Есејистичко-компаративна критика Светозара Кољевића
Essayistic-Comparative Criticism of Svetozar Koljević

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the critical oeuvre of Svetozar Koljević with the aim of defining more precisely his place within the typology of Serbian literary criticism. Starting from Predrag Palavestra’s observation that Koljević approached comparative literature from a “distinctive angle,” the paper argues that the originality of his approach lies not primarily in his choice of topics or comparative perspective, but in the specific fusion of the comparative method with a highly individualized essayistic mode of expression. On this basis, the paper introduces the concept of essayistic-comparative criticism, understood as a mode of interpretation in which scholarly analysis and creative interpretation merge into a unified hermeneutic procedure. Drawing on an analysis of Koljević’s representative books – Thе Triumph of Intelligence, Humour and Myth, and Babylonian Challenges – the paper demonstrates that his comparative perspective is subordinated to fundamental poetic, hermeneutic, and aesthetic questions of literature. In his interpretations of modern European, Anglo -American, and Serbian literature, as well as Serbian oral literature, Koljević employs the comparative context as a means of illuminating broader problems of literary creation, poetic paradoxes, and of formulating his own evaluative criteria. The analysis further shows that, in Koljević’s work, the essayistic form transcends the level of stylistic individuality and becomes a distinctive mode of critical thought. Finally, the paper identifies two principal subtypes within Koljević’s essayistic-comparative oeuvre: the hermeneutic-poetical subtype, focused on interpreting the poetic structures of modern prose within a comparative framework, and the scientific-comparative subtype, characterized by greater methodological systematicity and broader comparative syntheses. The main contribution of the paper lies in establishing the concept of essayistic -comparative criticism as a distinct model within Serbian comparative literary studies, thereby offering a more precise understanding of Svetozar Koljević’s place in the history of Serbian literary criticism.

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