This doctoral dissertation considers melancholy, no longer only as a term which in medicine and psychology denotes a mental illness or state of mind, but as a narrative strategy in the prose of contemporary Croatian authors. The aim of the doctoral thesis is to use the method of psychoanalytic literary criticism in selected prose to investigate how problem complexes such as social justice and fairness, degradation of work and labor and the ideology of consumerism are related to the process of melancholy. The research focuses on selected prose works: “Museum of Unconditional Surrender” by Dubravka Ugrešić, “Leica format: fugues” by Daša Drndić, “Rio bar” by Ivana Sajko, “Hair Everywhere” by Tee Tulić and “The Disease of the World” by Tatjana Gromača, which are methodologically considered in the framework of psychoanalytic literary criticism, and in correspondence with cultural currents. The selected prose belongs to a corpus of literature that requires, among other things, a serious interdisciplinary approach due to the richness of gender symbolism (physicality and sexuality, pleasure and anxiety, illness and aging). Therefore, it will receive a well-deserved critical reception in this scientific research. The scientific contribution of the doctoral thesis is manifested in the consideration of melancholy as a narrative strategy in selected prose, no longer exclusively as the disease of the subject or the (psycho)pathology of society. The first part of the doctoral thesis presents linguistic, medical, psychoanalytic and cultural interpretations of the term melancholy. Melancholy is a term to which significant attention was often and gladly paid because on the one hand, it denoted the trait of extraordinary people, and on the other hand, it showed weaknesses in character (laziness, anxiety, depression, etc.).However, from the perspective of medicine and psychoanalysis, the difference between melancholy as a mental illness and grief as one that contains the power of healing has been emphasized for too long, thus further stigmatizing melancholy. The key work for understanding the development of the concept of melancholy is “Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Philosophy of Nature, Religion and Art” (1964) by Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl because it provides an overview of the developmental stages of melancholy and reveals strengths and weaknesses in theoretical thinking. The basic text for a psychoanalytic discussion of melancholy and mourning is Freud's essay "On Mourning and Melancholy" (1917) in which he writes that the difference between mourning and melancholy lies in the fact that, in case of melancholy, the object lives in the subject. The criticism that the subject directs towards himself is directed towards the object and therefore the subject behaves sadistically towards his/her external body. Numerous theorists (Karl Abraham, Judith Butler, Julija Kristeva, Željka Matijašević, Priscilla Roth, etc.) followed Freud's essay with their comments and in this chapter, apart from the relationship with the object and the processes of projection, introjection, incorporation and identification, ambivalence and its constructive and destructive characteristics of the melancholic subject within the transformation that takes place in the process of melancholy is also being thematized. A significant part of his doctoral dissertation was dedicated to Melanie Klein who is, in my opinion, the most important theorist of melancholy and for whom “good” objects were a replacement for the original lost “good” object. Due to a different understanding of time and space, nostalgia emerges as an "aid" to melancholy, helping it to articulate memories and which is interesting because it contains utopian parts driven by the desire to find a place better than where we are now. Svetlana Boim and Jan Starobinski mostly wrote about the dual archeology of nostalgia. Mourning and melancholy are continuously in a kind of interplay, mostly because the source of both processes is loss which destroys the foundations on which we built our sense of existence. Everything completely changes once we experience loss. Every era endures loss in a specific way, which is why history knows so many different concepts of melancholy. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it became even clearer that melancholy was a treasure trove of memories and awareness of all the potentials of the past, and that its lost object had become a struggle for emancipation. Therefore, the theoretical part of the paper is rounded off with insights into the melancholic character of the revolution and reflection on historical experience as an object of melancholy (Pascal Bruckner, Tatjana Jukić, Žarko Paić, Katarina Peović Vuković, Enzo Traverso, etc.) and, finally, an overview of models and types of contemporary Croatian prose which opens space for the analysis of selected prose works. The second part of the doctoral dissertation deals with the analysis of selected prose works that point to the key parts of the transition processes in the countries of Southeast Europe: the collapse of the dominant ideology and the need to redefine social, educational and cultural policy. They belong to a corpus of literature that requires a serious interdisciplinary approach, among other things, because of the richness of gender symbolism (physicality and sexuality, pleasure and anxiety, illness and aging). Although these are stylistically different works, some of their problem sets are common. The narrative takes place in a time of transition and post-transition, and the focus lies on the issue of identity and oblivion, reminding us of the importance of the collective in building the vision of the future society. The subjects of melancholy (melancholic heroines) are very critical of the current social order, which is mostly a product of (post) war manipulation, but they are no milder in their criticism of the legacy of the former Yugoslavia. They prove their direct or indirect commitment to the fight for women's (labor) rights through intersections with the theoretical considerations of influential individuals and pay significant attention to issues of illness and aging. They very skillfully dissect work and labor in relation to the "time of the past" and conclude that work has been rudely devalued, and workers have been humiliated. They go into exile, which for them primarily means an escape from the state of war, but also a response to their existential crisis. The mentioned common thematic complexes confirm that, on the narrative level, melancholy in these selected prose works acts as a joint between social pathologies and current cultural currents. There are two levels of melancholy as a narrative strategy in the selected prose works; the narrator level and the story level, which develop in parallel and which, ultimately, reveal the character of melancholy. The narrative perspective of melancholy at the story level refers to four types of stories that shape our vision of the future, and that reflect the legacy of the past: the “nostalgic story” in which the present is the result of good or bad events in the past; the “tragic story” in which the melancholic heroines, dramatic situations and victims are a combination of external circumstances; the "adaptive-associative story" in which the melancholic heroine adapts to new circumstances and the "transcendental story" whose narrative dimension is influenced by the presence /absence of God in the life of the melancholic narrator. The selected prose works are illustrative for the thesis I am proving, namely that melancholy as a narrative strategy has a dual character: the emancipatory (subversive), which resists the existing social practices by naming five conceptions of reality (nostalgic conception: time, melancholy of history: system of moral values, traumatic conception: disease, adaptive-associative: existence, and transcendental conception: Absolute (being, love, God) and the reflexive /contemplative which enables the establishment of a more harmonious relationship of subjects with the new time. Melancholy helps to re-examine the importance and meaning of social constructs and points to the need for change due to the dissatisfaction with the current situation (subversiveness). However, the contemplative character of melancholy ultimately better corresponds to the modern needs of melancholic man whose main goal is to discover the truth which is a prerequisite for the acquisition of dignity and the attainment of freedom. The naming of lost objects within the five conceptions testifies to how our inner wealth is the result of an adopted “good” object at the earliest age, so melancholy is our hope for the return to true humanistic values in the posthumanist era, such as compassion, solidarity and inclusiveness.