Lisičar Matija: Pripovijesti

Matija Lisičar: Narratives FOREWORD In the note about Matija Lisičar to the Anthology of Prose of the Croatian Secession 'Body of Your Soul' (Dora Krupićeva, Zagreb, 2004), Branimir Donat wrote that 'Lisičar belongs to the so-called to small but not insignificant writers'. That is indeed the best description of Matija Lisičar and his work; however, the question arises why a writer, who is not insignificant, published only one small collection of stories in his life (a reprint of the first and only edition from 1910). First of all, the reader should be introduced to Lisičar's life. It is interesting that all nine stories in Lisičar's only book contain the author's autobiographical elements. We, of course, cannot read from any of the stories in 'Privijesti' that Lisičar held the position of editor-in-chief of the right-wing newspaper 'Hrvatska' for a year, but that is why we infer that the writer is a lawyer by profession (the story 'Sick Conscience' ends with a cold clerical note explaining that the story is actually a retelling of a real event from the archives of a court investigator); then, Zagreb is not mentioned in the book, but that is why the protagonist of the story 'Lopud Orphanage' returns to his native Lopud from studying law in the capital city (Vienna), which is also an autobiographical parallel. The only place of every story in the book (with the exception of the story 'Ludi Stojan', which, even with the use of authentic speech, is very convincingly set in Lika from the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century) whose autobiographical nature the author had no intention of concealing, is the Dubrovnik area. This fact makes this book a decent sketch of Dubrovnik and its surroundings around 1900, and we can attribute to Lisičar's literary talent the perfectly described characters of men and women in places, whether they are nobles or citizens, hired workers, maids or children. The fox is equally in command of a realistic narrative technique, as it is dealing with the influences of hints of modernism. However, the strongest feature of his several stories (which, frankly, can hardly be called an 'opus') is humanity, which, according to Lisičar, inevitably loses every battle with society as a system. Lisičar shares this feeling with other Croatian writers of the same period (Milan Ogrizović and even Kamov). However, Lisičar went a step further than the others. He decided to retire from literature in a Rembo manner and to remain a passive observer of the literary scene from his notary's office in the shade of a luxurious Art Nouveau apartment in downtown Zagreb for the rest of his life. Matija Lisičar was born in 1877 in Dubrovnik, where he graduated from nautical school, and was even a sailor for about a year. He soon came to Zagreb, where he enrolled and completed his law studies with a doctorate. He works as a trainee lawyer in Zlatar, and then as a lawyer in Sisak. Like most of the generation of right-wingers who grew up on the ideas of national awareness at the very end of the Habsburg Monarchy, Lisičar was a Yugoslav enthusiast. Although there are very few traces of this claim in Lisičar's writings, it is evident from his appointment to the position of grand prefect of the Bjelovar-Križevačka County by decree of King Alexander on April 27, 1919, not even six months after the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (see the facsimile of Lisičar's 'Osobnik' at the end of the book). However, Lisičar very quickly experienced the same disappointment with the new state as most of his generation, and resigned from the position of grand prefect after only seven months (see the same document). In 1921, he opened a notary's office in Zagreb, which he ran until one year before his death in 1939. So, in less than thirty years, Lisičar has not published a single line of prose. Despite the efforts of the editors of this reprint to find any trace of prose notes in the writer's notarial legacy, Lisičar's famous "opus" remains nine stories in "Privovjesti" and a small number of poems, sketches, criticisms and essays published in magazines until the First World War. In going through Lisičar's notarial legacy stored in the State Archives in Zagreb (the archivist on duty gave I was informed that no one before me, that is, for more than sixty years, had examined these files) I found two sheets of paper that caught my eye (see facsimiles at the end of the book): they are two notary records from 1921 in which Lisičar certifies the validity of certain documents to two later much better-known public figures - Ivan Pernar, a member of the HSS and a doctor of law, a close associate of Radić who was the target of Punisa Račić in the assassination attempt in Belgrade assembly in 1928, carried in his heart aorta until his death in New York in 1967, and Božidar Adžija, doctor of law and communist, founder of the Workers' Library in Zagreb, who was executed by the Ustasha in 1941 as an opponent of the new regime. In the continuation of this discussion, I provide a short record of a possible chance meeting of the three doctors of law - Lisičar, Pernar and Adžija in Lisičar's notary's office, which could very easily have happened sometime in the summer of 1921: LISIČAR: Wow, colleagues, what an honor! I didn't know you two knew each other! Please come into my modest office. I opened it recently, so it's not fully furnished yet... ADŽIJA: Don't apologize, colleague Lisičar, I was with you in April, you remember, in connection with that loan from Jadranska banka, and from then until now you've decorated these premises really nicely. You'd think he was at a lawyer's! PERNAR: Don't exaggerate, colleague Adžija, lawyers are not what they used to be! No one needs a lawyer in this new country, because it is the realization of all our dreams! LISIČAR: Colleagues, I'm not admonishing you, you can say whatever you want with me, but, after all, not everything in this new state is so bad... ADŽIJA: For you, colleague, maybe not, you even made it to the grand prefect! And what about us, colleague Pernar and I? Lawyers! Well, we can be happy with that, what about those blacksmiths, turners, and locksmiths! PERNAR: Let the locksmiths go, colleague Adžija. Colleague Lisičar saw who he was dealing with and quickly withdrew from all positions. That will be appreciated, colleague Lisičar, believe me. LISIČAR: Ah, colleagues, I didn't care about the position of grand prefect or being appreciated by anyone, thank you for the compliment, colleague Pernar. Namely, I was just looking for some free time to write... PERNAR: To write? Writing what; so don't you write enough here in your goddamn office? ADŽIJA: Colleague Pernar, colleague Lisičar means literary creation, beautiful literature. Colleague Lisičar, I read your Tales, that's the name of the book, am I right? Yes, you have talent, the entire literary criticism praised you; really, can time be an obstacle to creation? LISICAR: Oh, it can, colleague Adžija, it really can! Imagine, I spent my entire youth believing that the world was improving at an unstoppable speed, and then, suddenly, I realized that it could all be destroyed in an instant. War takes away all hopes, war destroys pride and makes man an animal. PERNAR: You are right, colleague Lisičar, I do not know if this nation will survive another war. ADŽIJA: I wonder, colleague Pernar, will all of humanity survive another war? LISICAR: Colleagues, unfortunately, you are right. I think it is more futile to write about a man, when he is dying. But, colleague Pernar, did you bring that document for which you mentioned that you needed a translation certified, the time we met in the City Cafe... *** In addition to the mystery of Lisičar's voluntary escape from literature, the already mentioned precision in sketching the native micro-region, i.e., Dubrovnik and its surroundings, is of particular interest when reading 'Privojje'. I have noticed the same intensity of dedication to the magical interweaving of lush nature and the rich history of Dubrovnik's rocks, caves and Elaphite bays only in another authentic Dubrovnik writer - Milan Milišić. He also left literature too soon, but not voluntarily. He died as the first civilian victim of the bombing of Dubrovnik on October 5, 1991. In addition to the numerous books he furnished with art, for the anthology art historian Ljuba Babić, 'Stories' was one of the first; In 1910, he was barely 20 years old. How much Lisičar was respected as a writer, editor and intellectual at the time of the publication of "The Story", the dedication in the poem by A.G. Matoš 'Pri Svetom Kralju' from Matoš's collection 'Pjesme' published in 1909: to Matija Lisičar The Window of Stjepanovo Dom Tells a Gothic Dream; Blue incense and aroma Full holy apartment. Stanac kamen, brave Toma Erded, Bakač ban, Hero of Sisak's collapse Shining like that day. In the cathedral, when there are heavy nights, a woman knows how to come to Ban's grave with the heavy cross of an entire nation, And the statue says to her: Mother, audiant reges: Regnum regno non praescribit leges, And while there is a heart, there will be Croatia too! It would be interesting to investigate why Matoš dedicated that song to Lisičar. And while Matoš and his poems went down in history with the label of eternity, Matija Lisičar found himself in that same history in only about twelve boxes of notary documents in the storage of the State Archives building in Opatička Street in Zagreb's Upper Town. In Zagreb, June 7, 2008, Ivan Sršen