Milutin Bojić: italijanska recepcija i prevodi

Basing itself on reception theory, this paper focuses on both the presence and presentation in Italy of Milutin Bojić (1892-1917), through all that has been written and published regarding the Serbian poet: articles, studies, essays (R. Nikolić), profiles in the histories of Serbo-Croat literature (A. Cronia, G. Maver, B. Meriggi), on the one hand, and translations of his poetry (Mandolfo-Živković), on the other. It is symptomatic that Italian reception is conditioned by its local, Serbian representation: very soon Bojić's works were overlooked and almost forgotten, partly because of his early death on Corfù in 1917, but also because of the changes in poetic models during the interwar period, and this despite the praise heaped on him by all the critics who had considered his production (J. Skerlić, M. Ibrovac, B. Lazarević, I. Sekulić, M. Pavlović ecc.). Italian Serbo-Croatists, most notably Arturo Cronia, recognized no universal features in the poet, but rather identified a mere expression of patriotic sentiment, a verdict which hindered any diffusion of his poems through translation into Italian. The complete translations of Plava grobnica (The Blue Tomb) and Sejači (Sowers) in R. Mandolfo-Zivković's anthology Momenti poetici represent an attempt at redress, albeit one circumscribed to their place of publication and to those who, for reasons of study and research, are aware of the volume's existence. One part of this paper is dedicated to a brief Italian sojourn which, in 1916, saw Bojić in Turin and Rome, and which to this day has remained unknown and unexamined by scholars. Traces of this experience remain in Bojić's correspondence which offers an authentic document about the poet and his times.