The Modernity o f the Dramatic Works o f Ivan Kreljanović-Albinoni

Abstract

Ivan Kreljanović-Albinoni from Zadar is a prominent Croatian intellectual who, through his literary, cultural and social activities, contributed to the spreading of the enlightenment in Zadar and Dalmatia at the beginning of the 19th century, predating the Illyrian movement. Socially speaking he was a notable judge on the Court of Appeals, while on the literary-cultural level he fought for the opening of reading rooms and schools using the vernacular; he started journals and was the author of the significant historic language essay Memorie per hi storia della Dalmazia as well as a translater and a writer of occassional poems. His dramatic works, especially those belonging to his tirsi creative phase, represent the first example of I he reception of Alfteri's theatre in Croalia.Thcy are of significance to the history of dramatic writing in Dalmatia because they apear at a time when Thalia is mute in the mother longue on the teritory of Dalmatia. 'Illese plays reflect the contemporary literary and social currents which Krcljanović brings over from neighbouring Italy: Arcadianism, neo-Classicism and the first Romantic stirrings, 'litis paper lakes note of concrete examples of the reception of these currents in the preserved works of Ivan Kreljanović-Albinoni and brings forward certain new facts concerning up to now unknown works by this Zadar writer (a tragedy and two occasional poems).