Matica, 3/2025.

Dear readers, The latest issue of Matica magazine for March has just been published. This is the month in which we celebrated International Women’s Day, and accordingly, the cover of this issue highlights successful Croatian women living across the world. In Zagreb, the Croatian Women’s Network held its 10th annual conference, where it presented the Successful Croatian Women awards. The Croatian Heritage Foundation was the first institution to recognise the work of the Croatian Women’s Network a decade ago, and in this issue, you can read about this year’s award recipients. We also bring you a report on the winners of the 19th Večernjakova Domovnica awards, held in Bad Homburg before an audience of more than 400 guests. Meanwhile, this year also marks an important milestone for the Days of Croatian Folk Theatre in Hercegovac, which celebrated its 30th anniversary. Co-organised by the Croatian Heritage Foundation for the past three decades, this event has served as a key cultural gathering, bringing together participants, guests, organisers, and all those dedicated to preserving and promoting Croatian heritage and language. Additionally, we covered the launch of the new trilingual Croatian Emigrant Almanac for 2025, which has been published for an impressive 70 years. The Croatian Emigrant Almanac has established itself as a key serial publication that continuously examines the creative contributions of the diverse Croatian diaspora. Historian Marijan Lipovac has written a fascinating feature marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Ivan Vučetić, the father of fingerprint identification. We also attended major celebrations organised by the Croatian community in Norway, the Tripundan festival in Kotor, the Bunjevačko prelo in Zagreb, and we bring you a story about the Šokačko sijelo festival. Be sure not to miss our interview with Friar Ivan Penava, head of the Croatian Catholic Mission in Würzburg, who is preparing an extraordinary pilgrimage to commemorate 1,100 years of the Croatian Kingdom. Another fascinating story features Marta Tomić, a native of Split who has spent a decade living in South America and has become the first Croatian to earn a doctorate at a Chilean university. Until next month, warm greetings from all of us at the Matica editorial team!