WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.960 OK, let's unpack this. We have a tendency, I 00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:04.879 think, when we look back at the history of the 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:07.519 20th century to focus on the heavy hitters. You 00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:10.179 know, we look at London and we look at Berlin, 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:13.720 Moscow, Washington. We read the history of the 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.980 winners or at least the major power. The great 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:19.059 power narrative. Right. It's the standard way 00:00:19.059 --> 00:00:22.079 history is taught. Right. But what if I told 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:25.899 you that to really understand the absolute insanity 00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:28.920 of the last century, the collapse of empires, 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:31.699 the rise of fascism, the friction of the Cold 00:00:31.699 --> 00:00:35.140 War, the role of the intellectual in totalitarianism, 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:37.719 You shouldn't be looking at a capital city in 00:00:37.719 --> 00:00:39.479 the West. You should be looking at a specific 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:42.719 villa in Zagreb, Croatia. That is a bold claim. 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:44.679 But, you know, looking at the stack of research 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:46.840 we have here, it actually holds up. It really 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:49.359 does. We're diving deep today into the life and 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:51.500 work of Miroslav Kurledzha. And frankly, just 00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:54.939 calling him a writer feels like we're underselling 00:00:54.939 --> 00:00:56.740 it massively. Oh, completely. It's like calling 00:00:56.740 --> 00:00:59.799 Da Vinci a sketch artist. Exactly. Based on the 00:00:59.799 --> 00:01:03.179 source material, this man was a novelist, a playwright. 00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:07.000 A poet, an essayist, a philosopher, an encyclopedist 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.799 and a military critic. It's an insane resume. 00:01:10.019 --> 00:01:12.650 And a political rebel who then. somehow became 00:01:12.650 --> 00:01:15.189 a political institution. That's the part that's 00:01:15.189 --> 00:01:17.250 so hard to wrap your head around. It really is. 00:01:17.349 --> 00:01:20.569 He is widely, and I mean widely, considered the 00:01:20.569 --> 00:01:22.890 greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. 00:01:23.109 --> 00:01:26.109 But beyond all the accolades, his life is this 00:01:26.109 --> 00:01:30.370 perfect, jagged line through every single major 00:01:30.370 --> 00:01:33.390 geopolitical earthquake of the region. Just think 00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:35.569 about the timeline for a second. He's born in 00:01:35.569 --> 00:01:37.909 the Austro -Hungarian Empire. Right. He lives 00:01:37.909 --> 00:01:39.870 through its collapse. He lives through the chaotic, 00:01:39.950 --> 00:01:42.239 messy creation. of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. 00:01:42.379 --> 00:01:44.700 He survived the fascist puppet state during World 00:01:44.700 --> 00:01:47.219 War II. Which was incredibly dangerous for someone 00:01:47.219 --> 00:01:49.760 like him. Terrifying. And then he becomes a central, 00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:52.939 pivotal figure in socialist Yugoslavia. And he 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.879 dies just one year after Marshall Tito. His life 00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:57.859 is the story of that century in that part of 00:01:57.859 --> 00:02:00.359 the world. He didn't just survive these eras. 00:02:00.500 --> 00:02:03.810 He defined a cultural response to them. And that's 00:02:03.810 --> 00:02:06.049 the mission for this deep dive. We want to figure 00:02:06.049 --> 00:02:08.710 out how one man could be, and this is a great 00:02:08.710 --> 00:02:12.210 phrase, a communist of his own making. How he 00:02:12.210 --> 00:02:15.129 could be a close personal advisor to an authoritarian 00:02:15.129 --> 00:02:18.629 president and at the same time be a literary 00:02:18.629 --> 00:02:21.210 rebel who absolutely refused to write propaganda. 00:02:21.629 --> 00:02:24.330 It's the ultimate story of the insider outsider. 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:28.020 How do you maintain your intellectual soul when 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:30.139 the world around you is constantly demanding 00:02:30.139 --> 00:02:32.759 total obedience? And to understand that, we have 00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:35.199 to go right back to the start. Because the contradictions 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:37.560 in Kruller's life, they start literally with 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:39.460 his education. They really do. It's the perfect 00:02:39.460 --> 00:02:41.639 place to begin. Let's get into part one then, 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:44.520 the soldier and the spy. So the origins. He's 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:48.340 born July 7th, 1893 in Zagreb. And it's crucial 00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:50.800 context to remember that Zagreb at that point 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:53.840 was in Croatia, Slavonia, which was part of the 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:55.939 Austro -Hungarian Empire. So not an independent 00:02:55.939 --> 00:02:58.860 nation. Not at all. It was the periphery of a 00:02:58.860 --> 00:03:01.840 vast, multi -ethnic empire ruled from Vienna. 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:04.080 And his background wasn't aristocratic, was it? 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:06.560 He didn't come from money. No, not at all. Quite 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:09.060 modest. His father was a police constable. So, 00:03:09.139 --> 00:03:11.479 you know, a state functionary, but very much 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:13.780 lower middle class. But Miroslav, even as a kid, 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:17.000 was clearly different. Oh, a prodigy. By all 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:18.860 accounts, he was fiercely brilliant, incredibly 00:03:18.860 --> 00:03:21.300 intellectual, very sensitive, always reading. 00:03:21.419 --> 00:03:23.419 And you have to put yourself in the mindset of 00:03:23.419 --> 00:03:26.060 the Austro -Hungarian Empire. If you have a bright, 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:28.919 disciplined boy from a modest background, there 00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:32.060 was one very clear, very established path for 00:03:32.060 --> 00:03:34.740 social mobility. The military. Precisely. The 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:37.460 officer corps. So this future literary titan, 00:03:37.460 --> 00:03:39.520 the sensitive poet who would write some of the 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:42.919 most scathing anti -war literature ever, he starts 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:45.560 up by choice in a military academy. That's the 00:03:45.560 --> 00:03:47.560 paradox. That's the first great irony of his 00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:49.780 life. He is enrolled in a preparatory military 00:03:49.780 --> 00:03:52.539 school in Pax, which is in modern -day Hungary. 00:03:52.919 --> 00:03:55.620 And from there, he goes to the very prestigious 00:03:55.620 --> 00:03:58.979 Ludovicium Military Academy in Budapest. So he 00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:00.819 is being groomed to be an officer of the emperor. 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:02.780 He's wearing the uniform. He's learning the discipline, 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:05.819 the tactics. He is inside the machine. He is 00:04:05.819 --> 00:04:08.300 in the belly of the beast. But you have to understand 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:12.370 the atmosphere of, say, 1912, 1913. The air is 00:04:12.370 --> 00:04:14.990 electric. The whole system is starting to fray. 00:04:15.189 --> 00:04:18.129 It's crumbling. Nationalism is boiling over everywhere, 00:04:18.350 --> 00:04:21.629 but especially in the Balkans. Young Croats, 00:04:21.670 --> 00:04:24.910 young Serbs, young Slovenes are looking around 00:04:24.910 --> 00:04:26.649 and feeling like they're living in what they 00:04:26.649 --> 00:04:28.990 called a prison of nations. And they're looking 00:04:28.990 --> 00:04:31.230 across the border. They are looking across the 00:04:31.230 --> 00:04:33.850 border at the Kingdom of Serbia. Serbia was seen 00:04:33.850 --> 00:04:35.709 as the Piedmont, right? That's the historical 00:04:35.709 --> 00:04:37.870 comparison I've seen. Yes, that's the term they 00:04:37.870 --> 00:04:40.509 used. Just as the kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia 00:04:40.509 --> 00:04:43.430 had united Italy, the South Slavic nationalists 00:04:43.430 --> 00:04:45.769 believed that Serbia would be the magnet, the 00:04:45.769 --> 00:04:48.269 force that would unite all the Slavs against 00:04:48.269 --> 00:04:51.470 the Austrians and the Hungarians. For them, Serbia 00:04:51.470 --> 00:04:54.050 was the beacon of freedom. So Kraljeles, the 00:04:54.050 --> 00:04:56.350 promising young cadet in the emperor's army, 00:04:56.529 --> 00:05:00.240 makes a massive life -altering move. He defects. 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:03.060 It's an incredibly dramatic moment. It's 1913. 00:05:03.139 --> 00:05:05.899 The Balkan Wars are raging. He literally runs 00:05:05.899 --> 00:05:08.040 away from the academy. He leaves his uniform, 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:10.819 crosses the border, and presents himself to the 00:05:10.819 --> 00:05:13.279 Serbian authorities. Now, in his mind, what does 00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:15.160 he expect is going to happen? Well, you have 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:17.639 to imagine. He's a young romantic. He sees himself 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:21.300 as a hero, a patriot. He's leaving the oppressor 00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:24.740 to offer his sword, or more accurately, his military 00:05:24.740 --> 00:05:27.339 training and his intellect to the cause of South 00:05:27.339 --> 00:05:30.560 Slavic liberation. He probably expects a parade 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:33.040 or at least a warm welcome. And this is where 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:35.819 the movie script takes a very dark, very ironic 00:05:35.819 --> 00:05:38.120 turn. He doesn't get a parade. He doesn't even 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:40.980 get a handshake. Instead, the Serbs look at him, 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.300 this very proper young guy with a stiff Austrian 00:05:44.300 --> 00:05:46.879 military bearing, speaking perfectly educated 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:50.240 German and Hungarian, and they get deeply suspicious. 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:52.970 They think he's a spy. They are absolutely convinced 00:05:52.970 --> 00:05:55.410 he is an Austrian plan, a provocateur sent to 00:05:55.410 --> 00:05:57.610 infiltrate them. So instead of giving him a uniform 00:05:57.610 --> 00:06:01.209 and a rifle, they interrogate him. They humiliate 00:06:01.209 --> 00:06:03.569 him. And eventually they just kick him out. They 00:06:03.569 --> 00:06:05.730 declare him a spy and send him packing right 00:06:05.730 --> 00:06:07.889 back to the empire he just deserted. That is 00:06:07.889 --> 00:06:10.769 a profound double trauma. You betray your country 00:06:10.769 --> 00:06:13.689 for a cause and then the cause itself says, we 00:06:13.689 --> 00:06:16.009 don't want you. You're not one of us. It's a 00:06:16.009 --> 00:06:18.569 complete rejection from both sides. He has nowhere 00:06:18.569 --> 00:06:21.920 to go. So he has to walk back to Austria -Hungary, 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.220 knowing what's waiting for him. And what is waiting 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:26.759 for him? He goes back. Yeah. And obviously he 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:29.360 is immediately arrested. He's a deserter in wartime. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.379 Frankly, he's lucky he wasn't court -martialed 00:06:32.379 --> 00:06:34.480 and executed, which was a very real possibility. 00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:36.560 So what did they do to him? They stripped him 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:38.680 of his rank. They cashiered him from the officer 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.420 corps. So when World War I breaks out just a 00:06:41.420 --> 00:06:45.199 year later, in 1914, Mirzal Kralisza isn't an 00:06:45.199 --> 00:06:47.839 officer leading men from the back. He is a common 00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:50.819 soldier. A grunt. And they send him to the worst 00:06:50.819 --> 00:06:52.839 possible place. They send him to the Eastern 00:06:52.839 --> 00:06:56.379 Front. To Galicia. To fight the Russians. We 00:06:56.379 --> 00:06:59.459 hear so much about the Western Front. You know, 00:06:59.459 --> 00:07:02.000 the trenches in France. The poetry of Wilfred 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:04.920 Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. But the Eastern Front 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:06.740 was a different kind of hell, wasn't it? It was 00:07:06.740 --> 00:07:08.379 a different kind of meat grinder. It was more 00:07:08.379 --> 00:07:10.699 mobile in some ways, but it was just as brutal. 00:07:10.939 --> 00:07:14.620 A chaotic, muddy, freezing hellscape. And for 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:17.699 Krulica, this was the single most formative experience 00:07:17.699 --> 00:07:20.620 of his young life. Because he wasn't in a headquarters 00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:24.240 moving flags on a map. No. He was in the mud 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.959 with the Domobran, the Croatian home defenders, 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:29.199 the common soldiers. And these were peasants, 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:32.240 mostly. Exactly. Poor, uneducated Croatian peasants 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:34.220 who didn't care about the Emperor Franz Josef 00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:36.600 in Vienna, who probably couldn't point to Vienna 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:39.720 on a map being ordered to slaughter and be slaughtered 00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:42.500 by... equally poor and uneducated Russian peasants. 00:07:42.579 --> 00:07:45.639 He saw the absolute pointless absurdity of it 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:48.240 all. The complete senselessness, the bureaucracy 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.480 of death, the incompetence of the officers, the 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:55.139 suffering. It burned away any last shred of romanticism 00:07:55.139 --> 00:07:57.879 he might have had about war or about empires 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:00.399 or about authority. And this experience is what 00:08:00.399 --> 00:08:02.899 fuels his first major literary breakthrough, 00:08:03.180 --> 00:08:06.740 a book called The Croatian God Mars. Hrvatsky 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:10.060 Bog Mars. It was published in 1922, a few years 00:08:10.060 --> 00:08:12.399 after the war ended. And it's technically a collection 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.100 of short stories, but reads like a single cohesive 00:08:15.100 --> 00:08:18.079 scream against war. The title alone is fascinating. 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:20.420 Mars is the Roman god of war, obviously. Why 00:08:20.420 --> 00:08:22.500 the Croatian qualifier? What does that imply? 00:08:22.860 --> 00:08:25.540 It's a deeply cynical and historical title. It 00:08:25.540 --> 00:08:28.639 implies that the god of war has a special, specific, 00:08:28.819 --> 00:08:32.299 and insatiable hunger for croats. It's a commentary 00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:34.809 on the history of the nation. How so? For centuries, 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:38.029 Croatia saw itself as the antemural Christianitatis, 00:08:38.110 --> 00:08:41.190 the bulwark of Christianity. They were the border 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:43.429 guards of Europe fighting the Ottomans, meaning 00:08:43.429 --> 00:08:46.090 for centuries they were the ones dying in faraway 00:08:46.090 --> 00:08:48.230 lands to protect the comfortable center of Europe, 00:08:48.330 --> 00:08:50.730 whether it was Vienna or Budapest. So Croatia 00:08:50.730 --> 00:08:52.970 is basically saying, we are the designated victims 00:08:52.970 --> 00:08:55.230 of history. We're the cannon fodder. That's it, 00:08:55.330 --> 00:08:57.789 exactly. And the stories in the book, they're 00:08:57.789 --> 00:09:00.289 not about glory. There are no heroes. They are 00:09:00.289 --> 00:09:03.070 about dysentery and frostbite and bad boots and 00:09:03.070 --> 00:09:05.509 incompetent officers and the sheer grinding, 00:09:05.629 --> 00:09:08.470 dehumanizing misery of the trenches. It cemented 00:09:08.470 --> 00:09:11.669 his lifelong anti -war stance and his deep, deep 00:09:11.669 --> 00:09:14.169 cynicism toward any kind of authority. You simply 00:09:14.169 --> 00:09:16.210 cannot understand Khrushchev as a leftist, Khrushchev 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:18.309 the rebel, without understanding Khrushchev as 00:09:18.309 --> 00:09:20.289 a common soldier who saw the empire feeding its 00:09:20.289 --> 00:09:22.529 own people into a cannon for no reason at all. 00:09:22.629 --> 00:09:25.509 Which leads us perfectly into part two, the literary 00:09:25.509 --> 00:09:29.059 titan. Because he survives the war. The empire 00:09:29.059 --> 00:09:32.039 collapses in 1918. We get the kingdom of Yugoslavia. 00:09:32.220 --> 00:09:35.820 And Korolyzha just, he unleashes. The output 00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:39.960 is, it's just staggering. It's hard to even quantify. 00:09:40.019 --> 00:09:43.659 In the 1920s and 30s, between the wars, he is 00:09:43.659 --> 00:09:46.519 writing in every conceivable genre. And we need 00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:48.960 to talk about his style because it's very, very 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:51.539 distinct. The sources we looked at describe it 00:09:51.539 --> 00:09:53.840 as a combination of visionary poetic language 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:57.049 and sarcasm. That is the Kroger signature right 00:09:57.049 --> 00:10:00.299 there. He uses this incredibly rich. dense, baroque, 00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:03.080 almost poetic language. His sentences can go 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:04.759 on for a full page. They're full of subordinate 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:07.899 clauses, rich descriptions, philosophical asides. 00:10:07.899 --> 00:10:09.500 But it's not just beautiful language for its 00:10:09.500 --> 00:10:11.820 own sake. No, because he cuts it with this razor 00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:14.539 -sharp irony, this acidic sarcasm. It's like 00:10:14.539 --> 00:10:16.419 he's painting a beautiful classical oil painting 00:10:16.419 --> 00:10:18.299 full of detail and texture, and then he takes 00:10:18.299 --> 00:10:20.159 a knife and just slashes the canvas to show you 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:22.399 the cheap, ugly wall behind it. He builds up 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:25.059 the beautiful facade of bourgeois society, and 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:26.879 then he shows you the rot underneath. And his 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:29.629 main target is that bourgeois hypocrite. Always. 00:10:30.009 --> 00:10:32.629 The hypocrisy and conformism of the old Austria 00:10:32.629 --> 00:10:35.049 -Hungary and then of the new kingdom of Yugoslavia. 00:10:35.429 --> 00:10:37.889 He saw it as the same class of people, just with 00:10:37.889 --> 00:10:39.610 a different flag. Okay, let's break down the 00:10:39.610 --> 00:10:41.870 works, starting with the plays. Because if you 00:10:41.870 --> 00:10:44.370 study theater in that part of the world, Kralja 00:10:44.370 --> 00:10:47.509 is, I mean, he's the god. He is the central pillar 00:10:47.509 --> 00:10:50.120 of 20th century Croatian theater. He started 00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:53.240 out with some very experimental expressionist 00:10:53.240 --> 00:10:57.059 plays, things like Adam Maiva or Michelangelo 00:10:57.059 --> 00:10:59.679 Buonarroti, very avant -garde, very symbolic. 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:03.000 But he evolved into something more psychological, 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:06.259 more naturalist. And that evolution brings us 00:11:06.259 --> 00:11:08.759 to the Glembe's. Monsieur's Glembe, published 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:11.679 in 1929. If there is one single work that our 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:13.360 listeners might have heard of or maybe should 00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:15.720 know, it's probably this one. What is the setup? 00:11:16.090 --> 00:11:19.090 Imagine a hugely wealthy, powerful banking family 00:11:19.090 --> 00:11:22.210 in Zagreb in the early 20th century, the Glembes. 00:11:22.509 --> 00:11:24.990 They are the absolute pillars of society. They 00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:26.870 have the sprawling mansion, the priceless art 00:11:26.870 --> 00:11:28.909 collection, the political connections, the flawless 00:11:28.909 --> 00:11:31.330 public reputation. But because this is Croatia, 00:11:31.570 --> 00:11:33.389 I'm going to assume they are not happy, well 00:11:33.389 --> 00:11:35.889 -adjusted people. Oh, not in the slightest. They're 00:11:35.889 --> 00:11:39.159 a nest of vipers. The entire play and the cycle 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:42.340 of plays and stories it belongs to is a meticulous 00:11:42.340 --> 00:11:45.120 dissection of their moral, psychological, and 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.960 even biological decay. Biological decay? What 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:50.879 do you mean? It's about bad blood. Coolidge was 00:11:50.879 --> 00:11:53.259 obsessed with this idea of inherited neurosis 00:11:53.259 --> 00:11:56.080 and criminality. The Glenbay fortune was built 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:59.220 on a crime generations ago, and that crime has 00:11:59.220 --> 00:12:02.159 poisoned the family line. So underneath the veneer 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:04.679 of high society, there are secrets, embezzlements, 00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:08.299 affairs, suicides and eventually murder. It sounds 00:12:08.299 --> 00:12:10.320 a bit like a more literary version of the show 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:13.259 Succession, but set in the 1920s. That is a fantastic 00:12:13.259 --> 00:12:15.899 comparison. It is exactly that. It's about the 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:18.539 rot at the heart of a powerful ruling class family. 00:12:18.659 --> 00:12:20.600 It's about how money and power corrupt everything 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:22.940 they touch. There's a famous line in the play. 00:12:23.159 --> 00:12:26.059 The blood has fallen asleep. The blood has fallen 00:12:26.059 --> 00:12:29.039 asleep. What does that mean? It suggests. that 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:32.759 their vitality, their life force, is gone. It's 00:12:32.759 --> 00:12:36.379 been replaced by decadence, neurosis, and a kind 00:12:36.379 --> 00:12:38.899 of spiritual exhaustion. Krillish was holding 00:12:38.899 --> 00:12:40.940 up a mirror to the wealthy bourgeois audience 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:43.259 sitting in the theater, and he was showing them 00:12:43.259 --> 00:12:45.600 that their entire civilization was a lie built 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:48.519 on crime and heading for collapse. It was a cultural 00:12:48.519 --> 00:12:50.600 bomb. And he didn't just stick to plays. The 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:53.240 novels from this period are just as dense, just 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:55.679 as important. Let's talk about the return of 00:12:55.679 --> 00:12:58.899 Filip Latinovic from 1932. Yes. This is often 00:12:58.899 --> 00:13:01.460 called the first truly modern Croatian novel. 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:03.820 It's not an easy read, but it's a brilliant one. 00:13:04.139 --> 00:13:06.600 It's about an artist, Filip, who returns to his 00:13:06.600 --> 00:13:09.120 provincial hometown after spending years abroad 00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:11.320 in the art capitals of Europe. So it's a classic 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:15.000 coming home story. It is, but it's a deeply disillusioned 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:17.500 one. He's coming home looking for his roots, 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.360 for connection, for some kind of authentic inspiration 00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:23.519 to overcome his painter's block. But all he finds 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:26.340 is emptiness, hypocrisy, and spiritual decay. 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:29.620 It's a novel about the crisis of the modern artist, 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.440 about alienation, about the inability to truly 00:13:32.440 --> 00:13:34.980 see or represent reality. It's very pristine, 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:37.899 very existential. A massive leap forward for 00:13:37.899 --> 00:13:40.059 the novel as a form in that region. And then, 00:13:40.100 --> 00:13:42.059 just to show he can do literally anything, a 00:13:42.059 --> 00:13:44.500 few years later he writes The Banquet in Blitva. 00:13:44.889 --> 00:13:47.850 Bank it, you blitvi. Yes, a total gear shift. 00:13:48.029 --> 00:13:50.470 This isn't a psychological novel. It's a biting 00:13:50.470 --> 00:13:52.610 political satire. The name is kind of funny. 00:13:52.730 --> 00:13:55.809 Blitva means Swiss chard in Croatian. It does. 00:13:55.909 --> 00:13:58.210 It's a deliberately ridiculous name for a country. 00:13:58.350 --> 00:14:00.909 He's mocking the pompousness of these newly formed 00:14:00.909 --> 00:14:03.629 nations. But the setting and the story are... 00:14:03.879 --> 00:14:06.919 Deadly serious. It's set in an imaginary Baltic 00:14:06.919 --> 00:14:09.539 country, but it's so clearly a stand in for the 00:14:09.539 --> 00:14:12.019 rising dictatorships of the 1930s. He's looking 00:14:12.019 --> 00:14:14.500 at what's happening in Germany, Italy, the Soviet 00:14:14.500 --> 00:14:18.139 Union. Exactly. The novel is just saturated with 00:14:18.139 --> 00:14:20.500 the atmosphere of all pervasive totalitarianism, 00:14:20.519 --> 00:14:22.899 the paranoia, the secret police, the cult of 00:14:22.899 --> 00:14:25.159 personality around the dictator, the way language 00:14:25.159 --> 00:14:28.139 itself is twisted to serve power. He called it 00:14:28.139 --> 00:14:30.860 a political poem. And it's this furious intellectual 00:14:30.860 --> 00:14:34.210 scream of warning. He was looking at both Stalinism 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:36.190 and fascism and saying, look where this leads. 00:14:36.370 --> 00:14:38.629 This is the death of the human spirit. And there's 00:14:38.629 --> 00:14:41.110 another satire from around the same time, On 00:14:41.110 --> 00:14:44.070 the Edge of Reason. Also from the late 30s, 1938, 00:14:44.509 --> 00:14:47.289 another brutal attack on social hypocrisy, this 00:14:47.289 --> 00:14:49.850 time about a respectable lawyer who one day at 00:14:49.850 --> 00:14:52.210 a dinner party decides to just start telling 00:14:52.210 --> 00:14:54.799 the absolute truth about everyone. And I assume 00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:57.120 society does not react well to that. Society 00:14:57.120 --> 00:14:59.779 declares him insane and tries to destroy him. 00:14:59.820 --> 00:15:02.179 It's a classic Krolisha theme. The individual 00:15:02.179 --> 00:15:04.500 with a conscience versus a corrupt and conformist 00:15:04.500 --> 00:15:06.799 society. Okay, so he's produced all of this. 00:15:06.919 --> 00:15:10.340 And then much later in the 60s, he drops what 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:13.659 many consider his magnum opus. The novel series, 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.460 The Banners. Exhaustive, yes. If you talk to 00:15:16.460 --> 00:15:18.200 literary critics in the region, they will almost 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:21.059 always call this the Croatian war on peace. That's 00:15:21.059 --> 00:15:23.580 a heavy comparison. It is, and it's earned. It 00:15:23.580 --> 00:15:26.580 is massive. Five volumes, thousands of pages. 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:29.679 It's a huge panoramic view of Central European 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:32.779 society in the years just before, during, and 00:15:32.779 --> 00:15:34.879 immediately after World War I. So it's covering 00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:37.460 a lot of the same ground as his early life? It 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:39.639 is, but from the perspective of decades of reflection. 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:43.370 It's deeply autobiographical in spirit. But at 00:15:43.370 --> 00:15:45.990 its core, it's a story about fathers and sons. 00:15:46.210 --> 00:15:49.289 The central conflict is between an old, powerful 00:15:49.289 --> 00:15:52.549 politician who was a loyalist to the Austro -Hungarian 00:15:52.549 --> 00:15:55.340 Empire and his son. who becomes a revolutionary, 00:15:55.559 --> 00:15:58.120 a nationalist, and eventually a leftist. It's 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:00.379 the prototypical theme of generational conflict. 00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:02.519 The generation that built the old world versus 00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:05.059 the generation that wants to tear it down. Precisely. 00:16:05.059 --> 00:16:07.539 It's a novel about ideas, about politics, about 00:16:07.539 --> 00:16:10.120 history, about love, about betrayal. It's everything. 00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:13.360 It's his attempt to capture the totality of that 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:15.700 world -shattering experience. And it was recognized 00:16:15.700 --> 00:16:18.120 as such. It won the prestigious NIN Award in 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:20.929 1962. Before we move to the politics, which is 00:16:20.929 --> 00:16:23.250 a whole other saga, I want to pause on the poetry 00:16:23.250 --> 00:16:26.110 because there is one work in particular, The 00:16:26.110 --> 00:16:29.110 Ballads of Petrica Karempu, that seems to be 00:16:29.110 --> 00:16:31.490 in a league of its own. Scholars just rave about 00:16:31.490 --> 00:16:34.970 it. This is, for many, his absolute masterpiece, 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:37.870 his most unique, most untranslatable, most profound 00:16:37.870 --> 00:16:41.210 work. But it's also, for an outsider, the hardest 00:16:41.210 --> 00:16:44.389 to access. It was published in 1936. Why is it 00:16:44.389 --> 00:16:47.169 so hard to access? What's the barrier? The language. 00:16:47.639 --> 00:16:49.320 It comes down to the language he chose to write 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:51.460 it in. You see, standard Croatian is based on 00:16:51.460 --> 00:16:54.019 the Štukavian dialect, but Kralješa wrote this 00:16:54.019 --> 00:16:56.940 entire epic book of poetry in Štukavian. Okay, 00:16:56.980 --> 00:16:59.039 explain that. What's the significance of Štukavian? 00:16:59.379 --> 00:17:01.679 Štukavian is the dialect of northern Croatia, 00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:04.579 of Zagreb, of the region where he grew up, and 00:17:04.579 --> 00:17:06.599 importantly, it was seen as the dialect of the 00:17:06.599 --> 00:17:09.440 peasantry. By the 20th century, it was considered... 00:17:09.609 --> 00:17:12.829 rustic archaic almost dead as a serious literary 00:17:12.829 --> 00:17:15.230 language it wasn't what you use for high art 00:17:15.230 --> 00:17:17.630 so he deliberately dug it up he resurrected it 00:17:17.630 --> 00:17:20.150 he did this incredible scholarly work he went 00:17:20.150 --> 00:17:22.349 through old dictionaries legal chronicles from 00:17:22.349 --> 00:17:26.230 in the 16th and 17th centuries folk songs and 00:17:26.230 --> 00:17:29.920 he built this incredibly rich archaic, grotesque, 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:31.900 and beautiful language from the ground up. And 00:17:31.900 --> 00:17:33.920 who is the main character? Petr Kukrampa. He's 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:35.799 a plebeian prophet. Think of him as a kind of 00:17:35.799 --> 00:17:39.299 Croatian Till Eulenspiegel or a jester. He's 00:17:39.299 --> 00:17:42.019 a trickster figure, a peasant clown who wanders 00:17:42.019 --> 00:17:44.759 through Croatian history, always speaking truth 00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:47.180 to power. So he's the guy mocking the kings and 00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:49.819 the bishops. Exactly. The ballads cover more 00:17:49.819 --> 00:17:52.259 than five centuries of Croatian history, but 00:17:52.259 --> 00:17:54.670 told entirely from the bottom up. It's a history 00:17:54.670 --> 00:17:56.910 of peasant rebellions, of hangings, of crushing 00:17:56.910 --> 00:18:00.049 taxes, of endless wars fought for foreign masters. 00:18:00.269 --> 00:18:02.490 It's incredibly dark, but it's also brutally 00:18:02.490 --> 00:18:05.269 hilarious. It perfectly captures the gallows 00:18:05.269 --> 00:18:08.509 humor and deep cynicism of the peasant who knows 00:18:08.509 --> 00:18:11.170 that no matter who is in charge, the Turk, the 00:18:11.170 --> 00:18:13.589 Austrian, the Hungarian lord, the peasant is 00:18:13.589 --> 00:18:15.529 the one who's going to get beaten. The lords 00:18:15.529 --> 00:18:17.970 change, the beating stays the same. That is the 00:18:17.970 --> 00:18:20.809 absolute spirit of the book. And writing it in 00:18:20.809 --> 00:18:23.750 that dialect was a profound political act. He 00:18:23.750 --> 00:18:26.529 was saying this culture, this peasant culture 00:18:26.529 --> 00:18:30.230 that you elites look down on has value. It has 00:18:30.230 --> 00:18:32.690 a history. It is not just mud and superstition. 00:18:32.890 --> 00:18:36.029 It's an act of cultural reclamation. OK, so we've 00:18:36.029 --> 00:18:38.150 established beyond a doubt that he is a literary 00:18:38.150 --> 00:18:41.549 giant on a world scale. But he wasn't just writing 00:18:41.549 --> 00:18:44.309 in an ivory tower. He was a political animal 00:18:44.309 --> 00:18:47.210 from day one. Which brings us to part three, 00:18:47.309 --> 00:18:49.890 the communist of his own making. And this is 00:18:49.890 --> 00:18:51.690 where the story gets really, really dangerous 00:18:51.690 --> 00:18:54.569 for him. He joined the Communist Party very early 00:18:54.569 --> 00:18:57.769 on. Very early. 1918, right after the war, right 00:18:57.769 --> 00:19:00.390 after the Russian Revolution. He was a true believer 00:19:00.390 --> 00:19:02.930 in the beginning. He saw it as the only real 00:19:02.930 --> 00:19:05.150 answer to the imperialist carnage he'd witnessed 00:19:05.150 --> 00:19:07.130 in the war. And he wasn't just a rank and file 00:19:07.130 --> 00:19:09.710 member. Oh, no. He was the intellectual engine 00:19:09.710 --> 00:19:12.440 of the left in the kingdom of Yugoslavia. He 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:14.819 was the driving force behind all the most important 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:18.000 leftist reviews and journals. Play him in the 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:31.660 flame. He was a bad communist, at least according 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:34.079 to the official line from Moscow. He was a terrible 00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:36.019 Stalinist. And you know, that is probably the 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:37.779 highest compliment I can pay him. What was the 00:19:37.779 --> 00:19:40.339 problem? Where did he diverge? You have to understand 00:19:40.339 --> 00:19:43.690 the context of the 1930s. The Communist International, 00:19:44.089 --> 00:19:47.410 run from Moscow, was enforcing a very rigid doctrine 00:19:47.410 --> 00:19:50.349 on all national parties. And in the arts, that 00:19:50.349 --> 00:19:52.349 doctrine was called socialist realism. Right, 00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:55.230 the girl meets tractor school of art. That's 00:19:55.230 --> 00:19:57.230 a great way to put it. Basically, art was supposed 00:19:57.230 --> 00:20:00.210 to be a tool. It had to be simple, didactic, 00:20:00.230 --> 00:20:02.970 and relentlessly optimistic. It existed only 00:20:02.970 --> 00:20:05.549 to serve the party's political goals. If you 00:20:05.549 --> 00:20:07.650 wrote a poem, it better be about how great the 00:20:07.650 --> 00:20:09.490 five -year plan is. If you painted a picture, 00:20:09.750 --> 00:20:12.470 it had to be of heroic factory workers. And Kraljea, 00:20:12.509 --> 00:20:15.190 who was writing these dark, complex, modernist 00:20:15.190 --> 00:20:18.250 works about bad blood and existential crises, 00:20:18.630 --> 00:20:21.369 he did not fit that mold. He hated it with a 00:20:21.369 --> 00:20:24.170 passion. He thought it was an insult to intelligence, 00:20:24.329 --> 00:20:27.430 an insult to art. He argued that a true socialist 00:20:27.430 --> 00:20:31.390 society shouldn't produce dumb propaganda. It 00:20:31.390 --> 00:20:33.660 should produce better art. more complex art, 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:36.019 more truthful art than capitalism ever could. 00:20:36.299 --> 00:20:38.779 He absolutely refused to lower his aesthetic 00:20:38.779 --> 00:20:41.480 standards. His position was essentially, I can 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:43.880 be a communist, but I will not write trash. And 00:20:43.880 --> 00:20:45.559 it wasn't just about art, was it? It got much 00:20:45.559 --> 00:20:47.440 more serious than that. It was about the purges. 00:20:47.640 --> 00:20:50.240 That was the ultimate breaking point. He watched 00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:53.160 from Zagreb as the great purge unfolded in the 00:20:53.160 --> 00:20:55.920 Soviet Union in the late 30s. He saw his friends, 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:58.099 his comrades, loyal communists he knew personally 00:20:58.099 --> 00:21:00.940 being arrested, sent to the gulag or simply shot 00:21:00.940 --> 00:21:03.089 after show trials. And the official party line 00:21:03.089 --> 00:21:06.250 was to applaud, to say, yes, they were all traitors 00:21:06.250 --> 00:21:09.089 and spies. Kralasia refused. He could not and 00:21:09.089 --> 00:21:11.450 would not do it. He saw it as a monstrous betrayal 00:21:11.450 --> 00:21:14.230 of the revolution's ideals. This led to what's 00:21:14.230 --> 00:21:16.829 known in Yugoslav history as the conflict on 00:21:16.829 --> 00:21:19.470 the literary left. What was that exactly? It 00:21:19.470 --> 00:21:23.970 was a brutal public intellectual civil war. Kreischer, 00:21:24.109 --> 00:21:26.769 through his journal P -Chat, launched a long 00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:29.430 and bitter polemic against the party dogmatists. 00:21:29.630 --> 00:21:32.849 He wrote these incredibly powerful essays, shredding 00:21:32.849 --> 00:21:35.250 their arguments, mocking their lack of talent, 00:21:35.329 --> 00:21:37.869 and exposing their blind, unthinking obedience 00:21:37.869 --> 00:21:40.750 to Stalin. He was taking on the entire party 00:21:40.750 --> 00:21:43.309 apparatus. Virtually every important writer on 00:21:43.309 --> 00:21:46.369 the left. And so in 1939, the inevitable happens. 00:21:46.529 --> 00:21:48.630 He's expelled. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia 00:21:48.630 --> 00:21:50.890 kicks out its most famous and brilliant intellectual. 00:21:51.309 --> 00:21:54.109 He's declared a revisionist, a Trotskyite, an 00:21:54.109 --> 00:21:56.809 enemy. He is completely isolated. But there is 00:21:56.809 --> 00:21:59.750 a fascinating twist here, a very important historical 00:21:59.750 --> 00:22:03.089 cameo. Who was the party commissar sent to try 00:22:03.089 --> 00:22:05.569 and mediate this whole conflict before the final 00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:08.490 expulsion? Joseph Braz Tito. The future leader 00:22:08.490 --> 00:22:11.089 of Yugoslavia, the marshal himself. The very 00:22:11.089 --> 00:22:14.019 same. At the time, Tito was a high -ranking party 00:22:14.019 --> 00:22:16.420 functionary tasked with enforcing discipline. 00:22:16.759 --> 00:22:19.319 He was sent to Zagreb to talk some sense into 00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:21.220 Kurelisha to get him back in line. They had these 00:22:21.220 --> 00:22:23.380 long, intense conversations. And what happened? 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:25.819 Well, ultimately, Tito couldn't save him from 00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:29.079 expulsion. Kurelisha was just too stubborn, too 00:22:29.079 --> 00:22:31.059 principled on the question of artistic freedom. 00:22:31.500 --> 00:22:34.180 But during those talks, they clearly formed a 00:22:34.180 --> 00:22:37.079 bond. They recognized a mutual intelligence, 00:22:37.380 --> 00:22:39.960 a pragmatism, and a certain toughness in each 00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:42.509 other. Tito saw that Krelis wasn't just some 00:22:42.509 --> 00:22:45.269 coffeehouse intellectual. And Krelis saw that 00:22:45.269 --> 00:22:47.630 Tito wasn't just a mindless apparatchik. And 00:22:47.630 --> 00:22:50.650 that bond becomes a literal lifeline just a couple 00:22:50.650 --> 00:22:53.670 of years later, because in 1941, the whole world 00:22:53.670 --> 00:22:57.029 collapses. The Nazis invade Yugoslavia. The kingdom 00:22:57.029 --> 00:22:59.450 of Yugoslavia is destroyed in a matter of days. 00:22:59.710 --> 00:23:03.109 And in Croatia, a fascist puppet regime is established, 00:23:03.430 --> 00:23:05.410 the so -called Independent State of Croatia, 00:23:05.710 --> 00:23:08.519 run by the Ustase. This must have been a uniquely 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:11.400 terrifying time for Kralj. He's a known, prominent 00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:13.400 leftist. He's on every list imaginable. It was 00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:15.039 an absolute nightmare. He was living in Zagreb, 00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:17.720 the capital of this new fascist state. The regime 00:23:17.720 --> 00:23:19.339 actually tried to woo him at first. They were 00:23:19.339 --> 00:23:21.839 nationalists. And they wanted the great Croatian 00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:24.299 writer to endorse their state, to give them legitimacy. 00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:26.799 And he refused. He refused completely. He went 00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:29.180 silent. He shut himself away in his villa. But 00:23:29.180 --> 00:23:31.920 he also didn't run. Tito and the communist partisans 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:34.259 were in the mountains fighting a guerrilla war. 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:38.920 Kralj stayed in Zagreb. Why? It's that fundamental 00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:41.900 insider -outsider problem again, but with life 00:23:41.900 --> 00:23:44.640 -or -death stakes. On the one hand, he feared 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:46.619 the Ustash would arrest and kill him any day. 00:23:46.980 --> 00:23:49.980 But on the other hand, he also feared the partisans. 00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:52.279 Why would he fear his own side? Remember, he 00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:54.220 had just been expelled from the party in disgrace. 00:23:54.619 --> 00:23:56.359 He thought that if he went to the mountains, 00:23:56.539 --> 00:23:59.240 the hardline Stalinists surrounding Tito, the 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:01.000 very people he'd been publicly fighting with, 00:24:01.220 --> 00:24:03.579 might just decide to put a bullet in his head 00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:05.730 for being a revisionist heretic. There was no 00:24:05.730 --> 00:24:08.230 love lost there. So he was trapped between two 00:24:08.230 --> 00:24:10.829 enemies. Completely trapped. He spent four years 00:24:10.829 --> 00:24:13.509 in constant fear, waiting for the knock on the 00:24:13.509 --> 00:24:15.730 door that could come from either side. He wrote 00:24:15.730 --> 00:24:17.809 nothing for publication. He just kept his head 00:24:17.809 --> 00:24:20.890 down and survived. The war ends in 1945. The 00:24:20.890 --> 00:24:23.650 communists win. Tito is the undisputed master 00:24:23.650 --> 00:24:26.970 of a new socialist Yugoslavia. Klezha survives. 00:24:27.410 --> 00:24:29.690 But he's in a very weird, very awkward spot. 00:24:29.829 --> 00:24:31.960 He didn't fight. There was a lot of resentment. 00:24:32.059 --> 00:24:34.400 The fighters, the generals, the partisans who 00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:36.400 had spent four years in the mountains, they looked 00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:38.500 at him with disdain. They called him a salon 00:24:38.500 --> 00:24:41.539 communist, a coward who sat out the war in the 00:24:41.539 --> 00:24:43.240 comfort of his villa while they were bleeding 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:46.039 for the cause. He was socially stigmatized for 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:48.460 a brief period. But Tito intervened. That earlier 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:51.359 connection paid off. Tito was, above all else, 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.500 a pragmatist. He knew that a new state needed 00:24:54.500 --> 00:24:57.140 more than just guns and secret police. It needed 00:24:57.140 --> 00:24:59.660 a soul. It needed culture. It needed legitimacy. 00:25:00.059 --> 00:25:02.460 And Miroslav Korolev was the only intellectual 00:25:02.460 --> 00:25:04.940 figure in the entire country with the stature 00:25:04.940 --> 00:25:07.460 and gravity to provide that. So Tito personally 00:25:07.460 --> 00:25:10.220 rehabilitated him. Which brings us to the astonishing 00:25:10.220 --> 00:25:13.519 second act of his life, Part 4, The Intellectual 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:16.259 Statesman. And it is a fascinating and deeply 00:25:16.259 --> 00:25:20.400 complex pivot. Because in 1948, the unimaginable 00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:23.470 happens. Tito breaks with Stalin. The Tito -Stalin 00:25:23.470 --> 00:25:25.730 split. It's a seismic event in the Cold War. 00:25:25.849 --> 00:25:27.990 It's huge. Yugoslavia is kicked out of the Soviet 00:25:27.990 --> 00:25:29.990 bloc and becomes a non -aligned, independent 00:25:29.990 --> 00:25:33.009 socialist state. And suddenly, Miroslav Karloja 00:25:33.009 --> 00:25:35.630 looks like a prophet. Of course. All those arguments 00:25:35.630 --> 00:25:37.829 he made in the 30s, that we shouldn't just blindly 00:25:37.829 --> 00:25:40.750 copy Russia, that art needs to be free from dogma, 00:25:40.750 --> 00:25:43.490 that Stalinism is a perversion. Suddenly, that 00:25:43.490 --> 00:25:46.069 becomes the new official state policy. Exactly. 00:25:46.940 --> 00:25:49.400 The party now needs to prove that Yugoslav socialism 00:25:49.400 --> 00:25:53.059 is fundamentally different from and better than 00:25:53.059 --> 00:25:55.960 Soviet socialism. It needs a cultural identity. 00:25:56.380 --> 00:25:58.779 So Khrushchev becomes the architect of that difference. 00:25:59.059 --> 00:26:02.220 He does. In 1952, at the Congress of Yugoslav 00:26:02.220 --> 00:26:04.019 Writers in Ljubljana, he gives a speech that 00:26:04.019 --> 00:26:05.880 changes everything. It's a landmark address where 00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:07.480 he basically tells the assembled writers of the 00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:11.480 nation, you are free. He officially kills socialist 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:14.400 realism in Yugoslavia. He argues for artistic 00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:16.420 freedom, for modernism, for experimentation. 00:26:16.839 --> 00:26:19.400 That is a massive legacy. Because of that speech 00:26:19.400 --> 00:26:22.140 and his influence, Yugoslav art in the 60s and 00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:24.740 70s was light years ahead of what was happening 00:26:24.740 --> 00:26:27.839 in Poland or Hungary or East Germany. You had 00:26:27.839 --> 00:26:30.039 abstract art, avant -garde theater, experimental 00:26:30.039 --> 00:26:32.440 film, and eventually a huge punk rock scene. 00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:34.480 And it was largely because Kraljewska next to 00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:36.559 Tito and said, let them create, let them play. 00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:38.680 Our system is strong enough to handle it. He 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:41.380 became a man of institutions. He was made vice 00:26:41.380 --> 00:26:43.339 president of the Academy of Science and Arts. 00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:46.980 And then, in 1950, he founded the Yugoslav Institute 00:26:46.980 --> 00:26:51.319 for Lexicography. Ah, the lexicographer. It sounds 00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:54.259 a bit dry, a bit boring. But for him, this was 00:26:54.259 --> 00:26:56.880 a project of immense passion and national importance. 00:26:57.359 --> 00:26:59.960 He wanted to create an encyclopedia. Why does 00:26:59.960 --> 00:27:02.279 an encyclopedia matter so much to a poet and 00:27:02.279 --> 00:27:05.200 a novelist? Because an encyclopedia is a definition 00:27:05.200 --> 00:27:07.940 of the world. It's an ordering of knowledge. 00:27:08.460 --> 00:27:11.460 Until then, if you were a student in Zagreb or 00:27:11.460 --> 00:27:13.279 Belgrade and you wanted to know about history 00:27:13.279 --> 00:27:15.819 or science or art, you probably looked at a German 00:27:15.819 --> 00:27:19.220 encyclopedia or a Russian one. The world was 00:27:19.220 --> 00:27:21.759 defined for you by the great powers. And Creusot 00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:23.740 wanted a South Slavic perspective. He wanted 00:27:23.740 --> 00:27:25.900 to catalog the knowledge of the region for the 00:27:25.900 --> 00:27:28.220 region. He wanted to prove that these small nations 00:27:28.220 --> 00:27:30.759 had a rich history worth preserving, that they 00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:33.309 had contributed to world culture. It was an act 00:27:33.309 --> 00:27:36.309 of intellectual self -assertion. And he ran that 00:27:36.309 --> 00:27:39.009 institute, like his own personal kingdom, with 00:27:39.009 --> 00:27:41.890 Tito's full backing until the day he died. And 00:27:41.890 --> 00:27:44.250 his personal relationship with Tito. Our sources 00:27:44.250 --> 00:27:47.009 say they were genuinely close. Very close. There 00:27:47.009 --> 00:27:48.990 are many photographs of them together, walking 00:27:48.990 --> 00:27:51.730 on Tito's private island of Brugini, drinking, 00:27:51.950 --> 00:27:54.750 talking for hours. It was a deeply symbiotic 00:27:54.750 --> 00:27:57.130 relationship. The dictator and the writer. Exactly. 00:27:57.569 --> 00:28:00.430 Tito gave Croatia protection. power and resources. 00:28:00.869 --> 00:28:03.690 And Colesia gave Tito's regime intellectual legitimacy 00:28:03.690 --> 00:28:06.509 and a sophisticated cultural face to show the 00:28:06.509 --> 00:28:08.789 world. It's a fascinating dynamic. Let's move 00:28:08.789 --> 00:28:11.579 to the final chapter. Part five, he's now living 00:28:11.579 --> 00:28:14.259 the life of a high -profile, state -sponsored 00:28:14.259 --> 00:28:17.359 intellectual. He is the cultural patriarch. He's 00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:19.480 living at Viligavoz in the beautiful Tukanak 00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:22.200 Hills of Zagreb. It's a cultural court. He's 00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:24.440 receiving international awards, the prestigious 00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:27.859 Herder Prize in 1968, the Botev Prize in 1981. 00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:31.099 He is the red monarch of Yugoslav culture. In 00:28:31.099 --> 00:28:32.519 his personal life, we haven't touched on that 00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:34.680 much. He was married to one person his entire 00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:37.690 adult life, Leposava Kangurka. always known as 00:28:37.690 --> 00:28:40.349 Bella. She was a famous and very respected theater 00:28:40.349 --> 00:28:42.450 actress. They were together for over 60 years. 00:28:42.609 --> 00:28:44.569 They were the ultimate power couple of Zagreb. 00:28:44.730 --> 00:28:46.329 If you wanted something done in the cultural 00:28:46.329 --> 00:28:48.390 world, if you wanted a book published or a play 00:28:48.390 --> 00:28:50.650 staged, you went to Griveaux's to get their blessing. 00:28:50.829 --> 00:28:53.970 But the end of his life, it feels so symbolic. 00:28:53.970 --> 00:28:56.210 It feels like the curtain coming down on the 00:28:56.210 --> 00:28:58.970 whole grand experiment of his life and his country. 00:28:59.130 --> 00:29:02.490 It really does. The timing is uncanny. First, 00:29:02.609 --> 00:29:05.799 Tito dies in May of 1980. And with his death, 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:08.420 the glue that held the multi -ethnic state of 00:29:08.420 --> 00:29:11.779 Yugoslavia together is gone. You can feel the 00:29:11.779 --> 00:29:13.940 ground starting to shift. He lost his protector. 00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:16.039 He lost his protector and his partner in that 00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:18.980 strange political dance. Then, less than a year 00:29:18.980 --> 00:29:22.940 later, his wife Bella dies in April 1981. After 00:29:22.940 --> 00:29:26.359 60 years together. 60 years. He is left completely 00:29:26.359 --> 00:29:29.019 alone. He was already in ill health, but by all 00:29:29.019 --> 00:29:31.000 accounts, he was heartbroken and deeply depressed. 00:29:31.619 --> 00:29:34.220 And he dies just a few months later in December 00:29:34.220 --> 00:29:37.559 of 1981 in that same villa. Wow. So within the 00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:39.880 space of about 18 months, the three pillars of 00:29:39.880 --> 00:29:42.700 his world are gone. Tito, Bella, and then himself. 00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:44.900 And just a few years after that, the country 00:29:44.900 --> 00:29:46.900 that they had all in their own ways built and 00:29:46.900 --> 00:29:49.640 sustained began to unravel into a horrific civil 00:29:49.640 --> 00:29:52.299 war. His death really marks the end of an era. 00:29:52.460 --> 00:29:54.599 He was given a state funeral, I imagine. Oh, 00:29:54.660 --> 00:29:58.299 a massive one. In Zagreb on January 4th, 1982. 00:29:58.740 --> 00:30:01.259 It wasn't the funeral of a writer. It was the 00:30:01.259 --> 00:30:03.519 funeral of a head of state, basically. The entire 00:30:03.519 --> 00:30:06.839 political and cultural elite was there. So if 00:30:06.839 --> 00:30:09.240 we were to go to Zagreb today, what's left of 00:30:09.240 --> 00:30:11.279 his legacy? Can you still feel his presence? 00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:14.880 You can. It's still very heavy. Viliwazd was 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:17.380 donated to the city of Zagreb, and you can visit 00:30:17.380 --> 00:30:20.660 it. It's a museum kept almost exactly as he left 00:30:20.660 --> 00:30:23.640 it, with his vast library of thousands of books. 00:30:23.880 --> 00:30:25.799 It feels like he just stepped out for a walk. 00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:28.079 And there's a monument. Yes, a beautiful bronze 00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:31.359 monument was placed near his home in 2004. He's 00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:34.440 sitting, looking pensive, heavy, almost like 00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:36.960 a mountain himself. And of course, the institute 00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:39.279 he founded is now named the Miroslav Kolejsa 00:30:39.279 --> 00:30:41.880 Institute of Lexicography. It's still the premier 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:44.000 scholarly institution of its kind in Croatia. 00:30:44.490 --> 00:30:46.250 Okay, so let's try to synthesize all of this. 00:30:46.349 --> 00:30:48.450 We've gone from the military academy to the trenches, 00:30:48.490 --> 00:30:50.609 through plays and novels, into party politics 00:30:50.609 --> 00:30:52.910 and state building. What does it all mean? What's 00:30:52.910 --> 00:30:54.990 the final takeaway? I think if you had to boil 00:30:54.990 --> 00:30:57.509 it down to one thing, we are looking at a man 00:30:57.509 --> 00:31:00.529 who fundamentally refused to simplify the world. 00:31:00.730 --> 00:31:04.089 That is his core intellectual trait. He lived 00:31:04.089 --> 00:31:06.690 in a century of brutal, simplistic ideologies 00:31:06.690 --> 00:31:09.329 that demanded you pick a side and shut off your 00:31:09.329 --> 00:31:13.480 brain. Empire. nationalism, Stalinism, fascism. 00:31:13.920 --> 00:31:16.240 Krelish engaged with all of them. He fought them. 00:31:16.259 --> 00:31:19.740 He worked within them. But he never, ever surrendered 00:31:19.740 --> 00:31:22.200 his critical mind completely to any one of them. 00:31:22.279 --> 00:31:24.460 Even when he was Tito's personal advisor, even 00:31:24.460 --> 00:31:25.920 when he was at the heart of the establishment. 00:31:26.039 --> 00:31:28.460 Even then, he was the communist of his own making. 00:31:28.619 --> 00:31:31.640 He never stopped being a critic. He proved that 00:31:31.640 --> 00:31:33.440 it was possible to be committed to a project 00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:36.380 of social justice without sacrificing your artistic 00:31:36.380 --> 00:31:38.980 standards or your intellectual integrity. He 00:31:38.980 --> 00:31:41.579 carved out a space for complexity in an age of 00:31:41.579 --> 00:31:44.220 dogma. And he gave a voice to a very specific 00:31:44.220 --> 00:31:47.000 historical experience. That's the Crow -Iliad 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.579 idea. He took the experience of a small nation 00:31:49.579 --> 00:31:52.880 on the periphery of great empires, a nation that 00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:55.500 was always the soldier, never the general, and 00:31:55.500 --> 00:31:58.619 he made it universal. His work constantly asks 00:31:58.619 --> 00:32:01.180 the big questions. What is the point of all this 00:32:01.180 --> 00:32:03.380 suffering? What is the meaning of history when 00:32:03.380 --> 00:32:05.160 you're on the receiving end of it? You know, 00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:06.579 I keep coming back to that tension we talked 00:32:06.579 --> 00:32:08.799 about between the rebel and the statesman. We 00:32:08.799 --> 00:32:11.059 have this romantic idea of the dissident writer 00:32:11.059 --> 00:32:14.140 who dies in poverty, screaming the truth from 00:32:14.140 --> 00:32:18.359 a garret. But Kralasia, he put on a suit. He 00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:20.720 went into the palace. He drank with the dictator. 00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:23.279 He did. And I think that's the provocative thought 00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:25.599 we should probably end on. What is more effective? 00:32:26.140 --> 00:32:28.619 Is it better to be the pure, uncompromising outsider, 00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:30.940 throwing rocks at the walls of the palace and 00:32:30.940 --> 00:32:32.799 ultimately changing nothing, or is it better 00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:35.200 to be the compromised insider, the one who walks 00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:37.019 into the palace and actually changes the policy? 00:32:37.579 --> 00:32:39.940 Kolesia chose the palace. And because he did, 00:32:40.119 --> 00:32:42.619 generations of artists, writers, and thinkers 00:32:42.619 --> 00:32:45.099 in Yugoslavia had a degree of freedom that was 00:32:45.099 --> 00:32:47.579 simply unimaginable anywhere else in the Eastern 00:32:47.579 --> 00:32:50.180 Bloc. He compromised on his position, maybe, 00:32:50.299 --> 00:32:53.299 but not on his principles. He rearranged the 00:32:53.299 --> 00:32:55.039 furniture inside the rooms the next generation 00:32:55.039 --> 00:32:57.619 had a place to sit. That is a perfect way to 00:32:57.619 --> 00:33:00.019 put it. A perfectly Kreligian way to put it. 00:33:00.059 --> 00:33:03.099 That's it for this deep dive into the colossal, 00:33:03.099 --> 00:33:06.559 complicated life of Miroslav Kreligia. A true 00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:09.099 titan of the 20th century. Thanks for listening. 00:33:09.180 --> 00:33:10.099 We'll catch you on the next one.