"'Црвена' или 'света' Русија: компарација путописа Мирослава Крлеже и Драгише Васића о првој земљи социјализма"

English title: “Red” or “Holy” Russia: A Comparison of Miroslav Krleža’s and Dragiša Vasić’s Travelogues on the First Country of Socialism

The paper “‘Red’ or ‘Holy’ Russia: A Comparison of Miroslav Krleža’s and Dragiša Vasić’s Travelogues on the First Country of Socialism” analyzes travelogues written after Miroslav Krleža’s and Dragiša Vasić’s visits to Soviet Russia in the 1920s. A comparative reading of their texts makes it possible to identify more precisely the different value systems of the two writers and their attitudes toward revolution, modernity, the national question, and the symbolic meaning of Russia.

Krleža perceived Soviet Russia as a revolutionary space that offered an alternative to Western bourgeois civilization. In his travelogue, communism assumed the role of a new secular faith, while Moscow, the Kremlin, and the cult of Lenin became centers of a new historical meaning. Vasić, by contrast, started from a strong idea of Russia as a great Slavic and spiritual space, but during the journey he increasingly observed mechanisms of power, propaganda, social poverty, ideological pressure, and the tension between the revolutionary project and Russian historical tradition.

The paper argues that the differences between Krleža and Vasić were neither accidental nor merely personal. They emerged from different attitudes toward revolution, nation, religion, modernity, and political legitimacy. The analysis of their travelogues therefore helps to explain not only their later ideological divergence, but also the broader context of interwar intellectual history in Southeast Europe.