IN MEMORIAM
SREĆKO LIPOVČAN
(1942 – 2009)
An upright man, of a moderate stride, well-mannered and with a pleasant smile is — at this moment — departing from us like a swaying shadow along unknown paths and open spaces of the soul. He will remain in our memory as an image and a real figure of an intellectual of a clever and composed speech, a real figure of a collocutor who — with his fellow men — communicated with respect, and generally, as a person who cherished in himself, as well as around himself, the inherited values of culture and morality. Such wellcared for conduct was particularly remarkable since it was expressed in circumstances of the opposite, alien to culture, features. Srećko Lipovčan was an advocate of clear ideas, morally founded behaviour, following the tradition of improved customs. As if he were now — departing from us — taking a considerable weight of higher values, since here — in our surroundings — they were not as appreciated as much as they deserved.
He was a man of oral, working and written culture. The first was manifested in his constant communication with the listeners, friends and colleagues, and in his later years, with his students. The second was cultivated as a constant, everyday practice. Namely, he was among the rare ones who could take pride in living by his beliefs. Particularly frequently, he emphasised that being socially involved also meant following the first postulate of a strict differentiation between the public and the private sphere. He did not consider Obliti privatorum, publica curate to be just an evidence of a high statecraft and loyalty to the constitutional ideas of the Dubrovnik administrative bodies, but the first principle of every intellectual worker. A plethora of historical texts, cultural treatises, theatre essays and selected articles on a large number of public topics is a testimony to the third, written culture of which he left a legacy for Croatian future generations. His journalistic, nonfiction, literary-historical and cholarly-theoretical oeuvre is marked by a number of one thousand and five hundred varied bibliographical entries. If anyone ever engages in that infinite number of sentences, they will surely have to devote all their energy. Among his works, his four books — high scholarly achievements — are particularly prominent as well as more than sixty comprehensive studies that have been published in first-rate publications in Croatia and abroad. Srećko Lipovčan left a valuable work to the culture of his language, his country and his nation. While he was a deputy president, he bestowed — upon the Croatian Writers’ Association — his best intellectual, working and organisational skills. He would respond to different activities of Matica hrvatska every time occasions and personal commitments permitted.
On behalf of all Croatian writers, the employed ones as well as the freelancers, I express — also on this, the last and the most serious human occasion — my deepest gratitude for everything that he — in word and deed — did for Croatian literature and culture in its entirety.
On many troubled paths of our lives, our fates were interwoven, frequently in close touch — mostly in Zagreb, but also in Dubrovnik, Oldenburg and Berlin. Our friendship almost approached a temporal framework of a half a century. But, the human comprehension of time is destined for an onthological and cognitive boundary.
Farewell, Srećko! You are in an immediate closeness to the eternal light! Let it shine on you until resurrection! You delivered your soul to the reality. Let the angels take you to heaven, rest in peace!
Ante Stamać
A speech given during the funeral held at the
Crematorium of Zagreb on 15th April 2009.