Isidora Sekulić’s Spirit of Synthesis – Between Race And Culture

Abstract

The main goal of the paper was to illustrate Isidora Sekulic’s understanding of world and culture as a system, through an overview of topics in her essayistic work. While writing about foreign cultures Isidora Sekulic acted as a philosopher interested in topics of European cultures, while also demonstrating a respect for cultures of the East. In her essays she searched for the universal truth that surpassed her starting points: the work she wrote about, its author, time and nation of his origin. She realised this idea through a system that synthesised similarities and differences, or through the “law of equilibrium” that functioned through “isolines” and “contrasts” of her topics. Local cultures became a part of this system by absorbing and exceeding the characteristics of a race. As foundations of Serbian culture, Isidora saw peoples’ spirit and language, as a basis and medium for creating cultural properties, and the tradition of Nemanjic’s dynasty and religious architecture, as a fruit of man’s universal need to speak with God. The ideal of synthesis of a race and culture, Isidora Sekulic saw in Petar II Petrovic Njegos.