CROSSWORD, SYMMETRY, (S)THOUGHTS: Following the trail of Ariadne's thread Kostić's thoughts
Dokić, Marija. 2024. Cross-section, symmetry, (s)thought: Following Ariadne's thread of Kostić's thought. Belgrade: Institute for Political Studies. ISBN 978-86-7419-394-5
A new book published by the Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade: INTERSECTION, SYMMETRY, (S)THOUGHTS: In the footsteps of Ariadne's thread of Kostić's thought. In an impeccable style, in the manuscript before you, Dr. Marija Dokić, the author of the monograph, has provided an abundance of facts about the work of the Serbian erudite Laza Kostić and the importance of the concepts INTERSECTION, SYMMETRY, and (S)THOUGHTS in his philosophical thought.
Kostić is a dialectician, states the author, but he is also an aesthete and idealist who views the whole world through the prism of beauty and light, eternally striving to unravel the secrets of the cosmos, a dreamer, an idealist, but above all an excellent thinker of the Serbian philosophical scene. The motif of light follows him, not only in his aesthetic writings, but also in his poems, where everything is as if under the light of the ideal that he wants to reach, and which he certainly does reach in a certain sense. The way he viewed the world was greatly influenced by ancient thought, and the ideals of symmetry and harmony remain the basic concepts under which he writes and through which he tries to conceive and depict the entire world. Harmony has a destructive power, but it is there only to show the face of symmetry and, by intersection, to achieve the kind of overcoming that Nietzsche also speaks of. One aspect always influences the other, and one leads to the other, and in the end, like Hegel's thought, we arrive at a circular and at first glance complete representation of the world, we arrive at the outline of reality under the distant Greek sky in the interpretation of Laza Kostić, within the framework of his aesthetics but always and most of all his Hellenism.
The author deals not only with the research of Kostić's understanding of intersection, as a key moment in his philosophical thought structure, to which the first part of the monograph is also dedicated, but also with the influences present in Kostić's thought, and she also notes that the direct inspiration for the concept of intersection was precisely the Iliad, which on several occasions also represents the focus of Kostić's aesthetics. The entire monograph is shaped by Kostić's parameters of symmetry and harmony, and this is the unity of opposites that is the basis of each individual Kostić's work, and as the author notes, it is most clearly present in his poem Santa Maria della Salute, where the philosophy of symbols and intersection becomes the main reflection of the poetic. The first part of the monograph is divided into chapters that deal with Kostić's philosophical thought and his philosophy of intersection, while in the second and third parts the author studies his aesthetic writings and at the same time points to undeniable elements of connection with philosophical predecessors, of which, in the domain of his aesthetic contribution, Nietzsche is particularly significant.
With her contribution, Marija Dokić opens the door to a more comprehensive view of Kostić's thought and a deeper understanding of his philosophical and poetic oeuvre, which also points to his insufficiently researched, but immeasurable contribution to Serbian culture, ideals and thought. This work helps us to see the face of Laza Kostić as a thinker who, with his unusual ideas and thoughts, shapes the ideas of subsequent generations, and whose influence from this aspect we can still see today.
