- Tin Ujević
Tin Ujević (
July 5 ,1891 –November 12 ,1955 ) is considered to be one of the greatest Croatianpoet s of all times.Augustin "Tin" Ujević was born in
Vrgorac , a small town in theDalmatia n hinterland, and grew up in what were then provincial villages ofImotski andMakarska . He completed classical gymnasium inSplit . Ujević spent turbulent "Lehrjahre" in theZagreb bohemian milieu, in the circle of central figure of Croatian earlymodernism , revered and slandered doyen offin-de-siècle aestheticism,Antun Gustav Matoš . Shortly embroiled in activities of nascent Yugoslav idealistic nationalism (1912 - 1916), Ujević quickly saw through it as a front forGreater Serbia n expansionismFact|date=February 2007 and left politics for good, spending the rest of his life as a quintessential bohemian wanderer, residing and blasphemously rioting inSarajevo ,Mostar ,Belgrade ,Split and, finally,Zagreb .Ujević distinguished himself in three fields: as a
translator ,essayist and feuilltonist andpoet . He translated numerous works of poetry, novels and short stories into Croatian (Walt Whitman ,Marcel Proust ,Joseph Conrad ,Benvenuto Cellini ,George Meredith , ...). He wrote more than ten books of essays,poetry in prose and meditations — but his enduring strength lies chiefly in the monumental poetic opus.Having absorbed virtually all Western poetic tradition (from Dante and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe toCharles Baudelaire , Rimbaud, Whitman andEzra Pound ) and all Croatian greats (Marko Marulić andIvan Gundulić included), Ujević has created Protean poetic oeuvre of inimatable flavor and inescapable grandeur. His chief theme can be termed as — everything under thesun and beyond. From pantheist mysticism to humble Christian spirituality, from celebration of corporeality and ecstatic unity of human, non-human and the divine to the meditative repose, from ironic verses makingburlesque of modern technology-drivencivilization to the tender verbalmusic hallowing ancientDalmatia n hamlets, from powerful expression of erotic yearning to the resignation to the fates of human condition — Ujević's poetry is polymorphous vision of life, blend of often conflicting traditions ranging fromMediterranean ideal of harmonious beauty and modern "existentialist" sensibility expressed in the verses of unmatched virtuosity and profundity. He was in French Foreign Legion for 5 yearsFact|date=July 2007.His main works include:
* "Lelek sebra"/Cry of a slave, 1920
* "Kolajna"/Necklace, 1926
* "Skalpel kaosa"/Scalpel of chaos 1938
* "Žedan kamen na studencu"/Thirsty stone at the wellspring, 1954
* "Auto na korzu"/Car on the streetReferences
External links
* [http://www.cuspajz.com/tekstovi-pjesama/tin-ujevic.artist-lyrics.html Tin Ujević lyrics]
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