Croatian Book Night 2024 makes the dinosaurs’ message heard: Rrrrrrrrread!
On 23 April 2024, the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) hosted the opening of the 2024 Croatian Book Night, whose programme was held on more than 250 venues all across Croatia, featured over 1,200 events and brought together thousands of participants of all ages.
The 2024 edition of the Croatian Book Night, Croatia’s annual national programme marking World Book and Copyright Day and Croatian Book Day (22 April) traditionally opened at the Library. After a welcome address by the NSK Director General Dr Ivanka Stričević and introductions by the President of the Publishers and Booksellers Association of the Croatian Chamber of Economy Slavko Kozina and State Secretary at the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education Dr Iva Ivanković, this year’s Night was officially opened by the Croatian Minister of Culture and Media Dr Nina Obuljen Koržinek.
Tamara Kraus, from the KARIKA koja nedostaje market research agency, presented the results of the latest survey of the Croatian citizens’ reading and book-related habits and attitudes, conducted in March 2024. Indicating a negative trend in Croatia in terms of a marked loss among the general public of interest in reading, the survey’s results pointed to programmes and initiatives like the Croatian Book Night as vital for turning around the current statistics.
Croatian Book Night 2024 competition winners announced
Member of the Croatian Book Night Organising Committee Dobrila Zvonarek, who also moderated the Night’s opening programme, announced the winners of this year’s Night’s competition organised by the Croatian Association of School Librarians for primary and secondary school students. Drawing on the 500th anniversary of the birth of Marko Marulić , 150th anniversary of the birth of a six-time nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka and 70 years since the first publication of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the young writers put into words their perspective on the world, revealing what they see as sources of inspiration, encouragement and consolation. Along with the presentation of the competition’s award-winning texts, the programme included the exhibition of Croatian Book Night-themed cartoons by Stipe Kalajžić and Zvonarek.
George The Booklover of Yore roars “Rrrrrrrrread!”
The 2024 Croatian Book Night was held under the theme Through the prism of a cataclysm: Books for rising to challenges (Kad je prizma kataklizma: knjige za izazovna vremena), with George The Booklover of Yore, the only surviving Bookosaurus Rex, as its mascot, ready to shed light on how books and reading are crucial in overcoming major challenges that humankind is currently facing.
Responding to the latest social developments, this year’s Night’s programme addressed the sentiment among the global public of a looming cataclysm, brought about by today’s ongoing armed conflicts and the threat they pose of sparking off a global war as well as by the disastrous impact of excessive and irresponsible use of Earth’s natural resources by way of exacerbating climate change on human society and the entire living world.
Humankind has feared, anticipated and been fascinated by the apocalyptic visions of all kinds since time immemorial, however, cataclysmic prospects have always presented it with a choice, in which context literature and where society stood in relation to it has always played a role in terms of prompting people to do their part in making the world a better place and not to duck their social responsibility.
NSK and partners organise the “I WISH TO READ TOO!” national campaign event
Anticipating the Night’s official beginning, NSK, the Croatian Library Association’s Commission for Library Services for Persons with Disabilities and Special Needs, Zagreb City Libraries public libraries network and other partners organised a programme held as part of I WISH TO READ TOO!, the Croatian Library Association’s national campaign aimed at persons with print disabilities. The programme’s inspiring messages were conveyed through a workshop, musical performances and children’s rights-oriented discussion and presentations.
Focusing on children and young adults and drawing on the 70th anniversary of the publication of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the programme addressed various issues related to dyslexia and other reading disabilities as well as to the impact that reading has on the development of communication skills and on how it plays a vital part in tackling teenage violence.
Croatia once again happily hit by bookmania
The 2024 Night’s more than 1,200 events were held in as many as 240 public libraries, 120 primary and 45 secondary schools, 40 kindergartens, including a wide variety of other venues, ranging from bookstores, antiquarian bookshops, museums, through faculties, dorms, senior citizen’s homes, hospitals and a prison, to parks, castles, archaeological sites, buses, trams and ferries.
Along with public readings, themed city tours and book donation initiatives, the programme included a pub quiz event which the Night’s team organised in cooperation with the PriMarius craft brewery and the Croatian Quiz Association.
The Zagreb Upper Town Witches ensemble joined the nationwide book festival by offering free books-and-literature inspired tours of Croatia’s capital, while Split’s inhabitants and visitors could take tours commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of Markantun de Dominis, Croatian progressive theologian and scholar at the turn of the 17th century.
The Croatian Book Night was for the first time held on Lastovo, which thus joined Krk, Rab, Prvić, Mljet, Zlarin and other Croatian islands which hosted the Croatian Book Night’s previous editions.
Famous pens and minds in the Croatian Book Night’s programme
The participants in the Night’s events all across Croatia included famous Croatian writers such as Pavao Pavličić, Julijana Matanović, Edo Popović, Sanja Lovrenčić, Damir Karakaš, Enes Kišević and others, the authors of Croatian bestsellers stage and screen actress Arijana Čulina and radio and television host Aleksandar Stanković, popular linguist Nives Opačić, as well as mental health experts Ali Fenwick and Ljubica Uvodić-Vranić, astronomer from the Višnjan Observatory and famous teacher Korado Korlević, meteorologist, popular weather presenter and author of children’s books promoting environmental awareness Zoran Vakula and many, many others.
Books-and-literature-focused television broadcasts and apocalypse movies marathon
The Third Channel of the Croatian Radio Television aired special broadcasts in which the theme of apocalypse was presented from the perspective of philosophy, meteorology, climatology and today’s politics as well as the apocalypse-themed movie marathon.
Croatian Book Night powering humanitarian initiatives
Maintaining the tradition of organising various humanitarian initiatives, the Croatian Book Night continued supporting the efforts aimed at providing Ukrainian refugees with publications in their own language by making available the titles of Ukrainian publishers in Croatian public libraries.
Also, all profit from the sale of the Night’s promotional T-shirts and other merchandise was donated to Split-based Udruga MoSt association, while a special book donating initiative, with the Gambling Addiction Rehabilitation Day Clinic (Dnevna bolnica za ovisnost o kockanju) and Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic (Psihijatrijska bolnica za djecu i mladež) as the beneficiaries, was organised to raise public awareness of the growing problem of gambling addiction.
Supported by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media, Croatian Publishers Licensing Society (ZANA), City of Zagreb, 24 sata media company, Večernji list daily and VidaTV television production company, the 2024 Croatian Book Night was organised by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of the Croatian Chamber of Economy, National and University Library in Zagreb, Zagreb City Libraries, book market-focused association Knjižni blok – Inicijativa za knjigu, Croatian Publishers Licensing Society (ZANA), books-and-literature-oriented e-zine and web portal Moderna vremena and the Croatian Association of School Librarians.
Photo by: Mirna Bartolić, Dobrila Zvonarek