Milivoj Solar

Milivoj Solar was a Croatian literary theorist and literary historian.

Life and career

Solar was born in Koprivnica. At the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences he earned a degree in philosophy and Yugoslav studies in 1959. At the same faculty he received his PhD in 1964 with a thesis on Fran Galović.
From 1963 he worked as an assistant, then as a docent and as an associate, and finally from 1976 as a full tenured professor of literature theory and methodology of the study of literature at the Department for Comparative Literature. In the period of 1987-1990 he also served as SR Croatia's minister of education and culture.
Solar died on 16 September 2025, at the age of 89.

Work

Solar's scholarly work is primarily concerned with literary theory, especially the issues of poetics and the relationship between literary theory and philosophy. He also published works on the methodology of literary studies, literature analysis and universal elements of cultural history such as myths.
He published the following books:

Pitanja poetike
Ideja i priča
Književna kritika i filozofija književnosti
Teorija književnosti
Uvod u filozofiju književnosti
Smrt Sancha Panze
Suvremena svjetska književnost
Mit o avangardi i mit o dekadenciji
Eseji o fragmentima
Filozofija književnosti
Roman i mit
Teorija proze
Laka i teška književnost
Vježbe tumačenja
Edipova braća i sinovi
Granice znanosti o književnosti
Povijest svjetske književnosti
Predavanja o lošem ukusu,
Ideja i priča
Uvod u filozofiju književnosti
Retorika postmoderne
Rječnik književnoga nazivlja
Književni leksikon

Solar was a regular member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 2008, member of the Croatian Writers' Association and the Croatian Philosophic Society.
He was a winner of the Zagreb City Award in 1972, Award "Božidar Adžija" in 1975, Vladimir Nazor Award in 1977 and HAZU award in 2004 for the book Povijest svjetske književnosti.