FAMOUS CROATS 2012 - VESNA PARUN

VESNA PARUN (1922 – 2010) By the beauty of her verses, exuberance of her visions and a pledge against social insensibility, Vesna Parun marked a long and important epoch of Croatian poetry. Actually, from her first book Zore i vihori (Dawns and Whirlwinds), published in far 1947, until the last days of her life at the end of the first decade of this millennium, she never stopped intensive creation that always received the strongest public response and was accepted, with reason, as the top poet of the epoch, i.e. the poet who – by her sensitivity and energy, opens new spaces and writes out a profoundly experienced lyric diary. Critical and polemical, ironic and parodic if necessary, she new how to cope with the mighty ones and how to mock the many conventions and deviations; and even when occasionally she would produce opponents in the public scene, no one ever questioned her creative integrity and the eruptive fervour of her imaginative and verbal talent. Vesna Parun was born on the island of Zlarin and her youth passed in a nomadic way due to frequent relocations within the whole Middle Dalmatian region which also gave a specific Mediterranean character to her imagery, fresh metaphorics and archetypal symbolics to her early works. After finishing Classical Gymnasium in Split, in 1940 she enrols in the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb; however, the World War interrupts the regular study of Romanic languages and philosophy and life complications continue also after publishing of her above mentioned emblematic collection Zore i vihori (Dawns and Whirlwinds) which at first was received with harsh ideological accusations to become later recognised as the most dignified offspring of the hymnic and aesthetic poetry of Tin Ujević. Perhaps the most personal work by Vesna Parun is just the collection of painful lyric poetry Crna maslina (Black Olive Tree) (1955), an epitaph and epilogue of intensely experienced love from the perspective of abandoned women. This book of poetry was received with full sympathy by readers, frequently published as anthology and often translated in other languages acquiring popularity also outside our language territory and recognised as a European and universal achievement. Vesna Parun did not stop upon her achievements and success with public. On the contrary, she wrote and published more and more. Among her 88 books (exactly like years of life) the most notable are lyric collections (Ropstvo, Ti i nikad, Koralj vraćen moru, Bila sam dječak, Sto soneta), followed by books of satiric verses (Apokaliptičke basne, Smijeh jači od smrti, Tronožac koji hoda) and poetry cycles for children with unforgettable characters of the tomcats Džingiskan (Genghis Khan) and Miki (Mickey)Trasi. In her translations and essays she paid a tribute to many “kin” authors. She was also successful in writing for theatre and radio and in a series of books tried to write out her anxious, implacable and dramatic autobiography, considering that she had passed through the world with the ardent need to testify about and to fight for ethic and aesthetic values. Her opus confirms that she had left and indelible trace in Croatian literature and culture. Tonko Maroević