Srednja Europa u odabranim putopisima Miroslava Krleže
Central Europe in Selected Travelogues of Miroslav Krleža

Author(s): Antonina Kurtok
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Croatian Literature, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Krleža; travelogues; Central Europe; Mitteleuropa
Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to present the image of – organically close to Miroslav Krleža – Central Europe drawn in selected travelogues of the great Croatian writer. The starting point and at the same time the literary framework of the analysis are Krleža’s descriptions and impressions after visiting several cities – Vienna, Berlin, Dresden – recorded in the texts created in the interwar period: "Bečke impresije, U Drezdenu" ("Mister Vu San-Pej zanima se za srpsko-hrvatsko pitanje") and "Berlinske impresije". A characteristic of Krleža’s travel discourse is a combination of memoirs, topography, description of everyday life and circumstances, but also artistic impressions, whereby the emphasis is always on the subject’s experiences. Thanks to this, it is possible to consider his travelogues from several perspectives. Through a close reading of the selected travelogues in a geopoetic key and through the prism of a few frequent features of the writer’s creativity, we will aim to present Krleža’s description of the Central European area and the author’s vision and experience of that area. Travelogues will thus be viewed as a narrative form of existential experience, the experience of a place and its testimony, a multi-sensory, complex experience of a place and a place of memory. We will also check in which way and to what extent Krleža’s world of ideas (an immanent part of his writing) is outlined in the author’s travelogues.

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