The basic intention of the doctoral dissertation entitled Genre Characteristics of Pavao Ritter Vitezović's „Odiljenje sigetsko“ is to offer the first systematic genological analysis of one of the most difficultly genre-identifiable literary works in the history of Croatian literature in general – Pavao Ritter Vitezović’s Odiljenje sigetsko (Linz, 1684.). After the introductory part of the text, which briefly presents the problem orientation of the dissertation and its objectives, the second chapter establishes a theoretical framework within which the research will be conducted. Given that it is an exploration of the genre aspect of the selected text, it is precisely the literary genology or genre theory that has been shortly recalled as the most appropriate theoretical starting point. Among the various genealogical approaches, the theory of speech genres of the Russian literary theorist Mihail Bahtin is then chosen, especially because its postulates in contemporary genology have an important place and can therefore prove as extremely useful in the analysis of genre-intricate works such as Odiljenje sigetsko. The genre and all other peculiarities of Vitezović’s Odiljenje sigetsko are discussed in the next chapter, which also recalls the concerns encountered by his readers during its genre classification. Moreover, this chapter also points to the various definitions by which Pavao Ritter himself identified his first literary work in the Croatian language in the paratextual parts of three of its editions, published for his lifetime. Various – partly explicit and partly implicit – genre categorizations then followed the Odiljenje from the eighteenth century to the present day, when in literary historical accounts and studies it is possible to encounter extremely different attempts of its generic identification, but subsequently confirmed with insufficiently persuasive evidences. The fourth chapter of the dissertation – which opens a detailed account of the complex genre system of Croatian baroque literature, within the framework of which Vitezović wrote his work – is fully devoted to exploring the specific genre characteristics of Odiljenje sigetsko. After the reconstruction of the baroque genre system, the following is an analysis of the genre characteristics of the very diverse origins by which Pavao Ritter has flowed Odiljenje from the first to the last of its verse, whereby the text does not only locate a number of peculiarities of baroque and pre-baroque literary genres ranging from fictitious epistle and lament to epitaph and allegory. Moreover, the analysis confirms that Odiljenje is filled with recognizable features and even complete examples of genres of folklore literature (bugaršćica, dirge, prayer, blessing, curse, proverb, riddle, etc.), as well as those of literary and even semiliterary and marginal literary such as instruction, war speech, oath, etc. Starting from the insights from the previous section, in chapter five we approach Odiljenje as a unique (compact) literary text composed of features and complete examples of an unusually large number of literary and not just literary genres. In order to try to find as precisely and as comprehensively as possible genre determinant to such literary work, in this chapter it is viewed on the basis of the various contexts in which it is found, starting from that of the author’s oeuvre, through intertextual and literary-historical context, to the context of the targeted and real audience. Here we also look for its possible genre patterns and eventual genre successors, and then we propose a completely new genre definition that best fits its hybrid, that is, “all-genre” identity. In the concluding, sixth chapter of the dissertation, we briefly recall the most important results of our research into the genre characteristics of the Odiljenje sigetsko and point to the need for further genological studies of this extremely intriguing Pavao Ritter Vitezović’s literary work, whose peculiarity is evident not only in the framework of the domestic baroque literature, but also in those of Croatian literature in general.