Gustav Krklec

Born June 23, 1899, in Udbinja, near Karlovac. Croatian poet; member of the Yugoslav Academy of Science and Art (1951).

Krklec’s first collections of poems (Lyric Poems, 1919; The Silver Road, 1921; and Love of Birds, 1926) were imbued with an impressionistic view of the world and a sense of youth and closeness to nature. During the 1930’s and early 1940’s themes of hopelessness and loneliness came to predominate in his works, reflecting the tragic isolation of the intelligentsia from the people’s struggle for freedom. A sensitive artist and accomplished master of the traditional poetic form, Krklec reevaluated many of his views after the defeat of Nazism and attempted to become part of the new life of the country (his cycle of poems Murmur of Life, 1955). He has also written essays of literary criticism and done translations.