominis and Voltaire to Carl Popper and Sartre. And the
basis of the dispute always is: does the intellectual (writer, philosopher, artist, scientist, inventor, genius)
put his/her virtues, is exceptionality, his ethos in the service of men, truth and humanist ideas, or does
he/she put his/her talent and mind in the service of lies and deceits, of the system and the regime, which
are masters of life and death. History is aware of two kinds of intellectual engagement. Especially the one
from twentieth century, when the three totalitarian regime ruled: fascism, Nazism and communism (bol
shevism), and many intellectuals succumbed to those difficult temptations. Dahrendorf calls these rare
and truthful exceptions who resisted the temptations of the unfreedom Erasmuses. On Erasmo-like
intellectuals and (un)compromising formative persons who marked their epoch with their life and work,
see more in: Ralf Dahrendorf, Iskuenja neslobode. Intelektualci u doba kunje, Prometej, Zagreb 2008.
10
It is interesting that Julien Benda wrote and published his famous and frequently quoted book The
Betrayal of the Intellecuals in 1929, and it was translated into Croatian as late as 1997, published by
Politika kultura, Zagreb.
11
The words in the brackets are noted by the translator of the text (from Croatian) into Macedonian.
12
It is well known after the clash in the Left (19391940), Krlea remains in complete isolation.
Everything was going bad, everything indicated that difficult and tragic days are ahead. Thus, the
178
179
8
9
war socialist aberrations. He was permanently exposed to the temptations

of un-freedom, but to the end of his life he remained consistent and faithful
to his moral and political convictions and understanding of the meaning of
the human life.
Even as a confirmed humanist and pacifist, erudite and writer, Krlea
proved himself, with every literary work, to be an exceptional author who,
with his rich spectre of thoughts and the extraordinary magic of his words,
has conquered and inspired generations of readers.
Judging by the interest of the young generations for his prose and dra
mas, novels and essays, polemic works and reviews Krlea is not only a
writer from the past, but also a writer of the present and future. His appear
ance characterised a whole epoch. He was born with a rich spirit in a time of
scarcity. He can only be compared to the greatest and the best.
When it comes to the world literary scene, as Georgij Paro says, a com
parison of Leone Glembay with Shakespeares Hamlet imposes itself. Leone
Glembay comes to Zagreb at the celebration of the Glembay Bank, just as
Hamlet returns from Wittenberg to Danmark, where he arrives at the royal
coronation of his usurping uncle. Both ceremonies essentially contain mor
al rottenness and premonition of chaos. Leone and Hamlet, both outsiders,
both of them marginal, melancholic and reluctant persons, who are con
stantly moralising and intellectually judgmental, simultaneously belong and
do not belong to the Glembay home, i.e. the Danish court. Leone and Ham
let position themselves as cold and unemotional mirrors of their worlds.
As Paro concludes, however, they show that the game of mirrors cannot be
Ustash authorities take him to prison, which was described by Krlea: they take me to prison in
Petrinje Street. A long hall, partially lighted. Only one lamp on the ceiling. A group of young man are
walking, being led, towards me. One of them recognised me. He said: Trotskyst! He spit in my face.
And when the others saw that, they, too, spit in my face. They all spit upon me. I came to the cell, I sat
on the floor and I was shocked, I felt pain, embarrassment, humiliation. I cried bitterly. Zvane rnja:
Sukobi oko Krlee. Argumenti i svjedoanstva za jo jedan obraun sa antikrleijanstvom, NIRO Oslo
boenje, Sarajevo 1983., 69.
180
played without punishment; the reflection gets absorbed into the mirror,
weakens it and breaks it. Both Hamlet and Leone become murderers and are
drawn into the chasm along with the Danish court, i.e. the Glembay house13.
In other words, Hamlets and Leones To be or not to be refers to the pur
suit of virtue, facing the truth and a dramatic moment of decision making.
While Hamlet is preoccupied with the thought how to trip the sinful king
when he is drunk asleep or in his rage, Leone does everything to get away
from the murky Glemabyness and the accursed Glembays who are crimi
nals, beguilers and murderers! as a clear, authentic, full-fledged Glembay.
The complex tissue of this dramatic text of Krlea brings together the
motives of social injustice, wealth abuse, irresponsibility and insolence, with
motives of degeneration, hypertrophied sensitivity and moral and intellectual
alienation. This play of Krlea, which is the most performed among his plays,
with its tense dialogues, with psychological nuances and artistically delicate
ly represented personalities is full of allusions to philosophy and science,
painting and medicine, music and bank manipulations, social reputation and
financial manipulations which, in fact, tell us that, neither then nor now, the
international character of the capitalist entrepreneurship knows and recog
nises no boundaries, regardless of the nature of those boundaries: linguistic,
political, cultural, state. Home is everywhere, and nobody counts the victims,
so Krlea constantly reiterated we should not cherish any illusions. There
fore, today, to read and reread Krlea means to give up the remaining illusions.
On the other hand, no one before or with such energy and style entered
into battle with our fatal misunderstandings and conflicts; disputed our
parochial mentalities; attacked the human stupidity. Today we may also
say that nobody, before or after Krlea, undermined our myths and holy
beliefs, especially the Croatian literary lies and the Serbian deceits with
such resolution and audacity, knowledge and courage.
Georgij Paro: Gospoda Glembajevi , Programska knjiica u povodu 100. obljet
nice roenja Miroslava Krlee, Zagreb, 1993, 12.
13
181
Last year, the Krlea supporters from Belgrade organised a Festival on Mi

roslav Krlea: Dream of the other Coast in order to pay tribute to anti-dogmat
ic, funny, provocative, polemic and inspirational great author. It was a festival
dedicated to the hundredth anniversary of the first coming of this Zagreb
citizen to Belgrade, on one of the many other coasts. The organizer, the Bel
grade cultural centre, the author of the concept and coordinator of the festival,
Olivera Stoi Raki with the numerous exhibitions, round tables, theatrical
performances, radio plays and film workshops displayed all front and back
sides, ours and Krleas, and brought the writer Krlea closer to the young peo
ple in an exceptionally instructional and educational way. Of course, with an
important warning: If you play with Krlea, then you play with fire! The Bel
grade festival was not organised in homage to Krlea, but it was a public call
for joint rereading of Krlea in order to examine how right Krlea was, both in
his texts and in his engagements which are so necessary today. For those who
know little or have forgotten the important points in the bio-bibliographical
oeuvre of Krlea, the Belgrade dramatic artists realized the interactive perfor
mance Report from the Other Coast. The second textual-visual-auditory and
documentary walk through Krleas work was offered by the multimedia ex
hibition Dream of another Coast, where the visitors could see Krleas original
of (surrealist patchwork-epistle) directed to Marko Ristic,
in 1936. The visitors also had the chance of seeing the film on Petar Dobrovic
A Passage to Paradise (1957) which was made on the basis of Krleas scenario
and was directed by Aleksandar Petrovic. The festival also produced the orig
inal graphic novella Gospel of Miroslav: Apocryphal Version which, according
to Bor Cosics script, was realised by a team of cartoon artists. The Belgrade
centre of cultural decontamination (Borka Pavichevic) produced Picnic in
Russia, directed by Jovan Kirilov, according to the dramatisation of Miroslav
Belovic. From 10 May to 10 June, in the course of the Festival, all three pro
grammes of Radio Belgrade broadcasted radio-plays, made according to texts
and works of Krlea. Workshops were organised for the high school pupils
that included reading and understanding the texts and books of Krlea. The
Festivals programme was held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture.
The Belgrade Festival showed that Krleas writing, regardless of wheth
er it is polemic or essayistic, poetic or dramatic, novelistic or in the form of
memoires has not lost its keenness, strength or freshness even today, in rad
ically changed cultural, political and social circumstances. On the contrary,
Krlea, who is spiritually and intellectually situated between the Balkans and
Europe, lucidly analysed those two spirits, he constructs them and scruti
nizes them, and the charm of his speech through writing is that he shapes it
by denial. This denial trait is the crucial point in the poetics and the under
standing of the Krleas world.
182
183
Krlea and the Croatian Experience

When the Croatian spiritual horizons are concerned, then we may say
that the Croatian culture, since its beginnings long ago, is not familiar with a
word that has affected it so strongly in its life, its destiny, as Miroslav Krleas
word has. His fruitful impact was reflected with equal intensity on the Cro
atian literature even when it pointed to our weaknesses, reprimanded the
false idols, revealed the myths and illusions; even when that word, with its
fierceness and suggestibility, opened the perspectives and built bridges to
wards the future. Therefore, Krleas word has remained through the genera
tions the one and only beacon, criterion and compass, especially in times of
darkness, suspicion and crises. Indeed, after Krlea nothing remained in the
Croatian literary republic where it used to be.
Everything Krlea wrote and spoke about in his polemical texts, pieces
of criticism, discussions and diary entries, from A Drunk November Night
(1918) to the last text from 1981, all his premonitions and diagnoses, lucid
judgments and messages are equally modern today, and even the new gen
erations of readers find them very close and recognizable: from the state
ment that the time has come to burn and destroy and demolish the lie of the
Croatian literature (1919); that Europe has already prepared a rope for us
any way (1933), fearing whether the Endehasia darkness (1941-1945) will
swallow him; for, finally, in the secret conflict between the government, on
the one hand, and the intellectuals and the people with spirit, on the other
the writer does not care who shall make him suffer: Dido or Gjido14; with
the warning to the sixty-eighters that they will one day see the realization
of their ideals; and to the supporters of the spring that among the Croats, it
is not noble to tell the truth (1971); while he addressed all the rest, in 1980,
before he left, the following words: Tito15 did more for the situation of the
This is a reference to Milovan Gjilas, politician, writer and publisher who, during the Second World War
and the Yugoslav communist movement, had the highest political and military functions, was a mem
ber of the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and member of
the Supreme HQ of NOB. Krlea was criticised for not leaving Zagreb and (as Ivan Goran Kovacic and
Vladimir Nazor) and crossing to the other side, the partisans. In 1945, in Belgrade, Krlea discussed this
with Gjilas. This meeting is frequently mentioned and indicated in various sources (historical-literary,
diary-memoires and historiographical-political), but the authentic words of Krlea were conveyed only
in two places: in the book of Zvane Zvane rnja Sukobi oko Krlee and in the monograph of Enes engi:
Krlea, which are almost identical.

Those days, in the Madera Hotel, Krlea was visited by Milovan Gjilas.

We discussed various matters, and then Gjilas, at one moment, asked me:

- Tell me honestly, old pal, why didnt you join the partisans?

- I did not come because they would have killed mi.

- Who would have killed you?

- For instance, you!

Gjilas jumped from the chair and went to the balcony. He soon came back and said: - I have to be honest,
I would have killed you before 1942; and way didnt you come at the AVNOJ session when we called you?

- You didnt send a man I trust; I did not trust the people that came and my style, after all, is not to come at
the end of the ballad (Enes engi: Krlea, Zagreb 1982, 412.)

Dido Kvaternik was a minister in the NDH police.
15
Unlike Gjilas, Tito in 1945, received Krlea differently, as Zvanje Chrnja states: Tito was really look
ing forward to that meeting! Whatever was in the past is in the past, lets go on! And while you are
with me, do not be afraid, nobody will have disputes with you on behalf of the Party! (Sukobi oko
Krlee, p. 118). According to Krleas calendar, the time had not come yet for objective evaluation of
the role of Tito in recent Croatian history. On the contrary, both Tito and Krlea, after death, in the
Croatian nationalistic passionate consciousness share the same destiny: permanently and without
arguments they are being disputed, criticised, neglected.
14
184
Croats than anyone else in their history. In a certain, who knows how distant,
future the time shall come when he will be objectively valued, and when his
great achievements will be recognized.
If Krlea could see today the dark state of the cultural, social and po
litical facts in Croatia and the world, he would probably reiterate the same
statement he pronounced many times: Stupidity and space are truly limitless.
But I am no longer certain in the latter!
The diary entries of engi, the chronicle of an epoch With Krlea from
day to day16, are authentic testimonies of a writer, his eventful life as an en
cyclopaedic author and engaged intellectual regarding the most important
phenomena, events and persons of the twentieth century.
With great erudition and freedom of expression, the books authentically
reveal the intimacy, sensitivity, artistic inclinations, intuition and reflections
of Krlea, people and events related to him, as well as the unknown or lit
tle known private biographical facts. engi managed, as a collaborator and
editor, as well as through the friendship with Krlea to note all his thoughts,
meditations and dilemmas, monologues and dialogues from the broad regis
ter of the artistic, cultural, social and political topics.
Enes engi: S Krleom iz dana u dan (Balade o ivotu koji tee, Truba u pustinji, Ples na vulkanima,
U sjeni smrti), Zagreb, Globus 1985. The books are conceived in the form of a diary, they are written
chronologically and they cover the period from 1956 to 1980. After Krleas deat, engi publishes
two more books: S Krleom iz dana u dan: Krlea, post mortem 1 (19811988) and Krlea, post mor
tem 2 (19891990), Sarajevo, Svjetlost 1990. engi explained their aim with the words: Parting
from Mirogoj was not my parting with Krlea. Krlea is a river, endless story. After he left, I still live
with him and his work, sometimes I roast on ember, exposed to unfavourable winds which, in man
ways, were trying to turn the ember into fire. What remains for me to do? Defend myself? No! Re
spond to the deceits? No, but rather to complete the poets legacy to finish first of all the Collected
Works and to do everything I can in order to keep this significant oeuvre from being pushed into
marginal paths, as has happened after the death of many prominent people. (Krlea, post mortem 1,
13.)
For the 120th anniversary of the birth of Krlea, Silvana engi Voljevica prepared curtailed edition
of S Krleom iz dana u dan (two books), with an introduction of Ivan Lovrenovic and with a preface
of Boo Rude, Zagreb, Jutarnji liost 2013. And the whole chronicle of S Krleom iz dana u dan IVI,
shows that, in fact, literatures ways are as mysterious as Gods.
16
185
One thing is certain: no one, before and after Krlea, has fought with
such passion and style against our fatal misunderstandings and conflicts, the
parochial mentalities, the slowness of spirit and the myths. Every page of this
book is an expression and a voice of the intellectual and moral consciousness
which we are so much in need of today.
We have in front of us the erudite and polymath Krlea, with all his
sensibilities and open wounds, with the wisdom and lucidity, with the dam
nations and oppositions, with the preoccupations and artistic inclinations.
From day to day, we come into contact with the monologues and dialogues
of Krlea, with the living and the dead, we are again with the literature of
Krlea and with the epoch of Krlea. These diary entries show that all loves
and hates of the Krleianship are burning posthumously.
Croatia was Krleas destiny, and he was a decisive influence in its shap
ing. It was never good, however, it was never recommendable to love Krlea
publically. Because, as Mladen Kuzmanovic, presenting the six-volume
Krleology said17:
Krleianship was much more than a choice of a writer, it was the choice
of the world. Sometimes it meant choice of death or dying, and it has always
been testimony of style, taste and worldview.18 Krlea loved Croatia without
any shame, without illusions, without beautification, he loved it ugly, hun
gry, illiterate and parochial, he adored it mercilessly and without forgiveness
(namely, one forgives only children and mentally retarded people), and the
Croats never forgave this love of his of the Croatian reality, the Croatian truth.
Stanko Lasic, theoretician and literary historian is the analyst most acquainted with Krleas life
and work. Among other things, he has published the books: Sukob na knjievnoj ljevici 19281952,
(1970); Struktura Krleinih Zastava (1984); Krlea, Kronologija ivota i rada (1982); Mladi Krlea i
njegovi kritiari (1987); Krleologija ili povijest politike misli o Miroslavu Krlei, IVI, (19891993).
18
Velimir Viskovi (editor-in-chief of KRLEIANSHIP, the three-volume encyclopedia on Miroslav
Krlea: first volume1993, second volume 1999, third volume Bibliography of Miroslav Krlea, 1999)
states that his old friend and professor Alexander Flacker frequently said that the Zagreb high
school pupils, at the end of the thirties, were divided into Krleians and anti-Krleians. See: Knjiev
na Republika, srpanj-rujan 2012, 3.
17
186
If we can classify the period from the first public appearances of Krlea,
in the beginning of the twentieth century, to his death, in a dialogue-polem
ical sense under (My Conflict with Them), then
all that is happening with the name and the works of Krlea, from his death
until today, involving the Croatian educational, cultural and state authorities
could be called Their Conflict with Him.
And it all began with the ceremony at the funeral on the Zagreb ceme
tery Mirogoj, where a state funeral [was organised for him], with honorary
shooting and military honours, with speeches of highest party and state offi
cials.19 God, what a paradox and what irony of fate: the sworn anti-milita
rist and great writer is sent to his eternal resting place with honorary shoot
ing. The honour and dignity of Croatian culture was saved then by the poet
Jure Kashtelan who said goodbye to Krlea with the words: Great brother,
on behalf of all of us who hold a pen in our hands, I stand before you with a
strong confidence that you are not dead. This conviction is not just an illu
sion. With the suggestive force of the poetic word you have transgressed the
limits of time and space and you have established a conversation of the dead
and the living and the future generations.
During the following ten years, persons in the Zagreb cultural circles
were writing and talking about who and why stole the manuscripts from the
sealed chests of Krlea in the Bureau of Lexicography in which Krlea was
the editor-in-chief since its foundation. Kresho Vraneshic, the successor of
Krlea and, along with Enes engi, executor of Krleas Will, states that the
chest, when they came to officially seal it, in Krleas office was completely
empty, and its upper part was even torn out.20
With the coming of HDZ in power, from 1990 to 1997, not a single book
by Krlea was printed (!), and the MPs in the Parliament ultimatively de
Eliza Gerner, Milan Arko: Svjedoci Krleina odlaska, Prometej, Zagreb, 2002, 129.
Milan Gavrovi: ovjek iz Krleine mape, ivot i smrt dr. ure Vraneia, Novi Liber, Zagreb, 2011,
233.
19
20
187
manded that the name of Miroslav Krlea is taken away from the Bureau
of Lexicography (!!!). With the knowledge and approval of the manager of
the Bureau of Lexicography and editor-in-chief of the
(General Religious Lexicon), even a denouncing, revengeful and
herostratic entry KRLEA was printed, in which this Croatian priest of lit
erature is said to be the most radical opponent of religion (Agape Satanas!)
and that in aestheticism, Krlea found a religious spirituality, and in posi
tivism and evolutionism dogmatic shelter for his attitudes, whereas in the
communist revolution and in the party he searched for a surrogate of the lost
religious community. Not only that this Religious Lexicon deceives that
Krlea was singing songs of praise to the totalitarian dictatorships and
that with his anti-religious attitudes he strongly marked the liberal civil and
communist intelligence and indisputably contributed to the anti-Catholic
campaign in the communist post-war period.21
A true and honest measure of Croatianism Krlea expressed often and in
various manners and at this point, we shall quote just one sermon of Krlea
and one blessing of Krlea.
Croatianism is not One and Only Croatianism as Such, and that is es
sential in this review. The bishop Count Drakovi, who signed the death
verdict for Matija Gubec, is a Croatian feudal lord, and Gubec is a Croatian
peasant. There is no such Croatianism which is able to reconcile the Croatian
peasant with the Croatian Count. So, I do not recognize the Croatian Bishop
and Count Drakovi as my Croatianism, and I expressly deny such feudal
Croatianism, culturally futile and politically parasitical for centuries, which
does not mean that I deny Croatianism as such, as if the Bishop and Count
Drakovi has a monopoly over his Episcopal and comital Croatianism, and
I do not have the right to my peoples Croatianism. Croatianism as such,
Croatian ansich, Croatianism, by itself does not exist, and it would be good
to agree in the introduction to this review the value and the meaning of cer
tain notions. Nothing on this planet exists as such or per se not even our
planet as such in itself. Per se, this Croatianism of ours does not exist
because it is not a balloon to float beyond time and space, and it is not a Pla
tonic Idea so that our thoughts about it would be just a divine reflection of a
supernatural notion. In the past there was a whole series of Croatianisms be
cause through time they flow into the permanent fluctuation of notions and
reflections and, therefore these Croatianisms, in overflowing, are always dif
ferent, resembling each other and never fully coinciding, in successive line,
and they are themselves but a reflection of the circumstances and situations
through which they flow.22
And, if in our history, there is a person who travelled the world as a
symbol of Croatianship, it was this ingenious Dominican Juraj Kriani, who
was fruitlessly staying in Siberia for fifteen years, accused of being a Latin,
and who was abhorred by Rome because of suspicion that he is a Slavophil
who is loyal to the schism.23
In 2001, on the twentieth anniversary of the death of Krlea, in the Na
tional and University Library, in the presence of the Croatian state top offi
cials and the cultural authorities, according to Krleas Will, chests, contain
ing Krleas manuscripts, with maps, schemes, letters and marginal items, that
had been sealed for twenty years were ceremoniously opened. Kresho Vrane
shi, witness who, along with Enes engi and the official representative of
the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Cutlure, prepared and sealed the
manuscript legacy, noted again that someone opened the chests and was look
ing at what was inside. More specifically: Fourteen sealed chests no longer
had a single seal, several ropes were torn or cut, the screws were unscrewed,
and the lids were deformed ( , p. 235)
Several years ago, HAZY, whose long-time vice president Miroslav
Miroslav Krlea: Deset krvavih godina, Jubilarno izdanje, NIRO Sarajevo 1979, 106, 107.
Miroslav Krlea, Eseji, III, Zagreb 1963, 52.
22
Opi religijski leksikon, Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krlea, Zagreb, 2002, 479, 480.
21
188
23
189
Krlea was, in cooperation with a Zagreb publishing house started the project
(Critical
Edition of the Collected Works of Miroslav Krlea) in sixty books. Only three
book series were published (twenty to books) and everything stopped. Si
lence, nobody asks anything and why everything stopped?!24 And the books
from the first three book series could be found and bought only at the prem
ises of the publisher the bookshop, only occasionally and in groups, on sale
or under the modern marketing slogan: Take 3 pay for 2.
On the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Krlea, in December 2011, a
scientific symposium was organized by the Association of Croatian Writers,
at which our most eminent Krleologues participated, all of them university
professors, department heads, exceptional authors and respectful publishers,
all unanimous in the assessment that even today, Krleas work is equally
modern; that Krlea is the architect of the new cultural paradigm; that
Krlea is an important, possibly the most important chain in the national lit
erary and intellectual canon of the twentieth century, but that unfortunately,
the leading national institutions, during his life and posthumously, did not
show adequate respect, some even neglected him, some persistently denied
him, and some, latently and openly, try to erase all of his traces, throwing him
out of the Croatian public life. They mainly succeeded, which is contrary to
the national surveys of a Zagreb weekly, whose respondents included Krlea
among the greatest and most appreciated Croatian writers. One of the par
ticipants at the symposium even asked a question which was not in the least
rhetorical: In the name of what and why do the Croatian Left and the Croa
tian social democrats, that is, the Croatian government and the state, give up
all their protagonists and great men: Josip Broz Tito and Miroslav Krlea?!25
The books from the first three book series can be found and bought only in the premises of the pub
lisher the bookshop Ljevak, only occasionally and in groups, on sale or under the modern market
ing slogan: Pay for 2 Take 3! For the misfortune of Krleas Sabrani djela (Collected Works), see
footnote 1.
25
See: Knjievna Republika, godite X., 79, srpanj/rujan 2012.
24
190
Yet, it seems that, in that occasion, the spiritual legacy of Krlea was
most lucidly expressed by Zdravko Zima, when he claimed that: The fact
that the Croatian people and the Croatian intellectuals are still so divided in
regard to a writer can mean only two things: (1) that in this part of the world,
the time stopped, fixated in myths and centuries of sedimentary deceits, or
(2) that the dimension of Krlea is such that the Croats, in their national and
historical limitation, are incapable of absolving him.26
The current fierce disputes about keeping the Croatian rules of writing,
the Croatian alphabet and the Croatian language clean and saving them at
any price from various international contaminations or, God forbid, eastern
versions also confirm the assumptions that time stopped for many Croatian
intellectuals in this part of the world and that the Croats are not yet able to
absolve Krleas European horizons (Zmega) and his significance for the
national literariness and culture. Krlea spoke, and engi wrote, of these
Croatian-Serbian, Serbian-Croatian linguistic issues: The Croatian or the
Serbian are one language that Croats always call Croat, and the Serbs Serbi
an ever since I have been writing, I have been writing in Croatian, exactly,
just as all Serbian writers write Serbian. () I consider that the language is
not a matter of administrative agreement, but it is a living matter that can
not be an object of a regulation and law (), which does not mean that this
matter should not be discussed with all scientific and literary-historical im
partiality. ()
When we are talking about language, however, I remembered that on
Brioni, Krlea was telling me about the dispute he had with Alexander Beli
regarding the name of the language. Since Beli insisted on the name Ser
bo-Croatian, i.e. Croatian-Serbian, Krlea eventually asked him:
In what language did you mother raise you?
In Serbian, he answered.
26
191
Well, my mother raised me in Croatian, he said then.

When Krlea was supposed to receive the Golden Wreath of the Struga
Poetry Evenings, some poets asked the prominent literature professor D-r
Haralampie Polenakovic the question:
Why exactly Krlea, what does he have to do with Macedonia?
He answered with a counter-question:
Have you read his Banners?
No.
Well, read them. In those five books, you will find numerous pages that
discuss Macedonia.
So, people, in fact, do not read anything.27
Therefore, ever since the independence of Croatia, undoubtedly with
great state support, we have been printing several descriptive dictionaries,
orthography books, instruction books on orthography, which madden chil
dren in kindergartens and their parents, the pupils and the teachers, the
proofreaders and the editors; additionally, political committees that protect
us from the eastern versions have been introduced in the media (radio, TV,
newspapers, magazines) and the publishing houses.28 Wasnt Krlea right
when, in 1956, he shouted at the meeting of the editorial board of the ency
clopedia editions: It should be seen what the level of our intellectuals is. If I
publish 5% of the remarks to their entries (texts), they would all leave!
The material heritage of Krlea, which could permanently remind us of

this writer, did not face much better fate than his intellectual and spiritual
legacy. Namely, in the shadow of death (1980), egni asks Krlea what
would happen with this flat after he leaves.29 Krlea replies: Regarding this
flat, the number of flats that have been ruined in history and that have been
so much more important than mine and Belas is enormous. In our strange
situation, to retain this flat means also a great investment, and in my case
there is hardly a financial factor that would manage to do that. If, however, it
is important to someone to retain the memory of a poet and an actress who
lived here for three decades, let them do it.30
The writer Saa Vere, in the programme booklet on the integral man
agement of KRLEANIUM, wrote:
For this city and for these people it is crucial to save Krleas home in
Gvozd, the house which, in many things, is a mirror of Krleas intimacy. A
writer who for many years was a bold opponent of all that was dark, incon
sistent, parochial and egoistic, an encyclopedic person and a founder who
has revealed our authentic difficulties, Krlea is closely related to the work
ers movement, revolutionary open to Erasmuss word The house in Gvozd
Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem 2, 117.

Snjeana Kordi: Jezik i nacionalizam, 40 i d., Durieux. Zagreb, 2010. In the meantime, with the
recommendation and blessing of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Science and Education,
HAZU and Matica Hrvatska, several new dictionaries were published, as well as orthography books
and instruction books on orthography of the Croatian language. A dictionary discussing the differ
ences between the Serbian and the Croatian language, Razlikovni rjenik srpskog i hrvatskog jezika, of
Vladimir Brodnjak went through several editions, and there were recently announcements of the first
Serbian-Croatian dictionary with explanations, Prvi srpsko-hrvatski objasnidbeni rjenik, of Marko
Samardjija, which, as Krlea assumes, with scientific and literary-historical bias will explain the
difference between juh, sup and orb (words meaning soup).
This is a reference to the flat in Gvozd, today Krlein Gvozd 23, in which Bela and Miroslav Krlea
lived the last three decades of their lives.
30
After several unsuccessful attempts, at the proposal of the Sabor (Assembly) and the Parliament of the
City of Zagreb, in 1987 a Board for Arranging Krlein Gvozd was formed, which included prominent
Krleians and Krleologues: Jure Katelan, Saa Vere, Andre Mohorovii, Boidar Gagro, Milivoj
Solar, Boidar Raica, Rade Sherbedzija and Krleas successors Kreimir Vrane and Enes engi,
and was led by the author of this text. In 1990, the Board performed the integral project KRLEIJA
NUM of the cultural-artistic and scientific-research centre (the four-storey building in which Bela and
Miroslav Krlea had a flat, with a total surface of 1,300 m2 and a surrounding part of 5,000 m2). Suffi
cient means were collected to adapt the building, we wanted to open it with an opening ceremony on
Krleas birthday on 07.07.1991, but the new authorities stopped the project, and the Board dismissed
it. In the meantime, the City of Zagreb (the Museum of the City of Zagreb) organized an exhibition in
Krleas flat called Memorial Display of Bela and Miroslav Krlea, which is open twice a week for two
hours, provided that it is preannounced! The remaining part of the building on Krlein Gvozd 23 is
a seat to representatives of several multinational companies, and at one point it was also a seat of five
trading companies which, as far as I know, have nothing to do with culture and literature.
192
193
27
28
29
was not only his last harbour and his last stop, after numerous movements,
but also a safe haven, a working place, a house in which he always, unre
servedly, felt like he is at home. And while to all of Krleas friends, this
house was like a lighthouse in which this great writer and dreamer? found
unexpected harmony, to Krlea this was a place of rest and planning, crea
tions and contemplations, place of an ideal distance from which the more
dramatic world could be observed What Balzacs home is to the French,
or the well kept home of Tolstoy in Jasna Poljana or Dostoyevskys, Ostro
vsky, Mayakovskis and other great writers flats are to the Russians, Krleas
home in Gvozd should be to us, a place with dynamic structure and scene
of permanent gatherings. Yet, let us put aside the memories and sentimen
tal thought of a poet and an actress; maybe, with Croatias entrance into
the EU31, a factor would appear to complete this investment, so that we
could return to Krleas literary oeuvre.
Krlea always said: I do not have children, the books are my children; and
the most that can be done for a writer is to have his books published and read.
After Krlea, no one has written better on the situation of the Croatian consciousness and Europe
today, than Stanko Lasi. In these hard times, san the Croatian people accept a dialogue about what
kind of a Croatia we are talking about when we say we shall defend Croatia with all means: is that the
Croatia of the owners of villas, of foreign currency accounts in Switzerland, houses on three floors,
BMWs, electronic equipment, silk and velvet, diamond bracelets, golden cups and fur coats, or is it
the Croatia from the train of (Krleas) Croatian Rhapsodia, Croatia of flats and cellars, Croatia that
wakes up at four in the morning to go to work, Croatia torn, tattered, hungry and sleepless? There is
no unity of nation in a nation that does not initiate and does not spread such a dialogue, which does
not have the courage to look at its own face and express the truth, terrible and accusing. Or, further
on, when Lasi says: In the light of this analysis, regarding the question what is Europe, it is now
possible to provide three answers:
1) Europe is positively unfortunate because, due to the logic of its state officials, it must withdraw from
the (universal) principles on which the democratic order is based, in which humanity is embodied;
2) Europe is not unfortunate at all because it only understands the voice of cannons, and all else is ad
additional theatre which is supposed to convince itself and those around it, that it does not exist as
a selfish and sensless practice, but as a humanistic being with a historical mission;
3) Europe is both, it is positively unfortunate and it is playing humanistic theatre thus mitigating
its unhappy consciousness and facilitates the work of the political pragmatics which remains a
dominant component in Europes behavior. Stanko Lasi, Tri eseja o Evropi, izd. Hrvatsko vijee
europskog pokreta, Zagreb 1992, 22, 37, 38.
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Enes engi32, since 1956 when he met Krlea and he started keeping
diary, became a close collaborator of Krleas, and later, as an editor and a
publisher, he became Krleas close friend and personal secretary. engi is
the initiator and editor of 20 volumes of the Selected Works of M. Krlea,
printed in 1973 for the eightieth anniversary of the birth of the author. He
is the founder of Panorama, Views, Phenomena and Notions in Miroslav
Krleas works in five volumes (1975). He is also the initiator of the project:
six books in the school reading list, called Krlea in school (1976/77).
From 1975 to 1988, at the initiative of engi and with his efforts, the
Collected Works of Miroslav Krlea in 50 volumes were finally published, and
millions of Krleas works were printed and sold. Unfortunately, during his
life, Krlea did not live to see the publication of his Collected Works. He only
saw the third book series, a sequence of 15 books, which engi brought to
Krlea in the hospital, one week before death.
engi left the hospital, and Krleas doctor Ivo Mlinari asked the writer
who was about to leave this world: Well, tell me, mister Krlea, who is this
Enes engi whom you trust so much that he can visit you whenever he re
quires? Krlea looked at me suspiciously, as if he was surprised I did not know
that, he moved his head a bit, and without thinking replied: My sir, Enes
engi is a noble, yes, yes, noble, not only by his background, but by spirit.
The engi have been nobles for generations, who keep their dignity and, to
be honest, the dignity of others, too. That is why engi is the man who has
Enes engi (Foa 1926 Zabreb 1994) is a publisher and a writer, originating from an old aristo
cratic family. In 1955 he arrives in Zagreb as a correspondent of the Sarajevo newspaper Osloboenje,
and then he becomes a director of the Informative-Business Cenre for Croaia, as well as of the news
paper-publishing house. He has published many texts, commentaries, reportages, travel literature
texts in numerous magazines and newspapers, and his interviews with prominent persons from the
Croatian cultural and artistic scene are especially well known. He was also dealing with photography,
as photo-historian, he shot a lot of collection of portraits of significant contemporaries and a series of
portraits of Krlea, meetings and public events, withe great documentary value. engi is himself an
author of 11 books, and with his Oporuka (Will), Miroslav Krlea entrusted to engi the manage
ment with all his copyrights (regarding publishing and reproduction), as well as the protection of his
literary works.
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my trust and is my friend. What more would you like to hear after I tell you
that when Krlea, as a writer, was neglected so that he could be forgotten, he
and his work as well, then this same engi found the strength, despite all
risks, to be the editor of my Collected Works? Thus, at the right moment, he
jumped into the ship which had received numerous holes and which threat
ened to sink. He saved the ship and made it capable of floating again. You, my
dear, do not know what it means for a writer when his works are not printed
and read. It is a very difficult feeling to be forgotten. I never searched for com
fort, but I expected that what I deserved would be recognised. Enes engi
understood that best and I am thankful to him, not only as an editor, but also
as a man who was very tactful and respectful to me, and I, admittedly, have a
difficult character, which you were able to conclude for yourself.33
For the 120th anniversary of Krleas birth, in Zagreb, a Krleian actor,
enthusiast and a creative person, Goran Matovi, organized the Second Fes
tival of Miroslav Krlea under the slogan: Zagreb has Sljeme and it has one
spiritual, artistic mountain. That second mountain it Miroslav Krlea. The
festival was held on Krleas Gvozd (just as in 2012), which proved to be an
appropriate place for a meeting with Krleza, the artists and the audience.
Through Krlea, a new and live dialogue with the world was established, with
the participation of the best actors of the Croatian theatre, theatrologues,
directors, cineastes and musicians, Krleians and Krleologues.
Krleas Patchwork Europe Today: Voices, Phenomena, Faces, Persons, di
rected by Zlatko Sviben, with the magnificent Branka Cvitkovi and the ac
tors arko Potonjak, Franjo Kuhar and Mladen Vuji was performed the
first night. The fullness of Krleas essay Europe Today (1933) was supple
mented with sentences from The Glembay, On the Edge of Reason, Banners
and with verses from The Ballad of Petrica Kerempuh. The performance re
minded us that Krlea, as early as 1933, in this famous essay, radically cut
From the letter of d-r Ivo Mlinari to Enes engi, dated on 22 December 1986, Archive of the
engi family.
into the cancer-wound of contemporary fragmented Europe; the one on top

of the pyramid, flooded in luxury and the one in the underground that rolls
in the mud of poverty and social injustice. The apocalypse of false values and
the rebelling individual are in the foundations of his idea for literature as a
radical negation of the existing world. Krlea is a writer of that fatal double
of contemporary time which equally refers to our parochial complexes and
the Croatian culture on the edge of Europe, as well as the universal free
dom issues, the truth and justice, as arko Pai, the host of the evening,
emphasised.
Mani Gotovac managed the artistic project The Glembay for the second
night, with sound and fragments from films, focusing on the third act of the
performance and the fate of the Baroness Kasteli, Krleas character of de
monic woman. And that Baroness, who was born with incredibly abundant
life talent, did not only subjectively consider that the female body is an im
portant topic for the female mind, but firmly and, on the basis of experience,
unmistakably knew that, from the parochial Bishop to the reckless waiter,
all those gentlemen believe and think that only the body and the corporal is
what makes a woman a woman
The guests from Serbia performed the third night. The director Jovan
irilov and the playwright Miroslav Belovi, with exceptional actors, per
formed Picnic to Russia, as a response to the post-transitional challenges in
the region.
The Petefi theatre from Budapest was also a guest, performing another
play from the Glembay cycle, In Agony, the most performed play of Krlea,
in which the love triangle (Baron Lembah Laura Kriovec) is represented
as an anatomy of the humiliation of Laura. It was a fantastic performance of
the Hungarian ensemble, followed by long and loud applause.
When we add to these theatrical performances the two thematic exhibi
tions: European Krlea (in NSK, which displays Krleas cosmopolitism and
the broadness of Krleas intellectual interests for European topics), Miroslav
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33
Krleas Portraits (Antun Augustini, Ljubo Babi, Josip Vanita, Mersad

Berber, marija Ujevi, etc.), the acting magic of Pero Krvrgi and Rade Sher
bedzija, the scientific symposium and Serbus Krlea (a documentary film of
eljko Senei), with large turnout and admiration of the content audiences
then we could say that the Second Festival of Miroslav Krlea provoked
great interest for this artist with language.
All of Krleas texts, written long time ago, seem to be written today, they
are so modern and contemporary.
The curtains were drawn down at the end of the Festival, and Krlea
remained what he was:
In the beginning, I was a Serb and a unitarist for the Croats. For the
Serbs, I was a Fraco-ist and ustash, for the ustashes, I was a dangerous Marx
ist and communist, for some Marxist, I was a privileged communist, for the
clerics and the religious I was an Anti-Christ who should be put on the pil
lar of shame. For the parochial minds, after the war, I was guilty that it came
to this, for the party members I was guilty for not joining the partisans, for
the soldiers for being anti-militarist, and for the antimilitarists for being
a Bolsevic (M. Krlea: 1973).
Krlea and Macedonia
The Croatian-Macedonian relations, the historical, literary, linguistic
and cultural meetings date from the time of the Thessaloniki brothers, from
whom we have inherited the joint Cyril-and-Methodius tradition. Regard
less of the fact that the legend of saints Cyril and Methodius was written
post mortem apostolorum and that it includes all elements of a typical prop
agandist improvisation both Rome was content and the Glagolitic alpha
bet came into being, on the one hand, and, on the other, so that the Greeks
198
wouldnt get any ideas34 the Glagolitic alphabet is the beginning of our
literacy and the spiritual belonging to medieval Europe. The Glagolitsa and
the Glagolitsa speakers, pressed between the Latin and the Greek speakers,
in their fight to dominate between Byzantium and Rome, played a decisive
role in strengthening and constituting the South Slavic linguistic and ethical
awareness.
The Macedonians celebrate every 24 May as the Day of the All Slavic En
lighteners. In the church and cultural history of the Croats, the influence of
Cyril and Methodius was double: with their missionary work and the alpha
bet they did not only spread Christianity, but they also set the foundations
of the national language and literature. The Thessaloniki brothers, according
to the statements of the Croat Glagolitsa supporters (expressed in Mavrov
brevijar) are the most responsible that .35
Near the end of the ninth century, their pupils Kliment and Naum, as
it is well known, established in Ohrid the prominent Ohrid Literary School.
Thousands of pupils of that school also spread (besides the three holy alpha
bets: the Hebrew, Greek and Latin!) the Glagolitic literacy and culture, not
only in Macedonia and Bulgaria, but also throughout Croatia.
We find out how much the legacy of Cyril and Methodius inspired and
contributed to the emancipation of the Macedonian national awareness
from the words of Vatroslav Jagi, enunciated in 1922 and dedicated to Kli
ment Ohridski: He understood the task that he should write in an easily
understandable language and in simple style His merits are truly great,
considering the fact that the Slavic people in Macedonia, with his care, pro
gressed significantly in the area of culture, so that not only with their ethnic
characteristics, but also with their meekness, and Macedonia separated from
Krlea: Panorama pogleda, pojava i pojmova, priredio Anelko Malinar, NIRO Sarajevo-Zagreb
1975., 583.
35
Kulturni radnik, asopis za drutvena i kulturna pitanja, Zagreb, 5/1985, 58. See especially: thematic
block with texts of Andre Mohorovii, Edvard Hercigonja and Boo Rude, dedicated to 1,100th
anniversary of the death of Methodius.
34
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the eastern parts of the Bulgarian state where, in that time, there was a large
section of non-Slavic, in the original meaning Bulgarian, population.36
In the nineteenth century, the deacon Bishop, educator and patron
Josip Juraj Strossmayer was mostly responsible for expanding the Croa
tian-Macedonian literary and cultural relationships, and, as a supporter of
the Croatian unity, he saw in the Glagolitic alphabet a golden bridge be
tween the East and the West.
Many Macedonians, who worked in Croatia, contributed to better and
broader Macedonian-Croatian cooperation in the twentieth century in the
field of art, culture and science, as did many Croatian intellectuals working
in the area of culture (researchers, writers of travel literature, historians and
Macedonians, poets and writers, musicians and persons working in the the
atre), who spent shorter or longer time of their life in Macedonia.
All this was well known to Krlea.
Krleas sensibility and inclination, however, his polyvalent and multi
disciplinary interest for/towards the Macedonian history and culture, his lit
erary and friendly relationships with leading Macedonian intellectuals and
with social and political protagonists, ad personam and ad institutionem, the
Macedonian themes and motives in Krleas literature are a special chapter in
the Croatian-Macedonian relations and connections.
Let us remind ourselves for this occasion, the anniversary, of the most
significant meetings and leitmotifs.
In 1913 Krlea came to Skopje for the first time and then, he deeply
looked at death in the eyes.
He came here as a refugee escaping from the Ludoviceum, without iden
tity and without documents, suspected of being an Austrian spy. With me,
it was like this Krlea said to the poet Ante Popovski in the time of the
Bregalnica battle, in 1913, you go to Skopje as a volunteer in order to fight
Blagoja Jovanovski: Hrvatsko-makedonski odnosi kroz stoljea, izd. Zajednica Makedonaca u RH,
Zagreb-Osijek, 2002, 15.
36
200
on the side of the Serbian army. The second day in the hotel you prove to the
Serbian officers that no one knows Serbian there and you are surprised when
the next day they arrest you (). As a volunteer, completely shocked, you
prove to them that here, actually, no one speaks Serbian and that here the lan
guage they speak and the people are not Serbian and, accordingly what are we
doing here. (italicised by B.R.) The officers are undoubtedly seeing a monkey,
and that is what they informt their superiors, and then police officers come
and arrest the man.37
When it is carefully analysed, it can be seen that Jagi and Krlea, on
different occasions speak of the same thing: the Macedonian autonomy!
The Balkan Wars undoubtedly marked permanently Macedonias fate,
dividing it into a Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek part, and the battle of Bre
galnica is the end of that military conflict between the victorious countries.
For Krlea and his whole generation, the Bregalnica battle meant a decisive
misfortune for the South Slavic national ideals. In the smoke and fire of the
Bregalnica battle, we learned that the cynic Machiavellism of the small Bal
kan dynasties is a reality, whereas Lisinskis musical score, the Illyrian fan
tasies, the Gjakovo idyllic atmosphere or the nostalgia for Prizren are only
empty words Bregalnica is only a consequence of the cursed state logic,
because whenever a noble thought turns into a state policy, it is achieved
with cannons and bayonets.38
In this context, Kamilo Emeriki, the protagonist of Krleas Banners,
speaking to the regnicolar and war profiteer Amadeo Bogoljub Trupac,
whose topmost ideal is to open a casino on Margitsziget, describes with dis
appointment the fall of all his youthful ideals and liberation passion, and paints
a dark and nauseous picture of the world at that time and the constellation of
powers: Please, take, for example, all peoples in Austria, all peoples along the
Danube River, on the Carpathian Mountains, on the Balkans, on the other side
Enes engi: S Krleom iz dana u dan (19751977), Ples na vulkanima, Globus, Zagreb, 1985., 273.
Miroslav Krlea: Zastave, knjiga 2, Jubilarno izdanje, Sarajevo 1976., 246.
37
38
201
of the Carpathian Mountains, from Finland to Estonia, all the way to Alba
nia, throughout Europe, all of it together is a primitive, stupid synagogue, they
all shout, each trying to surpass the others in shouting the same phrases of
the tradition, race, missions, the folk soul, they all have their popular geniuses
and their tamburas and gusli and poetry and history and flags, whereas this
senseless blabbering of ours about Kosovo, tsar Lazar, Metrovi, the Vidovden
temple, white eagles, iconostases, kings, all that seems to me, youll have to for
give me, unworthy of common sense, meaningless, yes, even more than that,
foolish, especially today, when we face it to the Macedonian event39
Regarding the second visit of Krlea to Macedonia, in 1937, in his book
Krlea Chronology of his Life and Work, Stanko Lasi writes: Seven days after
the opening night in Osiek, Krlea arrived in Skopje. The first performance of
the play In the Camp was prepared here as well. Krlea was present at several re
hearsals, and he was also sightseeing the city. He wanted to watch the well known
gusak fights in the Gypsy quart. However, he did not manage to see the fight
because the famous gusak Megdandzi Musa got sick. While he and his friends
were waiting for the fight, Krlea was interested in a Gypsy icon. The primitive
ness of this drawing interested mister Krlea so much that he desired to get a hold
of one himself. Durmish promised to provide one to him and fulfilled his prom
ise. (Ljubomir M. Dobrianin, With mister Miroslav Krlea through Skopje,
Pravda, 11588, from 25.1.1937, p. 6). The drama was a great success, all the seats
in the theatre were taken. It should be underlined that the performance caused
admiration among the audiences, which increased along with the increase of the
tension and the developments in the play (When the curtains were closed, the
admiration was unending), but Krlea did not appear on the stage. (Ljubomir M.
Dobrianin, Great Success of the First Performance of the Play In the Camp by
mister Miroslav Krlea in Skopje, Pravda, 11586, 23.1. 1937, p. 10)40
Ibid, p. 251. especially the chapters: Veera kod starog Kamaratha, Zbogom mladosti, Zov carske
trube.
40
Stanko Lasi: Krlea Kronologija ivota i rada, GZH, Zagreb, 1982., 263264.
39
202
In a letter to Bela, Krlea writes: Here, they consider this performance

as the best Skopje performance (from the beginning of the world), and the
success of the opening night, as the greatest Skopje success. There was more
energy and acclamation than in Osijek.41
In 1950, Krlea was preoccupied with the monumental Exhibition of Me
dieval Art of the Yugoslav Peoples, held in Paris, with Krleas introduction in
the Catalogue. He was overseeing the activities in which about a hundred art
history experts participated. Apart from the Catalogue introduction, he also
wrote an essay On the Occasion of the Yugoslav Medieval Painting in Paris,
with the intention of it being ductus generalis of the Paris exhibition, and
he published it in (1950, No 6). Imagined as a plaidoyer pro domo
before Europe, it provides numerous cultural and historical pieces of infor
mation on the period between the 13th and 16th century, when the exhibited
works were created. Krlea paid particular attention to Macedonian art: the
frescoes from Ss. Sofia (Ohrid) and St. Pantelejmon (Nerezi), the icons and
iconostasis, after which the Macedonian medieval art, in its full glory, en
countered international recognition. Krlea writes:
The secret of these painters is that the beauty of their works is but hal
lucinating experience, visionary and always equally suggestive and direct, in
those topics which, without their subjective talented interpretation, would
not mean much, because we do not believe in the truthfulness of the Bib
lical writings, no are we convinced that saint Luka is the father of the holy
church painting. These holy images are alive and good because they are alive,
not because they are holy. They are good because they are no longer holy,
but are human and because the man who painted them overcame what was
canonised Their dark purple, emerald green, pastel greenish, ultramarine,
red, golden, pastel blue and cinnabar palette is the secret of these masters,
and they managed to broaden the poor palette of duecento, and managed to
41
203
achieve pure Baroque settecento and, eventually, impressionist illumination.

Some of those paintings, in black-white and with pastel could be painted
today by Braque, in green by Van Gogh or by a later dishevelled individual
with a program focus on the Fauvist Paris decadent school.42
We have already emphasised in the introduction the enthusiasm with
which Krlea started working on the Encyclopaedia, gathering the best ex
perts, scientists, intellectuals and lexicographers, intending with the Paris
exhibition and with the Encyclopaedia to show the world that the Southern
Slavs have existed for a long time as a significant and constituent part of the
European culture.43
In this significant cultural project, Krlea is obsessed with the idea how
to publish the Encyclopaedia, as separate editions in Slovenian and Mac
edonian, as well as Serbian and in Cyrillic version. Therefore, on 30 Janu
ary 1968, Krlea in a friendly way, privately writes to Blaze Koneski that
it would be good if he consulted comrades Crvenkovski and Minev, so
that the general encyclopaedia (in six books) could be printed as a general
encyclopaedia in Macedonian. In the same letter, Krlea suggests that in
that case, the Macedonian editorial board should control the translation of
the texts, and the Macedonian Academy could undertake the initiative on
this The copyright of the Bureau of Lexicography shall not be called into
question. Krlea had already sent similar letters, per analogiam macedoni
cam, regarding the encyclopedia editions to Lazar Kolievski, Haralampie
Polenakovik and Kole aule.44
And all this was done for the purpose of thorough and full representa
tion and better acquaintance of Macedonia.
Miroslav Krlea: Likovne studije, Srpska i makedonska freska Jubilarno izdanje, NIRO Oslo
boenje, 32, 33.
43
Prirunik Leksikografskog zavoda (interno), JAZU, 1952, 12.
44
Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, 108122.
42
204
In 1960, Krlea is in Skopje again, now as a director of the Bureau of Lex

icography. A discussion with the Macedonian editorial board concerning the
Encyclopaedia was the formal occasion for the visit, but the real motives and
reasons for the arrival of Krlea were explained by Kole aule in the letter
to Enes engi: I met Krlea immediately after his arrival in Skopje, and we
agreed that he meets the editorial board and the most prominent associates
of the Razgledi magazine. We agreed that the meeting be held in my apart
ment lest there would be reactions. And so it was done
In the beginning of the discussion, Krlea was addressing everyone sepa
rately: he was asking who is who, what they wrote, what they published, etc., and
he mainly did it methodically, which surprised me, because they were mainly
young people. Then we spoke of the Macedonian modernism which, in many
aspects, was different from the modernism in other areas, precisely because it
was a demand for democratisation, liberation from the pressures up till now
Despite the attempts of those present to make the meeting with Krlea
as official as possible, he insisted, with the meetings with us, with the discus
sions, with the walks through Skopje, to give the meeting the character of
support for our strives. That had immediate response.
Understandably, the visit could not pass without a trip to Ohrid, through
Macedonia, etc. Krlea would not be who he was, his love and interest for Mace
donia would not be what they were if he had not travelled and gone sightseeing.
I am proud of the friendship that connected me to him, of the fact that
his home was open to me, as mine was to him, of the fact that he knew my
family, my children and often, when I needed words of support or when I felt
dejected, he found such words of support and encouragement. Understand
ing and advice.
What remains unforgotten, not just for me, but also for the other repre
sentatives of Razgledi, is the support he gave to us during his visit in 1960.45
Ibid, p. 120, 121 and 122.
45
205
Kole aule considered Krlea as his teacher and he was grateful that,
as he says, he taught us how to be righteous, how to fight for our opinion!
Krlea also wrote a travel text for his third say in Macedonia, which, un
fortunately, as many other of his texts, remained just a reminder for greater
studies and essays, something that he should additionally pay attention to
and dedicate himself to writing. He entitled his note Viaggio in Pelagonija,
30.IV1.V, 2.V and thus eternalised his Macedonian impressions: After a
gray veil of rain, after curvy roads, through Resen, here we are, in Ohrid with
Turkish types of walls and windows. These are towns that have their bazaars,
Gypsy quarters, Kurshuml-an, Bezisten, Daut-Pashin Amam, mosques and
fortresses, that is, stone walls.
The Ohrid hotel Palas, as a symbol of time Lights, illuminating the
coast at night, and there is that marble villa which generations have dreamed
of. In that marble villa, just as in Kranjevis poem, I am cold. Second morn
ing and walks through Ohrid Saint Kliment, Kliments town with blos
soming apples, Geneva Lake Galiica in snow, sun on the hill, ten centu
ries of sun! It is not hard to remember Kliments years, he came in the distant
886, and died in 916. From this point, all the way to Moravija and Kiev, he
was spreading the Byzantine and his own power and autocratic vision of
the Slovenian speech and alphabet. Galiica, 2,287 meters, and Mokra and
Drimkol and Jablanica, all about 2,200 meters high, covered in snow. In the
afternoon, through Petani, to St. Naum, a 1 May picnic on the sources of the
Crn Drim River
Through Struga and Veleta via Skopje46
Gane Todorovskis words at the presentation of Krleas books into Mac
edonian, in 1983 in Skopje, confirm the fact the Croatian writer Miroslav
Krlea was and still remains the Voltaire of our area and a proven friend of
Macedonia.
46
Krlea remains in our consciousness as an author with the most sugges

tive literary writing that the South Slavic peoples have known since written
records have been kept. He was a Voltaire of our time. He was a many-vol
ume historian of the holy and cursed Illyria, he was a writer who, with astute
mind and multitudinous associations, followed the expedition of the naked,
hungry and barefooted Slavic travellers who, inspired by their energy came
from the Samoyedic areas and Siberian taigas to Split and Ohrid, he was the
writer who gave his personal trait to the art in Titos Yugoslavia, a writer who
fought for and turned into reality the idea of Eternal Beauty and Absolute
Truth He was and still is a great friend of Macedonia and the Macedonian
culture!47
: , , 1987, . 242, 243.
Ibid., p. 109 and 110.
47
206
207
Gane Todorovski
From the Book Urgent Curiosities:
Krlea and Macedonia1
We have gathered here at the premises of the Macedonian National The
atre, this renowned sanctuary which day and night provides shelter for the
arts, to witness a first class cultural event. We have gathered here once again
to remind ourselves, even for a brief moment, of the fact that everything of
proper value has always been welcome in this placethat in this hall of arts
nothing arrives early or late but absolutely on time, that in this kingdom of
the nine muses, the nine goddesses and patrons of all sciences and arts, every
justified endeavour is treated in such a manner as to resemble a divine act
Today we have gathered in this Helicon built of natural concrete to
launch the five newly-published volumes of Miroslav Krleas work translat
ed into Macedonian language and published by Naa Kniga, the renowned
Skopje publisher:
1. Selected Poetry, including the poem The Ballads of Petrica Kerem
puh;
2. The Croatian God Mars, short stories;
3. The Return of Filip Latinovi, novel;
4. The Glembajs, plays, and
5. Selected Essays
Speech given at the launching of Miroslav Krleas Selected Works, published in Macedonian trans
lation, Naa Kniga Publishers, Skopje, 1983. The event was held at the small hall of the Macedonian
National Theatre, 18th November, 1983. Fragments from Krleas work were read by the artists: Nada
Geovska, Ilija Milin and Risto ikov.
: ,
209
This cultural event, by means of which the Macedonian language has

permanently been attributed with the best of the masterful literary work of
Miroslav Krlea, would have been deemed impossible if it were not for the
pulsating effort on behalf of a handful of cultural workers whose names are
worth mentioning here: Ilija Milin, Georgi Stalev, Evtim Manev, Dime Bil
janovski, Atanas Vangelov, and, if you will allow, the author who has the
honour of addressing you on this occasion.
It is not out of sheer modesty that I would like to mention a few more
names and institutions who have also contributed to the appearance of these
five volumes of Krleas work, such as:
Metodija Razmoski, the head manager of the Naa Kniga publishing
house,
Vidoe Podgorec, the editor-in-chief of this edition,
Tome Filipov, the technical director,
Spasija Burekovik, the language editor,
the workers at the Goce Delev printers, Skopje,
The Cultural Committee of the Republic, Skopje head office, as well
as all other people, mentioned and unmentioned, who undoubtedly
played a notable role in the process of preparing and realizing this
project of such tremendous importance for the cultural ambience in
the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
The publication of this important part of Miroslav Krleas work in Mac
edonian, a work so imposingly great and all-embracing, will make Macedo
nian culture enrich itself with new values and thus successfully pass the se
rious and difficult test of absorbing that work. At the same time, the original
literary work of one of the leading Yugoslav authors will further ensure its
permanence.
On such occasions it is good to remind ourselves of some facts that
belong to the category of evidence less well known to the public in order
to avoid the danger of repeating the generally known information, such as

the date and place of Miroslav Krleas birth, the titles of his well-known
works, etc. All of us gathered here, like any decent and cultured citizens of
the Yugoslav Federation who went through a system of education without
the absurd programme that high-schools have today, know fairly well who
Miroslav Krlea was. We partly know about him from his original works,
and we know him from the great number of books, brochures, pamphlets,
articles and columns published in various periodicals and daily newspapers
throughout Yugoslavia. He has also reached us by means of the highly spir
ited critical notions expressed by Milan Bogdanovi, the first monograph
dedicated to Krlea by ime Vueti, as well as the many and various studies
and critical books written by leading and extremely insightful critics and
commentators of his work, such as Stanko Lasi, Predrag Matvejevi, Zvan
je Crnja, Ivo Frange, Marijan Matkovi, Marko Risti, Aleksandar Flaker,
and many others. We also know about Krlea from the critical echoes of his
work and developed consciousness about its merits in Macedonia, as present
in various writings by Blazhe Koneski, Dimitar Mitrev, Kole aule, Milan
Gjurinov, etc. Last but not least, we know about Krlea from the works by
Enes engi, who is with us especially for this occasion, widely known as
Krleas closest colleague and official representative.
Miroslav Krlea, whose voluminous work includes a number of interest
ing details about Macedonia, was connected to our people and our country
with two golden links in his chain of life that shine constantly and are rec
ognized as two very important points in his rich and long personal history.
In fact, these two moments, as unusual and powerful as epiphany, which
he, of his own will (sponte sua), underlines in his works and autobiograph
ical writings such as in My Clash with Them, in Flags, and in the conver
sations that we had in 1960 and 1979. They are also found in the works of
Stanko Lasi, Enes engi, and Aleksandar Flaker.
What are they about?
210
211
The first moment is related to October 1913 when Krlea, a twenty-yearold young man, came to Skopje for the first time and almost perished while
defending the Macedonian cause; and the second is related to 1979 when a
delegation of the Struga Poetry Evenings, including myself, paid him a visit
in his home in Zagreb in order to hand him the Golden Wreath Award of the
festival, as he was unable to attend due to illness.
Therefore, today, at this ceremony of launching his works, allow me to
tell you briefly about these two rather interesting chapters in his life related
to Macedonia, on the basis of the evidence I possess. These chapters are as
important to him as they are to our culture, so I believe that as pieces of in
formation they may be regarded as of higher interest to our audience.
In Enes engis book, Krlea (published by Mladost in Zagreb and by
Oslobodjenje, Sarajevo in 1982) on pp. 552-553, the author gives some short
information about the visit of the delegation from the Struga Poetry Eve
nings festival (Risto Milevski, president of the Struga Municipality Council,
Ante Popovski, president of the Festival Board, Jovan Strezovski, director of
the festival, Gane Todorovski and Petre Bakevski, members of the Festival
Board), on 19th September, 1979, during the afternoon hours.
That day has remained vividly impressed on my memory. It was about
noon when Enes engi (I hope he will forgive me for mentioning his name
for the third time) and the members of our delegation started for the home
of Miroslav Krlea in Gvozd Street 33 with the aim of officially handing him
the Golden Wreath
We were all, I suppose, overwhelmed by the interior of Miroslav Krleas
office, laden with books, rare antique artefacts, paintings, copies of frescos,
valuable relics, and many other such objects. Ante Popovski, a descendent of
the Miyaks, a shrewd and quick-thinking person with an excellent sense for
finding the best and most convenient word when most necessary, still pant
ing from the long climb up several flights of stairs, after shaking hands with
the host at the threshold, addressed him and on behalf of the Festival Board
handed him, with no further delay, the Golden Wreath Award, saying:
One more rarity for your rich collection.

Jovan Strezovski added:
Seventeen maidens hands wove this golden thread
Taking on the role of a good host, who does not save his compliments,
Krlea looked at us cunningly, in the manner of his famous literary character
Petrica Kerempuh, and said briskly:
What matters most is that its really beautiful!
We sat down. Bela Krlea, the wife of the laureate whom we adorned
with Macedonian gold, brought in coffee and French cognac. Original of
course.
I filled in a pause during the conversation with a previously composed
sentence of only six words (which actually even on this occasion has the
same promoting essence, i.e. at this moment when we evoke memories of
him).
From now on youre a Macedonian, I said
Without a moment of hesitation and with the routine of a skilful actor,
he replied:
My goodness, you should know that I have been a Macedonian since
1913. I became a Macedonian when I was only 20. Then I told the Serbian
officers: If you allow me, gentlemen, this is not Serbia. These people here
speak a different language! They put me in prison and almost took me to
the firing-squad
He took a little pause and then turned to me with a question:
When were you born?
I told him and he immediately added:
See, I became a Macedonian some fifteen or sixteen years before you
did
Then quickly, logically, and with great precision, he started to talk about
Skopje, Struga, Byzantium, Anna Komnene, about ancient history, and then
about the Miladinov brothers, Krste Misirkov, Vatroslav Jagi, and about the
212
213
dispute between Serbia and Bulgaria over Macedonia. He did not allow us
to stop him, and we did not need to. Evidently the person in front of us was
much too vigorous for an 86-year-old man, and a qualified Macedonian
There was something very impressive regarding these associations of
his, thrown in with such a disorderly manner, i.e. something very personal
regarding Krleas relationship with Macedonia. And here is why I think so:
Born in 7th July, 1893, he was only twenty years old when he defected
from the Austro-Hungarian army and joined the Serbian forces to take part
in the Balkan wars (both First and Second). He came to Macedonia from
France, where in Marseilles he had boarded a ship that took him to Thessa
loniki. At the end of April he was eventually stationed in Macedonia.
All these events have been described in detail by the author in his book
A Picnic in Russia, written in 1926.
Several days later, at the beginning of May, Krlea arrived in Skopje.
In his book Days Long Ago (1956:148-149), the author notes that he put an
end to his ideological and political horizon in order to give advantage to his
growing inclination towards arts. That is the reason why this moment in his
life has such great importance. Krleas scepticism regarding his vocation was
born in Skopje, on Macedonian soil. Stanko Lasich in Krlea Chronology of
His Life and Work (Zagreb, 1982: 104), informs us that after the drowning of
his ideals in the tumult of war, art imposes itself on him as the only solution
in his life. Krlea himself explains this moment by saying:
While in Skopje in June 1913, I had very distinctly clear notions about
everything and was sure that I could express them in two-and-a-half-metrelong lines. In that moment of sheer collapse of all earthly values, of all my
childish illusions, self-deceptions and megalomaniac ideas, it became clear
to me that the only real and plausible mission of the artist (in the present
chaos of our lives), cannot be anything else but to preach love for the fellow
human beings, disregarding the meridians and the parallels that divide them,
the colour of their skin, the country, the nation, the continent they live in, etc.
It means that art is neither for some racially selected, nor for some common
man in the extreme sense of the word, but for the improvement of the basest
and most miserable in us in general. That is how I saw it, as a contribution
of one civilization which is still to come to the civilizations which are dying
out. I was convinced that it was the new or that it was to be the new in us,
in the midst of our dismal belatedness, that should raise us to the spiralling
movement of the spirit towards a higher degree of existence. (Days Long Ago,
1956: 148)
So even before the battle at the Bregalnica River (1725 May, 1913),
which definitiveely buried Krleas belief in the brotherhood of the South
Slavic peoples, here in Skopje, instead of cherishing the idea of freedom,
brotherhood and culture, he was confronted with aggressive, militarist, and
expansionist state power (See, Lasi, Krlea: 104).
Krlea himself wrote the following:
I dont want to have any role in the Arnauts transport between Veles
and Krivolak in June 1913. I dont want to be a police scribe in Skopje who
handles matters with a revolver in hand; I dont want to be part of a radical
treachery, nor of an artificial nonsense In order to express such an an
ti-Hannibalistic feeling, a person must know this topic well and then turn it
into writing. (Days Long Ago, 1956: 234)
This was the reason why he was arrested in Skopje and accused of being
an Austrian spy.
While Krleas chroniclers write in detail about this event (Lasi, engi,
Matvejevi), Krlea himself, in his A Short Authorial Note, describes this
Skopje adventure in a rather restrained manner:
Without documents, accepted with mistrust, accused and arrested,
during the several weeks he needed to arrive in Skopje (to the office of the
Supreme Command) he had enough time to become dispassionate as regards
his national enthusiasm By the end of the war he also lost his keenness for
war adventures (Croatian Rhapsody, 1921: 159160).
214
215
Thus in the biography of Krlea, Skopje remained a crucial place, a turn

ing-point in his life, a source of memories and a first-rate experience that
inhabits many of his texts.
Evidently, Krlea does not relate himself to Macedonia today, in 1983, as
he did so exactly seventy years ago when he unravelled the great truth about
the war, about humanity and about Macedonian selfhood.
In his novel Flags (in the fourth book, to be more exact), through the let
ters of Joachim (Joja) Dijak, and especially in his Second letter from Skopje
(without date), Krlea writes very eagerly about Skopje, the monastery of St
Andrew, about the Ilinden Uprising, and Macedonia in general:
And now I shall plunge into writing about one great experience, even
more than that, a unique adventure worth going through. There are here, in
this unfortunate country, a number of miniature basilicas, hidden among
mountain ravines, on desolate slopes, where even the devil bids everyone
good night, and a man could not but wonder how such primitive people
could build these temples. They are endowments of the Macedonian barons,
and here, in the vicinity of Skopje, a dozen kilometres up the River Treska (it
is a wild alpine torrent that howls in the depths of the canyon like mad wa
ter), positioned high above the mirror of the water, some fifty metres upward
along a goat trail, perched upon a cliff, there stands a small chapel, Saint
Andreas. We climbed to it last week and it was very much worth seeing that
miracle, curiosum mundi from the Trecento.
What is there to be discovered in such godforsaken ruin, under a sag
ging roof, surrounded by dung, in the middle of a sheep fold full of scattered
straw, droppings, piss, a place barely lit by the glow of our candle (we luckily
remembered to take some with us)? My guide was a Macedonian student (a
sergeant), whose father was murdered by the people of Vano Mihajlov in
Thessaloniki before the Serbian regiments made their entry in Macedonia.
The man was in love with this kind of painting: it was, in a way, some kind
of consolation for the lack of national pride and cultural awareness and he
was right to say that all of that was theirs. I had never been preoccupied with
that issue before, but now many things became clearer in my mind. And the
new knowledge rose like flames with such power that more than two weeks
after that unusual experience, I could not free myself from the greatness of
that impression.
And you cant know, my dear, what it meant to this man to be and to
die as an Ilinden rebel, you cant know what the Macedonian frescos are, in
the same way as I didnt know before, my dear lady, until they appeared in
front of me in their full dignity Everything here is blood, everything here
is sorrow All that blood and all that sorrow shine through these bloodstained paintings
Until today no one has described the depth of this tragedy, my dear. The
importance of these adventurous events, no one will know how to appre
ciate them in the same way as no one will learn how to appreciate our own
adventurous exploits when by sacrificing ourselves, our happiness, yes, my
dear, our love, we cheat ourselves that these Macedonian rivers, the Treska,
the Vardar, the Pinja will stop their flow if we werent there with our Serbian
ajkaa caps as liberators. (Flags, Belgrade 1969: 523524)
In the most recent literature (See: Aleksandar Flaker, Poetics of Denial,
Zagreb, 1982) we find the phrase Krleian Macedonian (142154). The au
thor refers to Krlaas short story In Extremis (1932), in which he unveils
a vision about Macedonia and the Balkans. In this short story, according to
Flaker, the Macedonian is seen as a representative of suffering throughout
the Balkans, as an authentic victim of various territorial hegemonies, as one
who suffers in the lowest circle of Balkan Hell. Krleas view of Macedonia is
traumatic. Flaker brings to our attention that Kunej, the main character in
the short story In Extremis, in his dialogue with a Macedonian whom he
has met in the olive grove of the Kvarner region, a soldier guarding an out
post by the sea shore, concretizes the Balkans as a territory lacking national
and social justice, a territory of continuous conflicts and wars, where the
216
217
peasant, devoid of his land (i.e. turned into a proletarian) is merely an object,
a territory of various Balkan flags and kings (148).
Presenting Macedonia as being at the bottom of the Hades, the main
character in Krleas short story, after meeting the suffering Macedonian (as
Flaker notes), opens up a new territory, a territory which is not geographi
cal but exclusively moral. The Krleian Macedonian speaks with words of
heavy and dramatic accusation:
My older brother fought under the Turkish flag, then the Serbs came
and took a hundred and seven sheep from my family. I served the Serbian
king three times and withdrew with his army to Albania. Then came the
Bulgarians and took my mother and my sister away, whereas my father was
killed before by the komitadjis. I have nothing and no one now. (331332)
Thus Krlea in his literary works does not discover the Balkans as a new
geographical space, but makes serious attempts to discover it as a new ethical
space.
In his work Balkan Impressions (1924), written about the situation in
Albania and in response to Kosta Novakovis book Macedonia to the Mac
edonians, in its final part (to be more precise), it seems that with the motif
of the operatic ceremony of enthronement of the first Mbret in Shqipnia,
Krlea offers an optimum projection of the Balkans in the same way as Alek
sandar Flaker does when describing the Krleian Macedonian. Thus Krlea
appears as a prophet whose relevance has not been surpassed for sixty years
to this day. Therefore we shall conclude our speech by quoting the following:
Today, more than ever, should the Balkans be looked at from an integral
point of view. More than ever should we believe in Balkan unity for the sake
of saving our souls and the souls of all those innocent victims that die on
a daily basis along the Balkan mountains and ravines. Constructive theses
must be postulated in order to connect firmly all Balkan valleys in length and
in width, so that wherever the whistle of the locomotive is heard, there dies
the need for blood revenge and there rises the need for literacy. We should
all desire the building of smoking chimneys fed eight hours a day! Where
trade unions are established and where class struggle develops, there die the
parodies of the Spanish enthronement ceremonies. Not with machineguns
and gallows, but with books.
It is there, on that Balkan and infernal ground that Krlea has now, in
1983, arrived again with the five volumes of his work. He has yet again ar
rived on Macedonian soil in the role of a masterful peacemaker who wants
to ennoble us with the power of his artistic word.
218
219
* * *
Krlea remains in our consciousness as an author of extremely sugges
tive literary work that has hardly been known before among the south Slavic
peoples. He was a kind of Voltaire of our time. He was a prolific chronicler of
the holy and damned Illyricum, the writer who shrewdly and meticulously, by
means of a number of associations, followed the journey of the underdressed,
undernourished, and barefoot Slavic nomads who, carried by their dashing
endurance, came on foot all the way from the Samoyedic regions in the midst
of the Siberian taigas to Split and Ohrid. He was the author who gave the arts
in Titos Yugoslavia a specific and unique dimension, a writer who was the
greatest spiritual torchbearer in the history of the Yugoslav peoples.
There is still time for this country to rise in the world, as soon as the
non-Yugoslav regions of the world realizes the vividness and the bright
greatness that our peoples had in their environment during the past five or
six decades of the 20th century. The memorable motto of this writer of such
imposing stature was that literature could never be isolated from the context
in which it is submerged, known as reality. He also pointed out that since
literature is connected with reality, it thus becomes the country in which we
live and the language in which we speak, for it is material prima and the only
means for our own literary expression.
He was and will remain a great friend to Macedonia and Macedonian

culture. From the pedestal of his all-encompassing knowledge and moral
courage for observing the facts (as he often used to say), he observed that
the church at Nerezi in the vicinity of Skopje stood as an epochal point in
the development of the Byzantine and west-European painting. And on the
occasion when we gave him the Golden Wreath Award he declared that he
had felt himself to be a Macedonian since 1913, the year when he was almost
taken to the firing-squad for his attempt to defend the Macedonian cause. In
his study Illyricum sacrum (1944), he reiterates his notions not only about
Nerezi but also the churches in Skopska Crna Gora, the St Sophia church
in Ohrid, the church in Kurbinovo, as well as the ancient sites of Stobi and
Heraclea, the Bogomil movement and the Balkan wars, the Ilinden uprising
and the Macedonian traumas and paradoxes. Krlea was an example of a rare
and utmost connoisseur of Macedonia. That is the reason why we should
read and respect him.
220
, .
. ,
.
/ SADRAJ / CONTENTS

( . ) ..

, 2013 ( . ).

Katica ulavkova
POVRATAK MIROSLAVA KRLEE Sto godina od prvog dolaska u
Makedoniju (Prijevod B. Jovanovska) ..
Goran Kalogjera
KRLEA I SKOPJE U TRI INA .
Boo Rude
KRLEA A.D. MMXIII. .
Gane Todorovski
KRLEA I MAKEDONIJA (Prijevod B. Jovanovska) ..
................................
................................
...............................
................................
,
, : (Translated by Z. Anchevski)
221

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120

Makedonska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti

120. obljetnica od roenja

/ Autori tekstova / Texts Written by

Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts

120 years since his birth

engi, Enes. S Krleom iz dana u dan, 6, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990, 106.

engi, Enes. Krlea post mortem 2, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990., 120.

, . , , 1987, 242, 243.

FNRJ 1950 ( 1962, Jugoslovenski leksikografski zavod, , 1991

Predrag Matvejevi: Razgovori s Krlem, 6. izdanje, Prometej, Zagreb 2002, 93.

: Knjievna Republika, godite X., 79, srpanj/rujan 2012.

Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem 2, 117.

Kulturni radnik, asopis za drutvena i kulturna pitanja, Zagreb, 5/1985, 58. :

, . 120, 121 122.

dramski pisac, enciklopedist, publicist, politiki komentator, polemiar, pu

ne mora opstruirati. Slobodno sjeanje je uvod u jedno suvremeno ponovno

matu i po svom obiteljskom, egzistencijalnom, jezinom i kulturnom ambi

U Skopju, studenoga 2013.

da e od njega postati upotrebljiv vojnik.3 Kapetan Klimko smatra da ne pri

Isto, str. 101.

Postoji i druga varijanta njegovog naputanja Ludoviceuma. Iz Krlei

Od sigurne smrti, s obzirom na optubu da je pijun, Krleu spaava vi

Krleina drama imala je veliki uspjeh, kazalite je bilo dupkom puno,

ra. Ovdje tu predstavu smatraju najboljom skopskom predstavom (od poetka

Isto, str. 185/6.

Trei in. Skopje 1960.

Dolazi 25. travnja i odlazi 2. svibnja 1960.

upozna s likovnim vrednostima nae srednjovekovne umjetnosti naroito one u

uspjean: Odmah po njegovu dolasku u Skoplje, susreo sam se s Krleom, te

efa katedre za SH jezik i knjievnost Haralampije Polenakovia i predsjedni

Isto, str. 105.

jezikom. Teko je sa sigurnou na to odgovoriti, meutim, sasvim je jasno da

Uz mnoga poetska i knjievna remek-djela, kao to su: Balade Petrice

su lanke za Diderotovu enciklopediju pisali vodei francuski knjievnici,

prestilizirati. Arijanstvo na Balkanu traje jo od prakranskih dana na ovom

S takvim moralno-intelektualnim vrlinama, s takvom graanskom hra

A sudei po interesu mlaih narataja za njegovom prozom i dramama,

psiholokim nijansama i umjetniki iznijansiranim karakternim linostima

s druge obale. Drugu tekstualno-vizualno-zvunu i dokumentarnu etnju

rije Miroslava Krlee. Njen plodonosni utjecaj odrazio se jednakim intenzi

doivjeti ostvarenje svojih ideala; a proljearima da meu Hrvatima nije

intuicija i refleksija, ljudi i dogaaji, a takoer i niz iskaza o nepoznatim ili

uljepavanja, krastavu, gladnu, nepismenu i provincijalnu, oboavao ju je ne

Dolaskom hadezeove vlasti, od 1990. do 1997. u Hrvatskoj nije tiska

se u uvodu ovog razmatranja sporazumijemo o vrijednosti i o smislu nekih

A da je u ovom dijelu svijeta doista za mnoge hrvatske intelektualce vri

Dakle, ljudi zapravo nita ne itaju.26

Enes engi: Krlea, post mortem 2, str. 117

Knjievnik Saa Vere u programskoj knjiici o integralnom ureenju

faktor koji e dovriti ovu investiciju, i vratimo se Krleinu knjievnom

1988., na engievu inicijativu i njegovim zalaganjem objavljena su, najzad,

ka i publike. Preko Krlee opet je uspostavljen novi i ivi dijalog sa svijetom,

pl. Kriovec) iskazuje kao Laurina anatomija ponienja. Blistava predstava

cijela s jedne strane, a da se Grci ne dosjete s druge33 pismo glagoljica poe

U XIX. stoljeu za proirenje hrvatsko-makedonskih knjievnih i kul

Jagi i Krlea, razliitim povodima, kad se paljivije analizira, zapravo

O Krleinom drugom posjetu Makedoniji 1937. godine, Stanko Lasi u

su nastale izloene umjetnine. Posebnu pozornost Krlea posveuje make

pie prijateljski, u etiri oka (diskretno) Blai Koneskom da bi bilo dobro

mo i autokratsku viziju slavenskog govora i pisma. Galiica 2287 i Ovozem

Isto, str. 109 i 110.

Iza ovog kulturnog ina, kojim se trajno, na makedonskom jeziku prire

rativnih impresija i studija Milana Bogdanovia, pa preko prve monografije