Reading Poetics. Branko Milanović on Ivo Andrić

This paper analyses the works by Branko Milanović, generated over a period of almost forty years, dedicated to the analysis of various aspects of Ivo Andrić’s literary oeuvre. Milanović is one of the most qualified interpreters of this oeuvre, given the fact that he was among the first scholars within the scope of the Yugoslav literary science to have produced a PhD dissertation on Andrić and to have published a book on his works. There are several thematic issues that mark Milanović’s prolonged interest in this matter, centred around Andrić’s literary beginnings, the atmosphere and nature of his early works, his narrative pieces featuring questions of artistic expression and the essence of art, as well as around the foundations of Andrić’s poetics, revealed in his literary works and essay and critical writing, and, finally, his novels. This analysis shows that Milanović, as early as upon acquiring his PhD title, embarks on a unique, argument-based interpretative path, constantly juxtaposing Andrić’s fiction and non-fiction. Gathered in one place, Milanović’s writings on Andrić confirm him as being one of the foremost interpreters of the latter’s oeuvre.