August Cesarec

Who was August Cesarec?

August Cesarec was a Croatian writer and left-wing politician.

Cesarec was born in Zagreb, which was part of Austria-Hungary at a time. As a high school student he was involved in radical nationalist politics and joined the group that tried to assassinate Croatian ban Slavko Cuvaj. For his role in failed assassination he received two years of prison sentence, which he served in Sremska Mitrovica penitentiary. There he began to study books of Stirner and Kropotkin, which gradually led him to adopt Marxist philosophy. From 1915 to 1918 he served in Austro-Hungarian Army and experiences of World War I made him into an enthusiastic supporter of October Revolution and Communism.

After the war he became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Because of that he often had to deal with police and emigrate to Prague, Vienna, Moscow and Spain, where he spent some time during Spanish Civil War.

Cesarec, who had discovered his literary talent in teenage years, was also known as one of the leading Croatian literary figures of his time. He wrote poems, plays, short stories and novels and participated in literary magazines run by Miroslav Krleža. Cesarec's work was heavily influenced by his politics and ideology - in his plays and novels Cesarec expressed his utter disgust for capitalism and bourgeoisie, portraying characters belonging to that social class as vile, corrupt and perverse monsters. Best example for that could be found in novel Zlatni mladić, a character study of a young man born in privileged capitalist family who gets away with all kinds of crimes. The novel was so popular that the phrase zlatna mladež entered Croatian vocabulary and was reintroduced in 1990s in order to describe spoiled children of post-Communist nouveau riche.