| Abstract (english) | The oldest Croatian imigrant colonies in Latin America were established in Chile. These are mostly colonies of Croatian emigrants in the late 19th and 20th century. They were attracted by all parts of this great country, from the far north to the southernmost city — Punta Arenas. Although they were mostly fishermen and farmers from the island of Brač and other islands from central Dalmatia, very soon they also began to excel in economy, culture, politics and sports. But what makes Chile a phenomenon among other Latin American countries is an important literary production of writers of Croatian origin. One of the first (Arturo Givovich) belongs mostly to 19th-century literature, while the highest number of writers belong to the mid-20th century, like Josefa Turina (1909—1986), Francisco Berzovic (1913—1996), Roque Esteban Scarpa Straboni (1914—1995), Domingo Mihovilovic Rajcevic (1918—2014, pseudonym Domingo Tessier), Zlatko Brncic (1920—1973), Sergio Vodanovic Pistelli (Split, 1927 — Santiago, 2001), Yerko Moretico Castillo (1926—1972), Amalija Rendic (1928—1986), Agata Gligo (1936—1997), Eugenio Mimica Barrasi (Punta Arenas, 1949), Patricija Stambuk Mayorga (1951), Hernán Andradte Martinic (1953) and many others. Among them, one of the most famous ones, Antonio Skármeta Vranicic (originally ©krmeta), a grandson of Croatian immigrants from Bobovišća on the island of Brač, born in Antofagasta, left a strong mark on both Chilean and the world’s literature, and also, as a very important contributor to Croatian emigrant literature, on Croatian literary heritage as well. On the ground of his novels, it will be examined how literature of exile creates a universal space, always, consciously or unconsciously, searching for its own identity, by offering a world woven of memories, melancholy, nostalgia, fine irony and how it carries inwrought into its own genetic code a world in which reality and fantasy coexist as constituent parts of the family, emotional, spiritual, social, intellectual and cultural bilocation. Special attention will be devoted to the models that establish and articulate identity as well as literature, especially the one generated through mediated memory. Because, as Skármeta said: “man's own life is, after all, the closest point for which every writer must reach.” |
