Gotovac Vlado: Posude s vatrom

Vlado Gotovac: Pots of Fire

It is hard to believe that the poet, philosopher, polemicist, politician and ethicist Vlado Gotovac is still preferred to be talked about in Croatia today - in silence. Some other values, some new criteria and some new people prevailed in the areas of Croatian culture, although even that should not condition the rejection of a strong individual and rich heritage, an uncompromisingly brave personality that he showed, wrote, and pronounced with purity and ethics, an honest and lucid way of life, always aware of Matthew's warning that he often quotes: your word will justify you and your word will condemn you. Knowing that it would cause riots, Gotovac could not help saying what he saw and felt, with his well-known ethical criticism, sharp and sharp, always brilliantly spoken. He deeply and sincerely believes in work, in the responsibility of words, in the power of creation, in poetry as prophecy, gospel and calling. To open the poetics of Vlada Gotovac, to discover its depths and passions, emotions and intelligence, essentially means to get to know the strength of a complex, yet so pure, simple and unique personality that marked the entire Croatian culture of the twentieth century. Dissolving and establishing such a poetics requires knowledge of Vlado Gotovac's entire oeuvre, which does not only refer to a dozen poetry collections and scattered manuscripts, but also to his poetic essays, philosophical debates and polemics, writings on painting and art, fragments of the world we live in, as well as the one we should live in. Because everything that Gotovac wrote or spoke is imbued with the shadows of lyricism: the soul of poetry emerges in his essay writing, and in poetry itself he is in the writing of a philosopher and an essayist. Gotovac philosophized emotions, emotionalized philosophical terms (Puhovski), through his entire work (and life), which we can elliptically call a spiritual biography - Gotovac wrote a complex reading that many did not understand, perhaps precisely because of his purity, because of his dedication, simplicity and of course because of his sacrifice, because of the seriousness and sincerity with which he approached everything around him and within himself. And that is the most difficult thing, not only to do, but also to make others understand what he is doing! To call such a way idealism is not enough, because the poet Vlado Gotovac did not live in some pathetic and distant imagination, on the contrary, he very firmly felt the ground under his feet, and was also aware of the time and space of his residence.