Writer, journalist and professor Luka Brajnović was one of the founders of a department of journalistic ethics in Pamplona and has had an international journalism prize named in his honour. He retired in 1992 as a full university professor.
The Glas Koncila Catholic weekly newspaper, the Spanish embassy and the Bokelj Navy 809 Croatian Fraternity staged a presentation on the 24th of February at the Gold Hall of the Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb of Služiti istini / Memoari, članci, ogledi i studije (To Serve the Truth / Memoires, Articles, Essays and Studies), a book penned by Croatian and Spanish journalist, writer and intellectual Luka Brajnović (1919–2001).
Opening the presentation the event moderator professor Dr Gordana Varošanec Škarić of the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences noted that this eminent writer, researcher, university professor and journalist was born in Kotor on the 13th of January 1919 and that he passed away on the 8th of February of 2001 in Pamplona. Glas Koncila acting director and chief editor Monsignor Ivan Miklenić and Bokelj Navy 809 Croatian Fraternity of Zagreb president Ivo Škanata both welcomed the gathered.
Spanish ambassador to Croatia Eduardo Aznar spoke of the bonds between Croatian and Spain and noted the great many figures that have contributed to these bonds in the past.
Two of Luka Brajnović’s daughters were on hand for the book promo, with Dr Elica Brajnović de Leahy, an honorary Croatian consul in Spain, sharing her memories of her father with the gathered guests.
Professor Dr Norberto Gonzalez Gaitano of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, who had been Brajnović’s student and assistant at the University of Navarra, spoke of Brajnović’s work at the university. He offered a cross-section of his publicist activity, which rests largely on university textbooks.
Dr Vladimir Lončarević, the editor of Glas Koncila’s Croatian Catholic Heritage series, which includes this book, thanked all those who have contributed to seeing this book see the light of day. He noted that the series was launched in 2005 with the objective of presenting disregarded and neglected twentieth century Christian thinkers in Croatian culture with the aim of overcoming the consequences of the memoricide and culturocide that was systematically conducted in the period following the Second World War and to set the foundations for future studies of Croatian culture and its integral interpretation.
The book was compiled with particular love and was long in the works, emerging from the work of Matilda Kolić Stanić MA, a doctoral student at the Croatian Studies Faculty preparing her dissertation on Luka Brajnović.
On hand to provide a musical backdrop to the occasion was soprano Marija Kuhar Šoša and pianist Mario Šoša.
Writer, journalist and professor Luka Brajnović was one of the founders of a department of journalistic ethics in Pamplona and has had an international journalism prize named in his honour. He retired in 1992 as a full university professor. Before emigrating from Croatia he served as editor of Hrvatska straža (Croatian Watch) and Luč (The Torch) and wrote for other Croatian papers. As a leading Catholic layperson he was a member of the Domagoj Croatian Catholic Academic Society. After the first modern multiparty elections, held in 1990, Brajnović visited Croatia on several occasions, in particular frequenting his Jerome society and the editorial boards of Catholic media. During his final visit to the homeland, already evidently in his terminal illness, he gave a lecture at the University of Zagreb and met with members of the Croatian Society of Catholic Journalists.
(IKA)