Written by: Aleksandar Žiljak
Brief Course of History
The history of science fiction in Croatia was to a large extent defined by two long-running magazines. In order to understand their importance, we should first summarise the development of Croatian SF.
While elements of the so-called “proto-SF” can be traced as far back as the Renaissance, modern Croatian science fiction began shortly after World War I, when the first SF novels appeared.
Period immediately after World War II – when the war-winning Communist party led by Tito came to power – represented somewhat of a hiatus in the development of the Croatian SF. However, by the late 1950s, there was a considerable rise in translated novels published in Yugoslavia and Croatia. It didn’t take long for some Croatian authors to try their hand in science fiction, and so we witness the first surge of novels, published between 1959 and 1965: the best were those by Mladen Bjažić and Zvonimir Furinger (writing in tandem) and Angelo Rittig. Unfortunately, what looked as a very promising start faded into another hiatus lasting for a decade.
Early 1970s were a period of a renewed interest in science fiction. By 1976, time was ripe for the first Croatian SF magazine. It was the famous Sirius, modelled after contemporary American SF magazines, and publishing stories by prominent US, European and Soviet writers.
However, Sirius – edited by Borivoj Jurković and later by Hrvoje Prćić – immediately opened its pages to Yugoslav and Croatian authors. This represented a quantum leap, because Croatian writers of all ages and literary styles (and skills) proved more than willing to participate. Each issue of Sirius brought at least one story by a Croatian author, and often more. Sirius also published some theory and an occasional writing course, as well as fandom news, thus proving instrumental in finally creating what can be called a Science Fiction scene in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Sirius had a circulation of some 30 000 in its heyday and was elected twice (in 1980 and 1984) the best European SF magazine.
Unfortunately, the 1980s Yugoslavia was a country in a deep economic and political crisis. Sirius faced increased difficulties and was finally folded by its publisher in late 1989. This left a permanent scar in Croatian SF. But, the thirteen years of Sirius resulted in Science Fiction becoming a firmly established, although occasionally derided, part of Croatian popular culture. The so-called “Sirius years” saw publication of some very important novels (particularly those by Predrag Raos), and the release of the only two Croatian SF movies: The Rat Saviour by Krsto Papić and Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy by Dušan Vukotić. Fandom, too, became well-organised during the “Sirius years”, the most important club being SFera from Zagreb, founded in 1976 and still active. It publishes the fanzine Parsek and organizes the annual SFeraKon convention held in Zagreb since early 1980s.
In early 1990s, the crisis in Yugoslavia culminated in its violent break-up. Croatia became independent, and almost immediately a new SF magazine was introduced to the readers. It was Futura, whose first issue appeared on news-stands in autumn 1992. Futura didn’t differ much from Sirius, but it was published by a small publisher and faced an audience exhausted by all the ravages of war, at that time still going on. Therefore, its circulation was much lower, and it had numerous problems, changing several editors and being sold to another publisher at the end of 1990s. However, Futura had similar importance to Sirius, albeit at the smaller scale: it provided place for Croatian SF writers to publish, which they did with similar enthusiasm as during the days of Sirius. New generation of writers made its presence known at the pages of Futura. Unfortunately, Futura is at present de facto defunct. It became somewhat irregular during late 1990s, and was reduced to a single annual issue for the past several years, mostly bringing Hugo and Nebula nominees and winners. Thus it lost almost any importance to Croatian SF.
In spring 1995, Zagreb club SFera published the first of its annual story collections, titled Zagreb 2004, conceived and edited by Darko Macan. These annual collections, running to the present day, proved even more important to the development of Croatian SF than Futura, because they were as a rule better-edited and opened to broader spectrum of themes and literary styles. Anyway, the 1990s saw the new surge in Croatian SF literature, with new writers writing better and better stories, followed by some quite good novels.
The most important lesson that can be learned from this very brief account of the history of science fiction in Croatia is the following one: If there is a magazine or a story-collection or a fanzine being published regularly, there will be writers ready to write stories for it.
Magazines, fanzines and annual story-collections result in a large body of stories that eventually constitute Science Fiction as a literary genre. Also, they serve as a binding medium that glues together fandom and writers, thus establishing Science Fiction as part of popular culture. This lesson is particularly important in light of present crisis of SF magazines globally.
