The painted boys (Andrzej Strug and Miroslav Krleža’ pen). A comparative study

Abstract

The main subject of the article is a diverse image of the generation of World War I in Polish and Balkan literature. The two works which have been a subject of the comparative study are Badge of Loyal Service by Andrzej Strug and the novel Domobran Jambrek by Miroslaw Krleža (a part of Croatian God Mars). The author explains the principles and functions of pompous poetics of the description of war in the prose by Strug and in a completely different, ironic poetics of the stories by Krleža. Despite many similarities, the two works transmit different artistic and political ideologies. In the last part of the article, another point of reference to the subject of war is a novel by Serbian writer Miloš Crnjanski: Records of Czarnojevic. In the conclusion of her considerations, the author points to the diversity of contexts of tradition and draws attention to the importance of formative function of Polish Romanticism.