Julije Benešić i poljsko kazalište
Julije Benešić and the Polish Theatre

Summary/Abstract: A reception of the Polish theatre by Julije Benešić had considerably constituted his aesthetic views, that he would than – at first as a reviewer and critic (1910–1916), and later as a theatre manager – build into his value judgements and the repertoire policy of the Zagreb theatre. What is meant is Benešić’s view of the Krakow modernist theatre – before WW I, and (mostly) the Warsaw middle-class and avant-garde theatres – after the War. The turning point in that experience occurred in the early 30s, during Benešić’s eight-year stay in Warsaw, namely in times of teatrical (and overall) Polish crisis. Consequently he became disillusioned not only by the commercialization of the theatre but also by the growing role of the ideology in the Polish society, which also meant the instrumentalization of the theatre. »Running away« from Poland (both in physical and theatrical sense) equals Benešić’s return to the text, predominantly to the Polish Romantic drama. It comes as no suprise therefore, that he would in the semi-darkness of his war-time isolation in Zagreb intensively work on, what he considered his best, translation – Mickiewicz’s Forefather’s Eve, the crucial text of the Polish theatre.

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