ABSTRACT
In 1938, Slavko Batušić, a famous Zagreb theatre scholar, writer, and art historian educated at the Sorbonne and the École de Louvre (earning his doctorate in 1927) published a book of poems. A prolific writer, Batušić wrote many travelogues and dramas, but his vision was established as predominately European—his interests lay mostly in traveling to Scandinavia, studying Shakespearian theatre, and frequenting Parisian art circles. However, in a book titled simply 23 pjesme [23 poems], written between 1922 and 1934, his imagination took a turn toward the global. In a poem describing his wanderlust, ‘Okeanske tendencije’ [Oceanic tendencies], he longs to spend his days at a trans-oceanic warehouse of “Chinese silks,” “cinnamon,” and “pearl-white rice”; in another, “Kineska minijatura” [Chinese miniature], he skilfully uses Chinese porcelain as a social commentary on contemporary China; finally, in a demonstration of the depth of his wanderlust for “exotic” parts of the world, he writes a letter to the traditional master of Rurutu, the northernmost island of the Austral Islands of the Pacific, titled “Pismo za gosp. Tamatangu. Na Rurutu, Koralnom Atolu Polinezije” [Letter to Mr. Tamatanga. On Rurutu, the coral atoll of Polynesia]. Asia is most prominent in his imagination, following Europe, and he wrote a song titled “Caru Japana” [To the emperor of Japan] in 1922, glorifying the Japanese emperor and the culture of emperor-worship. He created an essentialized image of a powerful Japan, as a land of authentic culture that he, a European, bows before. His songs were not static artefacts of orientalism, though, and he includes a footnote in his book:
The song “Caru Japana” [To the Emperor of Japan]was written in 1923. However, when in the spring of 1932 the Japanese squadron headed by the battleship Izumo bombarded Shanghai, I publicly renounced the song in my novela “Pred kineskim ratnim sudom” [In Front of a Chinese Military Tribunal]. 1
