Smijeh kroz suze (Na primjerima iz ruske i bosanskohercegovačke drame)
Laughter through Tears (Examples from Russian and Bosnian-Herzegovinian Drama)

Summary/Abstract: This text consists of three parts. The first part of the text deals with comical means in The Government Inspector by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, the play which is the first to promote laughter through tears. Comical means in The Government Inspector are treated through influential theory of comical/laughter of Henri Bergson. However, it is also revealed how – in relation to the type of comedy based on human society and emotional distance – The Government Inspector displays certain surplus. The second part of this text examines two examples from Bosnian-Herzegovinian drama – plays Childhood Disease: When Father Was Away on Business by Abdulah Sidran and Grow in Width by Dževad Karahasan. Starting from reflection on stylistic tendencies introduced by Volker Klotz in his book on closed and open forms of drama, this text shows that Sidran’s play is written entirely in accordance with the rules of open form of drama, while Karahasan’s play is written in accordance with the rules of closed form. Finally, in the third part, this text shows that, despite the difference in style, these two plays demonstrate certain resemblance with the tradition of laughter through tears which was introduced by Gogol in his The Government Inspector. This leads to conclusion that this type of comical/laughter is broader than the notion of style and that it could be described as a genre in the European dramatic tradition.

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