This issue of Matica magazine offers forty excellent articles and some one hundred photos from the authentic ethnic Croatian scene around the world
The latest, November 2018 issue of Matica magazine is now available, offering numerous articles covering the rich culture and society events in the ethnic Croatian communities in countries around the world, from America to Australia and New Zealand, and in European countries. The pages of this unique magazine offer a selection of articles, including those on art in the homeland and news from government’s work with the diaspora communities through the State Office for Croats Abroad. The articles are penned by talented volunteers in the diaspora communities around the world and leading homeland and out-of-country writers, including Željko Holjevac, Sanja Vulić, Branko Hećimović, Ivan Milčec, Zvonko Ranogajac, Marjana Kremer, Vlatko Marić (France), Šimun Šito Ćorić (Switzerland), Franjo Bertović (USA, Canada) and Franjo Harmat (Australia, New Zealand).
The latest issue is dedicated to the 180th anniversary of the birth of August Šenoa, one of Croatia’s greatest writers.
Along with our regular columnists this issue puts the spotlight on articles focused on Croatia’s strategic culture partnership with France that is seeing the two countries developing robust ties that are enriched in particular with two major festivals that have strengthened our modern European cultural unity over the past decade.
The largest community of Croatians abroad in the European Union is in Germany, and they are in the focus of a number of excellent articles covering events like Croatian Day in Filderstadt and Croatian Week in Duisburg. Also featured is a review of Tado Jurić’s Croatian Emigration to Germany: Are We Losing Croatia? recently published by Školska knjiga of Zagreb. Readers will enjoy our exclusive interview with musical couple Dinka Migić-Vlatković and Radovan Vlatković, recently honoured in Germany with a prestigious prize, the Opus Klassik of Berlin, for best period album of nineteenth century music.
Especially informative is Lada Kanajet Šimić’s interview with Anica Krstanović, the head of the parish council of the Croatian Catholic Mission in Berlin. The interview focused on the participation of the mission in Berlin in the Toys at Heart competition, an international multimedia project organised by the Croatian Heritage Foundation in collaboration with overseas Croatian language schools, and on a sticker. The We Speak Croatian sticker with the easily identifiable red and white chequerboard in the background can be seen on some cars and in many homes of ethnic Croatians in Berlin and its broader environs, and in its long form can be used as a bookmark. This excellent idea came out of the Croatian Catholic Mission in Berlin, and is only a part of the creative ideas that encourage the preservation of the Croatian language that have been put in motion by the mission since last September. Along with the parish priest friar Edvard Sokol, a native of Berlin, who has supported the idea and its implementation, the lead role in this laudable project is that of Anica Krstanović, the head of the parish council of the Croatian Catholic Mission in Berlin. Ms Krstanović is also the head of the business intelligence department of a leading German consultancy firm and has been since her earliest childhood an active member of various culture, pastoral and humanitarian groups and assumed posts of responsibility in the various fields of activity at the Croatian Catholic Mission in Berlin as a secondary school graduate, later during her university studies and, finally, as an academically educated citizen of Berlin. The work of ethnic Croatian children born in Berlin that took part in the Toys at Heart project will be exhibited at the Croatian Heritage Foundation headquarters in Zagreb during the programme final event on the 4th of December 2018. The Croatian Catholic missions in Germany, like the one in Berlin, have for decades gathered the majority of Croatians that have moved abroad to live, not only for Roman Catholic masses, but also for pastoral and diverse culture activities.
Readers will also enjoy our review of Ivan Aralica books and news of new translations of Croatian literature into the world’s most spoken languages. Publicists in our diaspora communities are focused on the philanthropic activities of ethnic Croatians abroad, including an article on scholarships from our communities in the United States of America. In all this issue of Matica magazine offers forty excellent articles and some one hundred photos from the authentic ethnic Croatian scene around the world.
By: Danica Matković