CULTURE
The regions that comprise
Croatia were not unified historically, so the country’s
arts show a mix of foreign and native influences. The Dalmatian
coast was long connected with Italy, and architectural marvels
from Roman times can still be found in Dalmatia. Split, for example,
contains the remains of the Roman emperor Diocletian’s palace,
while the ruins of a Roman amphitheater lie in Pula. Medieval
walls and fortifications distinguish the city of Dubrovnik in
southern Croatia, which was an independent city-state until the
early 19th century. Continental Croatia, as part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, had its own regional identity but much of its art and
literature followed the empire’s styles. Croatian folk music
remained linked to its locale, with styles differing greatly between
Dalmatia and other regions.
Croatian literature are the
much-translated novelist, poet, essayist, dramatist, polemicist,
and critic Miroslav Krleza (1893–1981) and the lyric poet,
essayist, and translator Tin Ujevic (1891–1955), both of
whom treat man's psychological and sociopolitical struggles at
both individual and universal levels. The monumental sculptures
of Ivan Meštrovic (1883–1962), whom the French sculptor
Auguste Rodin once called “the biggest phenomenon among
sculptors,” synthesize a particularly Croatian national
romanticism with the entire European tradition. Croatian naive
painting, through a simple depiction of the timeless concerns
of men and women caught within the cycles of the seasons and of
life, has struck a universal chord and has brought worldwide fame
to its main exponents, Ivan Generalic (1914–92), Ivan Rabuzin
(1919– ), and Ivan Lackovic-Croata
The Yugoslav version of communism—which,
following the 1948 break with the Soviet Union and the Cominform,
evolved into a more flexible national path to socialism—allowed
far greater autonomy and self-expression in cultural and other
spheres of life than did most of its socialist neighbours. As
a result, Croatian culture has been able to develop in continuity
with the Western heritage of which it has long been a part and
to which it has contributed for the last 1,000 years.
