CULTURAL ZAGREB

AIM, ZAGREB, February 1, 1994

In Zagreb's night tram-cars even thirty-year olds are hard to meet. Young people are the only ones living intensively at night,visiting disco-clubs which open at midnight and close at dawn. New groups are shocking the public, such as the group under the name "How come this has come out", which packaged the advertising campaign for its album of songs with a religious medieval religious into shocking death-notices for "Dragoje Oliverovic", which was intepreted by everyone as an attack on Oliver Dragojevic, whose "Cesarica" was without any doubt the greatest hit last year.

Why so radical a protest? Two authors, both twenty-three years old explained their revolt by the state in present day Croatian pop-music, "which is cornered between bad copies of foreign music on the one, and the monopoly of mediocres who are rustifying it, on the other hand. There is a lot of truth in both of these statements, however, Dragojevic is the least to blame. A great number of those who are much more "worthy" of that could be found, but hardly a more qualitative victims on the miniature of the Croatian pop music entertainment arena", lacking both in new stars as well as attractive musical events.

Large, rock concerts in the "neighbourhood", like the one given by the cult group "Nirvana" on February 27 in Ljubljana are not missed either by the youth of Zagreb nor of other cities, such as Pula, Varazdin, Rijeka. In spite of everything, like in some regular peaceful times, they go searching for their basic generational identity.

The less vital part of the population, meaning everyone else, is mostly lamenting over the shortage of money due to the war and which has completely ruined Croatian cultural life, and glued potential consumers to their television sets, on which they are offered from time to time major achievements of the film industry in pauses between new and newer news reports: negotiations, battlefields, battlefields, negotiations...

Simply, the long and uneasy times of war,followed by a state of neither war nor peace, has suceeded in reducing the cultural life of most people to the remains of remains. The recently published data showing that thare are no university professors among the first 500 best payed people in Croatia, not to mention the status of those engaged in the field of culture, is the dull statistical back-side of reality in which films are not made, in which theatre companies had to scatter all over the world while their theatre houses are falling apart, and in which bookstore window frighten off potential buyers with their prices.

The third manifestation of " The Days of Croatian Film" is presently underway, opening with a press conference at which once again questions focused between two ends of the rope, namely between the allegation on " non-existence of Croatian film production and frantic efforts to nevertheless preserve Croatia's film industry." Once again the State remained deaf to all cries for help, namely did something even more effective: sent none of its officialto the manifestation.Why should it ? In order to agree with the already expressed opinion of a film-maker on the existing vicious circle: " We understand the state has no money, and the state understands that we would like, in spite of everything, to make some films."

And so while better times are awaited, Americans in Zagreb are not losing in their popularity. In places of amusement tht are themost accessible to everyone, in movie theatres, which have to the most part changed their names, so that the theatres previously called "Balkan" have now become "Europe", almost exclusively American films are shown, frequently real international hits, like "Jurassic Park" which registered the greatest number of viewers and, "Aladdin" for instance, which is also the frequent choice of kids (and their parents). The turning up of two strayed Spanish films, both from 1992, on the repertoire of the Zagreb movie-theatres a few days back was pronounced a first rate event: Forcando Truebe's "Golden Times, which was nominated among five non-American films for this years Oscar, and the film " Ham, Ham" by Bigaso Luna " the vanquisher of trash" who conquered world art-movie theatres.

" The Zagreb theatres, on the verge of suicide, are at present island struggling to survive". These are the words Kresimir Dolencic used to describe circumstances in his theatre, the "Gavella" Drama Theatre, closed down since January last year for renovation. It is expected that it will not be completed until autumn, therefore, until the opening of the new season. Only then, after a rather long pause, the first Croatian avantgarde theatre, founded forty years ago, is to return to its stage. Preparations are underway for the anniversary on as many as six plays: " Do You Speak Croatian", a stage collage made up of the texts written by Marin Drzic, Marko Marulic, Mavro Vetranovic, A.G.Matos, Antun Soljan; Jakub Arjouni's "Garage"; the cabaret "Black Cat", an hommage to the tradition of the Zagreb cabaret before World War II; Pirandello's play "As You Want Me"; Sovagovic's theatre version of Slavko Kolar's "Birch"; Oscar Wilde's evergreen "The Importance of Being Earnest", and the first performance of Ivan Kusan's "Clear Accounts."

Is that an indication of the end of the exhausting vagabondage of the Croatian actors, namely of the flight of the entire drama company of the Croatian National Theatre and prolonged visits to the diaspore, since the major theatre house is likewise in a catastrophic situation, that among other things resulted in the exile of Slobodan Snajder and his play "Croatian Faust" to Vienna (where he received an ovation)? Those who still do not see the light at the end of the tunnel are not isolated, argumenting their pessimism among other things by the latest performance of "Hamlet", the one staged in the Croatian National Theatre in Split, a paly without Fortinbras,the character who is the bearer of " novelty", so therefore nothing new should be expected soon, according to Slobodan Propserov Novak's article in the third issue of the recently initiated " Vijenac" a journal for culture, the editor-in-chief of which is Novak.

In the same issue of "Vijenac" the section that was almost forgotten and which should certainly be an indispensable part of the culture milieu has been restored - "Books that are talked about, read and bought." According to data (not numerical) provided by one of the best stocked and visited bookshops, called "Modern Times", top lists of the ten most popular books are made up, divided into "fiction" and non-fiction".

Ranko Marinkovic with his newest novel "Never More" holds the first place on the former, followed by Dan Simmons with "Hyperion", Danijel Zezelj with "Sophia", Petar Segedin with "Luminous Nights", Slavko Mihalic with "The Velvet Lady", etc. On the latter, i.e., non-fiction list, the first place is impressively held by the book "Ethnic Cleansing" of a number of authors, followed by " Cornelius Tacitus's "Germania", Damir Milos's "ACY No 1", Radoslav Katific's "At the Origins of Croatian Roots", "The Church and Christianity Among the Croats - The Middle Ages", etc. Judging by the titles, readers wish to discover a differently illuminated Croatia in the present and in the past, with occasional digressions to world bestsellers or classics.

As far as publishing houses are concerned, only a small number among the once prominent ones succeeded in surviving, with the exception of " Skolska knjiga" which was saved by the textbooks it publishes, "Globus", "Naprijed", "Znanje", while "Mladost" is being shaken by a crises and the " Graficki zavod Hrvatske" recently ended up in bankruptcy. One of its editors, Nenad Popovic, founded his own publishing house "Durieux", which has published to date twenty or so books acceptable in price and by catching authors ( from Goldoni, Leopardi, Magris, Donat, Jancar, Karahasan, Bora Cosic, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Dubravka Ugresic, Zelja Corak, etc.) and traced the road that should be followed in needy publishing times. Some other smaller publisher have tried to do the same, however without the same sucess, so we have to wait and see how many will survive.

In any case, on the Croatian publishing scene, great turbulences have still not simmered down, with only occasional attractive excursions in the domain of periodicals, such as for instance the latest issue of Slavko Goldstein`s "Erasmus" the entire contents of which is made up of the authorized statements of Croatian and Serbian intellectuals presented at the gathering held in December 1993 at the "Mimara" Museum. As the first talks between Serbian and Croatian intellectuals after the beginning of the war were held without the presence of journalists, although the topics discussed (both known or half-knwon) were widely commented, there should be no doubt that the fifth issue of "Erasmus" will sell well.

Zagreb has traditionally been the city of major exhibitions and guest performances of well knwon musicians. There is no money for well known names, and concerts are attended in order to hear and see young talented musicians so that those who were there can say one day: I listened to him when no critic of repute wrote a word about him!

However, the largest and most frequented exhibition in Zagreb is not the one devoted to the 900 anniversary of the city, as could be expected, but rather the "exhibits" in the Zagreb shop windows, so beautiful to the eye and so distant to the pocket.

MERI STAJDUHAR