You might think that Nick Cave and the Kajkavian Dialect don’t have anything to do with one another, but Tomislav Pletenac, cultural anthropologist from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, would beg to differ.
Professor Pletenac’s piano performance of “Kajkavian Cave” will show you just how many things in common these two seemingly different poetic traditions actually have.
If you’re not an expert on Croatian dialects and are not sure what “Kajkavian” actually means – Kajkavian is a South Slavic regiolect spoken primarily by Croats in much of Central Croatia, Gorski Kotar and northern Istria. Some linguists claim that Kajkavian is not a dialect of Croatian, but a language of its own, due to the fact that it is more similar to Slovene than to other dialects of Croatian.
You can see some of Professor Pletenac’s previous performances below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= QRTRbbGv0eg
This is actually not the only case that Nick Cave has been translated into Kajkavian – Denis Peričić translated four songs by Cave, renaming him to Nik Kajv!, for “Kaj” Magazine for literature, art and culture back in 2005.
Tomislav Pletenac will be performing Cave’s Kajkavian songs on the piano at the Jakovlje Castle on June 24 at 6 p.m., at Jakovlje castle near Zagreb (15 km from Zaprešić.)
