Fast Forward Into Future

Science Fiction is now becoming accepted as part of Croatian popular culture. The history of SF in Croatia includes two long-running magazines, important annual story-collections, numerous author collections and several good novels, all appearing under difficult, if not severe, economic and political conditions. Indeed, younger people in Croatia, including the author of this text, spent most of their lives living in some sort of crisis, culminating, but not ending with the 1991-1995 war. Several authors are now well-known and established on the Croatian SF scene, and the next logical step – already taking place – is their breakthrough into the international market.

A process of thorough evaluation of the historic development of SF in Croatia is now under way. The first major step was Ad Astra, an anthology of the Croatian SF story from 1976 to 2006. This mammoth 640-page book was edited by Tomislav Šakić and Aleksandar Žiljak and published in April 2006, after two years of work. It contains 40 stories by the most important Croatian SF writers. Also included are theoretical and historical texts, biographic notes on authors and other prominent characters in the Croatian SF, as well as the reasonably complete bibliography of the Croatian SF story in the aforementioned 30-year period.

Another problem that was addressed by the editorial tandem Šakić-Žiljak is the lack of a professional-looking SF magazine publishing Croatian authors. While Parsek partly filled some vacuum created by the de facto closure of Futura, something better was needed. Thus, in November 2007, the first issue of UBIQ was introduced to the public.

UBIQ is a 260-page literary magazine devoted (for a time being, at least) exclusively to Croatian writers. It also publishes theoretical and bibliographical texts, thus creating a completely new and desperately needed niche. Two issues are planned annually. UBIQ – issue 4 appearing in April 2009 – brings high-quality stories and serious essayistic works by prominent Croatian writers (including the come-backs by veterans such as Veronika Santo, Branko Pihač and Vesna Gorše, as well as established and new-generation authors such as Danilo Brozović, Kristijan Novak, Tereza Rukober, Irena Rašeta, Iva Šakić-Ristić, Zoran Vlahović, Milena Benini, Dalibor Perković, Jasmina Blažić, Dario Rukavina and many others) and theoreticians, most famous being Darko Suvin. Although small-press and state-sponsored, UBIQ already caused quite a commotion on the Croatian literary scene, getting very favourable reviews and, apparently, finally drawing the attention of the so-called mainstream and academic circles to the science fiction. While the future of UBIQ, within non-paying small-press limitations, now seems assured, only time will tell what its ultimate reach will be. UBIQ cannot alleviate the lack of a regular monthly magazine, which currently seems to be commercially completely unfeasible. What UBIQ can do is provide space for contemporary Croatian SF prose and theory. There are ambitions for the expansion of this project, but they will ultimately depend on available funds, and a step-by-step approach is the only one possible at this moment.

In the meantime, we hope this text, with all its shortcomings, will provide the basic insight into the past, present and possible futures of the Science Fiction in Croatia.

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