CRTICA O BOŽIĆU VJENCESLAVA NOVAKA ILI KAKO ISTINSKE LJUDSKE VRIJEDNOSTI PREVLADAVAJU TMINU REALIZMA
„CRTICA O BOŽIĆU“ OF VJENCESLAV NOVAK OR HOW TRUE HUMAN VALUES OVERRULES THE DARKNESS OF REALISM

Summary/Abstract: In the paper, Vjenceslav Novak’s Crtica o Božiću (A Sketch of Christmas) is analysed with a special emphasis on the autobiographical and self-referential elements, the author’s worldview and the tone that the work offers. Despite its brevity Crtica o Božiću is full of contents. The work offers hope and belief in a better, higher world. Love for one’s family in the work softens the reality of the poverty of a poor professor and writer who is uncomfortably awaiting the arrival of Christmas because he cannot afford gifts for his large family. Also interesting is the Catholic inspiration that provides optimism in the unusually dark tone of realism, represented via shortages and poverty and the neglect of an intellectual who lives on the social periphery. Novak occupies a significant place in our literature of realism, despite the fact that his opus has not been catalogued and researched completely. In fact Crtica o Božiću depicts autobiographical and self-referential elements of the writer who creates out of necessity. The experience of what was described created an interesting contribution by the Croatian Balzac, the one who faithfully portrayed the poor on the edge of existence, managing to place the periphery in the centre of attention of those who read and those who analyse and interpret his creativity.

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