Milivoj Solar (8 April 1936 â 16 September 2025) was a Croatian literary theorist and literary historian.
Life and career
Solar was born in Koprivnica. At the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences he earned a degree in philosophy and Yugoslav studies in 1959. At the same faculty he received his PhD in 1964 with a thesis on Fran GaloviÃÂ.
From 1963 he worked as an assistant, then as a docent and as an associate, and finally from 1976 as a full tenured professor of literature theory and methodology of the study of literature at the Department for Comparative Literature. In the period of 1987-1990 he also served as SR Croatia's minister of education and culture.
Solar died on 16 September 2025, at the age of 89.
Work
Solar's scholarly work is primarily concerned with literary theory, especially the issues of poetics and the relationship between literary theory and philosophy. He also published works on the methodology of literary studies, literature analysis and universal elements of cultural history such as myths.
He published the following books:
- Pitanja poetike (Ã
 kolska knjiga, Zagreb, 1971)
- Ideja i priÃÂa (Liber, Zagreb, 1974; 2nd enlarged ed. Znanje, Zagreb, 1980)
- KnjiÃ
¾evna kritika i filozofija knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Ã
 kolska knjiga, Zagreb, 1976)
- Teorija knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Ã
 kolska knjiga, Zagreb, 1976; 20th ed. 2005)
- Uvod u filozofiju knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Studentski centar SveuÃÂiliÃ
¡ta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, 1978)
- Smrt Sancha Panze (Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, Zagreb, 1981)
- Suvremena svjetska knjiÃ
¾evnost (Ã
 kolska knjiga, Zagreb, 1982; 1990, 3rd revised and enlarged ed. 1997)
- Mit o avangardi i mit o dekadenciji (Nolit, Beograd, 1985)
- Eseji o fragmentima (Prosveta, Beograd, 1985)
- Filozofija knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Liber, Zagreb, 1985)
- Roman i mit (August Cesarec, Zagreb, 1988)
- Teorija proze (Liber, Zagreb, 1989)
- Laka i teÃ
¡ka knjiÃ
¾evnost (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1995; 2nd ed. 2005)
- VjeÃ
¾be tumaÃÂenja (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1997; 2nd ed. 2005)
- Edipova braÃÂa i sinovi (Naprijed, Zagreb, 1998)
- Granice znanosti o knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Naklada PaviÃÂiÃÂ, Zagreb, 2000)
- Povijest svjetske knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Golden marketing, Zagreb, 2003)
- Predavanja o loÃ
¡em ukusu, (PolitiÃÂka kultura, Zagreb, 2004)
- Ideja i priÃÂa (Collected works, 1st book, Golden marketing-TehniÃÂka knjiga, Zagreb, 2004)
- Uvod u filozofiju knjiÃ
¾evnosti (Collected works, 2nd book, Golden marketing-TehniÃÂka knjiga, Zagreb, 2004)
- Retorika postmoderne (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 2005)
- RjeÃÂnik knjiÃ
¾evnoga nazivlja (Golden marketing-TehniÃÂka knjiga, Zagreb, 2006)
- KnjiÃ
¾evni leksikon (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 2007)
Solar was a regular member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 2008, member of the Croatian Writers' Association and the Croatian Philosophic Society.
He was a winner of the Zagreb City Award in 1972, Award "BoÃ
¾idar AdÃ
¾ija" in 1975, Vladimir Nazor Award in 1977 and HAZU award in 2004 for the book Povijest svjetske knjiÃ
¾evnosti ('History of world literature').
References
Sources
External links