SOURCE: "Miroslav Krleza," in Books Abroad, Vol. 37, No. 4, Autumn, 1963, pp. 396-400.

In the following essay, Kadic provides a thematic and generic overview of Krleza's writings.

Miroslav Krleza should not be treated as a man of letters only: his significance lies in various fields. One can safely state that his role in the establishment of the Communist dictatorship in Yugoslavia was extremely significant. There is no one who did more than Krleza to discredit bourgeois society and to orient a great number of intellectuals toward socialism.

To understand and appreciate Krleza one must locate him in his milieu, in Zagreb, during and after the First World War, when the Austrian empire was rapidly disintegrating and royalist Yugoslavia was in the process of formation. Krleza was one of the first who revolted against the megalomania and mythomania of the military clique in Belgrade, which considered the non-Serbian lands a conquered...