UNKNOWN DOCUMENTS ABOUT GRGA NOVAK AND MIROSLAV KRLEŽA, WHICH SHED LIGHT UPON THE CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE OF MID-CENTURY IN CROATIA

U arhivu Mediteranskog instituta Grga Novak na Hvaru čuva se nekoliko neuočenih dokumenata koji osvjetljavaju život Grge Novaka, jednog od najznamenitijih Dalmatinaca XX. stoljeća, arheologa i historičara, pisca dvosveščane Prošlosti Dalmacije i trosveščane Povijesti Splita.1 U drugom, kraćem dijelu studije autorica analizira i pismo Miroslava Krleže predsjedniku JAZU koje osvjetljava Krležin položaj u Titovoj Jugoslaviji. Analiziraju se neki aspekti Krležinog epistolarnog stila.In this paper the author presents and interprets various so far completely unknown and unpublished documents which belong to the archive of Grga Novak in Hvar and to the archive of Miroslav Krleža in Zagreb. Among these documents special attention was paid to a very brief but realistic police description of several outstanding Croatian scientists who, during the Second World War, were active as the teaching staff in the field of humanities at the University of Zagreb. The author also made an attempt to point out the strange destiny of two Novak\u27s books, first a travel log on Egypt (In the Land of Pharaohs) and a book on the history of Dalmatia (Dalmatia at the Crossroad 1848). The destiny of this last book, which was published in 1948 but was banned and destroyed several weeks later, as the author points out, might be connected with Miroslav Krleža and his collaborators. Special emphasis in the paper is placed on the relationship between Miroslav Krleža and Grga Novak, and their correspondence where a close reading is dedicated to a very direct and mocking but unsent letter of Miroslav Krleža. The author analyses the style of that Krleža\u27s text and compares it with some other similar but sent letters within the same framework and over a period of several years. In the last section of her text the author analyses the so far unknown Krleža\u27s unsent letter to Grga Novak trying to shed more light on the very humble relationship between literature and power in communism