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Translated by Zoltán Csuka
Marin Držić is the biggest Croatian comedy writer from the Renaissance and Dundo Maroje is his best known and most frequently performed comedy. It is a true masterpiece, a brilliant work of Croatian Renaissance literature in which the author presents Dubrovnik, its inhabitants and their lifestyle, in a humorous and ironic way. The plot is set in Rome, where Maro, a young man from Dubrovnik, is living and spending all his money on entertainment and easy living. Hearing about the wanton life Maro is leading in Rome, his father, Dundo Maroje, arrives hoping he can bring Maro to his senses and that his son will get back on track. The comedy Dundo Maroje is a fresco of one period of time and of a certain society. It is a world in which human virtues as well as faults are shown. Držić places the lust for money and wealth on one side, and the comfortable and licentious life of the merchants on the other. Out there, in a foreign country, “našijenci” (“our people”) seem forced to seek each other and depend on each other, because being a foreigner in an unknown country is a great risk for everybody.