Vladimir Nazor

[3] Nazor became one of Josip Broz Tito's closest associates and the President of Croatia's World War II assembly, the ZAVNOH.

His position carried little real political power, which was instead invested in the office of the President of the Government and informally with the Secretary of the Communist Party of Croatia.

Reflecting on his position under the communist government in his diary Večernje bilješke (1945), Nazor notes "They gave me a lot of honor but no power!"

In poetry, Nazor's creative way began with metaphysical transcendental philosophy and materialistic revolutionary action, prior to rational scheme and harmonic larpourlartistic crystal structure and interior protest against artistic verbalizing in Futurism, Dadaism, Expressionism, and Surrealism, as well as instructive didactics of socialist realism.

Some of his works contain rhythm forcing, vowels shortening for adjusting the number of syllables and progressing the sentence to the next verse, as well as his use of unusual and archaic words Nazor wrote over 500 poems.

The early phase of Nazor's poetry work is mostly object of scholars' research now, but Galérien's Poeme (Galiotova pesan) from that time (1903), describing suffering and sadness of a galley slave, attains universal meaning as condemnation of oppression and still stands as one of the most expressive disapproval of slavery.

Vladimir Nazor spoke several languages and translated Italian (Dante – Divina Commedia, Giosuè Carducci, Giovanni Pascoli, Gabriele d'Annunzio), German (Goethe, Heine), French (Hugo, Alfred de Musset), and English (Shakespeare).

Stamp featuring Nazor's likeness issued in May 1976 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Emblem of the Parliament of Croatia
Emblem of the Parliament of Croatia