New President at Helm of Croatian Writers’ Association

Writer and diplomat Đuro Vidmarović has been elected to serve as the new president of the Croatian Writers’ Association.

An assembly of the Croatian Writers’ Association on the 3rd of June elected writer and diplomat Đuro Vidmarović to serve as the organisation’s new president.
The assembly gathered 156 delegates. Among the four candidates presented – Đuro Vidmarović, Mile Pešorda, Ernest Fišer and BorbenVladović – the delegates cast a majority of their votes in favour of Vidmarović serving in the new three-year term.
Past president Božidar Petrač and Mirko Ćurić were elected to serve as vice presidents.
In a statement for state news agency HINA Vidmarović said that his programme aims to see the public presentation of the greatest possible number of Croatian writers and their work, adding that these writers are the torchbearers of the Croatian national identity.
He said he work would with all professional associations, in particular with the Croatian Writers’ Society, also a professional association of writers, irrespective of ideological leanings.
The assembly also voted in the new management and supervisory boards and the organisation’s ethics committee.
Literary critic, poet, translator, historian and diplomat Đuro Vidmarović was born on the 1st of April of 1947 in the village of Piljenicein the Municipality of Lipovljane. He attended elementary and secondary school in the town of Kutina, and studied history and philosophy at the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He worked as a secondary school teacher from 1970 to 1990.
He was elected to Croatian parliament in 1990. From 1995 to 1999 he served as the Croatian ambassador to Ukraine. He was decorated in 1995 with the Order of Duke Branimir and the Commemorative Medal of the Homeland’s Gratitude.
He has worked as a writer since 1972. He studies the history and literary heritage of the indigenous Croatian ethnic minority communities in neighbouring countries and has published several hundred reviews, articles and studies in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Israel. He translates from the Ukrainian, Russian and Slovene languages. In 2016 he was appointed to serve as a member of the board of directors of the Croatian Heritage Foundation. (tportal.hr)