Po stazama života: Pjesme, domišljaji, posmatranja

Along the Paths of Life: Poems, Imaginations, Observations is one of the most comprehensive literary works by Hugo Krishaber (1872–1942/45), a Croatian publicist, poet, translator and journalist, published in Zagreb in 1934 by the author. The book brings together poems, aphorisms, short reflections and autobiographically intoned notes that testify to the author's rich life experience and long-standing activity in the cultural and journalistic life of Osijek.

Krishaber was born in Lakócs in Hungary, and was educated in Osijek, where he graduated from the Real Gymnasium in 1890. He spent most of his life in Osijek, working as a publicist, editor and cultural activist. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of the humorous and enigmatic monthly Razbibriga, and from 1937 until the newspaper was closed down in 1938, the last editor-in-chief of the Osijek German newspaper Die Drau. He published humorous poems, aphorisms, travel sketches, literary translations and social commentaries, and was a notable participant in the Osijek cultural scene between the two world wars. As a translator, he brought the works of Petöfi, Goethe, Heine, Schiller, Leopard, Petrar and Chénier closer to Croatian readers.

In the collection Po stazama života, the author deals with universal themes of transience, love, work, morality, human weaknesses and social relations. The poems are often reflective and personal, while the wit and observations bring short, witty and satirical remarks about human characters and everyday phenomena. The book shows Krishaber's inclination for moral lessons, humour and observing life from the perspective of an experienced journalist and chronicler of his time.

The work is also a valuable document of Osijek's civic culture of the interwar period. The author's fate gives it additional historical weight: as a member of the Jewish community during World War II, he perished in the Jasenovac concentration camp. On the Paths of Life is therefore not only a literary collection but also the testimony of an almost forgotten intellectual from Osijek whose work and life were tragically cut short by the suffering of the war.