Prirodno pravo u Smrti Smail-age Čengića: Mažuranićev “fuit tyrannus”
NATURAL LAW IN THE DEATH OF SMAIL-AGA: MAŽURANIĆ’S FUIT TYRRANUS

Summary/Abstract: Article interprets Ivan Mažuranić’s The Death of Smail-Aga in the context of post-revolutionary practices declaring that political freedom is the universal right and purpose of every society and government. Seen in this way, it is possible to establish a direct nexus between Mažuranić’s literary, publicist, political and juridical engagement. His literary work, as well as his legal and educational reforms, are based on understanding the importance of revolutionary statement that Liberty, Equality and Fraternity should govern political life and important social decisions. The Death of Smail-Aga therefore exceeds its main referentiality, i.e. its connection with the real historical case, and, as an allegory, it emphasizes the modernist idea that historical processes inevitably overturn every form of despotism. Advocating natural law as the ultimate principle of every government, Mažuranić at the same time justifies revolutionary terror as the articulation of “divine violence” (die göttliche Gewalt), as Walter Benjamin would later call it, which, free of every individual interest, “pure and immediate”, becomes effective without the need to realize personal revenge or individual idea of justice.

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