Identitetske sastavnice u frazeologiju Benjamina Tolića, II.
Identity Components in the Phraseology of Benjamin Tolić

Summary/Abstract: The article approaches the identity components in the phraseology of the Croatian lexicographer, translator and diplomat Benjamin Tolić from the viewpoint of structural and cognitive-linguistic analysis. The material consists of his political columns and texts collected in nine author’s books written between 2002 and 2023. Identity components include homeland, people, nation, language, and state. The political environment is very tense and unstable; different conceptions of social and economic construction confront each other immediately after the state independence of the Republic of Croatia was won in the Homeland War – the independence that has not been unanimously accepted not only by international factors but also by some Croatian citizens. In the distinctive style of a European intellectual born from a multilingual and multinational Mediterranean open-minded climate, Tolić analyzes and comments on events with an ironic edge; he rephraseologizes existing phrases creating new ones, and confronts good and evil, morality and dishonour, democracy and tyranny, sovereignty and subjection, freedom and slavery. In his thought, Tolić sets out from the teachings of Confucius on defining terminology, i.e. on the necessity to accurately (validly) name objects in order to find a plausible solution to a problem.

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