engleski

Croatian Japanologist Vladimir Devidé

Croatian Japanology owes a lot to the Academician professor Vladimir Devidé. Although he was a mathematician by profession, his name in Croatia is inevitably associated to Japan and Japanese culture. Devidé was tireless in his promotion of Japan in Croatia, holding more than 200 public lectures on Japan and its culture. He also wrote some of the first books on Japanology in Croatian, such as the first and, for now, the only anthology of Japanese literature ("From Japanese Literature", 1985). The choice of literature works listed in his anthology reflects the mainstream in diachronic representations of the most important authors in Japanese cultural and literature history. But, it also reflects the kind of interest in Japan which was rather popular in the “western” world of the sixties and the seventies of the past century. In this sense, Devidé is the witness of his time, he writes and describes Japan in a way similar to some of the most influential Japanologists of the time. My intent is to deconstruct his legacy and to point out some good and some fallible things in his writing.

Japanese culture ; Devidé ; Croatian Japanology

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