Avangarda Tina Ujevića

A strained relationship between Tin Ujević and the avant­garde as indicated by Aleksandar Flaker (1984) is visible in the author’s criticism and his auto­referential texts alike, e.g. his references to surrealist features of his first collection of poems Lelek sebra (Cry of a Slave) (1920) or his comments on Futurism, Hipnism or Expressionism. Both literary critics and literary historians (Oraić Tolić 1988, Stamać 2005, Milanja 2008, Jurić 2010, Še­put 2021) recognised the positive evaluation of insanity and alogical contexts, the use of free and liberated verse, as well as an inventory of futurist topics and motifs to be features of avant ­garde poetics in Ujević’s poetry. However, poetic changes and oscillations in their use also led them to conclude that these are elements, stages or partial appropriations of the avant ­garde in Ujević’s oeuvre, whose poetic features are interpreted as an expression of the author’s personal eccentricity, to preserve the image of his modernism and aestheticism. Contrary to this, the paper emphasises how completely and profoundly radically Ujević delves into the literary field. He makes a revolutionary cut with respect to the categories of mimesis, subjectivity and linearity, which equally affects his artistic expression in poetry and prose, whether or not he uses futurist, expressionist, surrealist or traditional forms and procedures.