Rajmund Kupareo

Rajmund Kupareo (Spanish: Raimundo Kupareo) (1914–1996) was a Croatian poet, catholic priest from Dominican Order, theological writer, composer, translator and editor. He wrote in Croatian, Czech, Latin and Spanish. He spent most productive years of his life working in Chile as a professor of aesthetics and axiology in Santiago de Chile; he served there as the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (twice) and the vice-rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.[1]

Life

Rajmund Kupareo was born on November 16, 1914 in Vrboska, the island of Hvar, as a descendant of an old noble family. He entered the Order of the Preachers in Dubrovnik in 1930 and was ordained priest in Split in 1937. He studied philosophy, theology and languages in Dubrovnik, Zagreb (Croatia), Olomouc (Moravia), Santiago de Chile (Chile) and Washington, D.C. (USA).[2][3]

During World War II, Kupareo was the editor-in-chief of Gospina krunica (Our Lady’s Rosary), a Catholic monthly magazine in Zagreb. He was also the manager of the Dominican publishing house Istina (Truth) which published a translation of The Story of a Soul by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Razmišljanja o krunici (Meditations on the Rosary), a book translated by Aloysius Stepinac, the Archbishop of Zagreb. The arrival of the communist troops in the spring of 1945 hindered his project to publish all the sermons and speeches delivered by Stepinac from 1934 to 1944, in which the Archbishop had strongly condemned racism and intolerance and emphasized the right of the Croatian people to have their own state. After having entered Zagreb, the communists destroyed the entire edition of 10.000 books in the printing-house. Only one copy was saved and Stepinac later used it at his trial to show that there was no freedom of press in Tito’s Yugoslavia.[4]

Kupareo was forced to leave Croatia on January 2, 1947, and did not see his homeland again until June 10, 1971. Kupareo took refuge first in the Czech Republic, afterwards in the Netherlands, France and Spain. Finally, in 1950, he found his place in Chile. He spent his most productive years as a professor of aesthetics and axiology in Santiago de Chile and served as the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (twice) and the vice-rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He was the founder of the Institute of Aesthetics and the School of Journalism in Santiago de Chile, as well as initiator and editor of several publications. As the official representative of his university, he traveled through North, Central and South America, Europe and the Middle East.[5][6] A stroke hit him on 14 May 1970 and forced him to retire. He returned to Croatia to die, but has recovered to a certain degree and led a secluded and simple life in the Dominican priory in Zagreb. Despite his frail condition, he continued his literary and scientific work. In 1985 he became a member of Academia Chilena de la Lengua of the Instituto de Chile, the Chilean Academy of Arts and Letters. After the democratic changes in Croatia he finally became a member of the Croatian Writers Association.

In 1985, he was promoted a foreign member of Academia Chilena de la Lengua.[7]

Work

Rajmund Kupareo published 25 different volumes of his writings: nine treatises on aesthetics (in Latin, Spanish and Croatian) and 14 books of poetry, novels, stories and plays (in Croatian, Czech and Spanish). His poetry is compiled in the anthology Svjetloznak (Lightsign, 1994; after his death two more poems were found in manuscript form and published in the Vjesnik daily on June 6, 1998). His poems distinguished him in the Croatian literature as an unequaled poet of Christmas and Good Friday and of unassuming but powerful patriotism. Deeply inspired by Christianity, he was a man of strong faith with an unfaltering love for his homeland and a persistent inner self-searching.

He wrote 260 poems on diverse subjects – from poems inspired by his beloved homeland and impressions of landscape to Yuletide and Nativity poems, Lenten elegies, Easter hymns, poems to Jesus and Mary and imitations of Hebrew psalms.

He also authored significant number of compositions of religious and secular character: the manuscripts of polyphonic motets and even a few operettas, mainly to his own lyrics, are kept in Dominican priories’ archives in Croatia, Chile and Italy. Among others, he put to music O Spem Miram (O wonderful hope), the famous prayer to St. Dominic, while he was in Las Caldas de Besayu priory (Spain) in 1949.

His stories on World War II and the lifes of Dominicans, priests, professors and emigrants in Latin and North America: Balada iz Magallanesa (The Ballad from Magallanes) are published in 1978; followed by stories on the same subject Čežnja za zavičajem (Longing for Home, 1989) and Patka priča (Tales by a Duck, 1994).

In 1939. is published his novel: U morskoj kući (In the Sea House, 1939), followed with novels Jedinac (The Only Son, 1942), Baraban (Barabban, 1943) and Sunovrati (The Narcissi, 1960).

He wrote 2 plays for children – Magnificat and Sliepo srdce (The Blind Heart, 1944) and 3 mystery plays – Muka Kristova (Christ’s Passion, Madrid, 1948), Uskrsnuće (The Resurrection, 1983) and Porođenje (The Nativity, 1984), last 3 were published together under the title Prebivao je među nama (He Resided Among Us, 1985).

Starting with his Chilean period, he wrote several book on aesthetics: Ars et moralis (1951), El Valor del Arte – Axiología estética (1964), Creationes Humanas, I, La Poesia (1965), Creationes Humanas, II, El Drama (1966), Umjetnik i zagonetka života (The Artist and the Mystery of Life, 1982), Govor umjetnosti (Language of the Art, 1987), Čovjek i umjetnost (Man and the Art, 1993) and Um i umjetnost (Intellect and Art, 2007).[3] He wrote about the essence of artistic creation and attempts to harmonize the scholastic, especially Thomistic, learning about the beauty with modern aesthetic teachings. In elaborating aesthetics as an ethical system for improving the cognition, he seeks to establish aesthetic measure, taste and balance. Basing his axiological realism on ontological realism, according to which “there is no being without value of all beings”, he holds that subjective aesthetic experience, conditioned by the level of culture of perception and judgment, does not annul the objective value of the work. Regarding the relationship between art and morality, and art and religion, he emphasizes the autonomy of a work of art and, objecting to aestheticism, lartpourlartism and moralism, he defines art as “the embodiment of human ideas in the specific symbol” and one of the most scenic and most noble manifestations of the human spirit.[8]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Instituto de Estetica: Historia", Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, retrieved 11.29.2014(in Spanish)
  2. ↑ "O dominikancu Rajmundu Kupareu i svečanom obilježavanju 100. obljetnice njegova rođenja", Marito Mihovil Letica, "Radio Vaticana" 08.10.2014 (in Croatian)]
  3. ↑ "Hrvati u Čileu: Osvrt na život i rad Rajmunda Kuparea", Marina Perić, "Kolo" 2, 2007 (in Croatian)]
  4. ↑ "Rajmund Kupareo", "Verbum", retrieved 11.27.2014 (in Croatian)]
  5. ↑ "Kupareo, Raumund", "Hrvatska enciklopedija" retrieved 29.11.2014 (in Croatian)
  6. ↑ "CONCEPTOS SOBRE EDUCACION POR EL ARTE EN LA ESTETICA DEL DR. RAIMUNDO KUPAREO B", Radoslav K. Ivelic, REvista Educarte, 32/33, 2006, Pg. 18 and 19 (in Spanish)
  7. ↑ "ANALES DEL INSTITUTO DE CHILE, 1985", (in Spanish)
  8. ↑ Marko Kovačević, Rajmund Kupareo, Hrvatski biografski leksikon, 8, Zagreb, 2013, p. 410

External links