NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN ZAGREB

Kliofest 2023: NSK hosting tenth Croatian history festival from 16 to 19 May 2023

From 16 to 19 May 2023, the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) will be hosting Kliofest 2023, the tenth, celebratory edition of the Croatian history festival, which will open in the Library’s grand lobby at 11.00 and be live streamed on the Kliofest YouTube channel.

Bringing together speakers and other participants from Croatia and abroad, the four-day programme of this year’s edition of Kliofest will offer as many as 11 roundtables dealing with a wide range of themes from history, open forums presenting the research results of the latest projects in the field of history, several book launches and five exhibitions.

The festival programme will also include an accompanying book fair, many of whose titles will be available to the visitors at lower prices.

Two of the festival’s roundtables will be dedicated to the culture of remembrance, the commemoration of the 450^th anniversary of the Croatian-Slovenian Peasants’ Revolt and the fostering of remembrance culture in southeastern Europe, while the remaining roundtable discussions will address issues ranging from the intellectual history of women to how the history of Yugoslavia should be written.

Apart from the open forums thematising World War One and a research colloquium dedicated to the theory and history of liberalism, the festival programme will also feature five exhibitions, spotlighting the 50^th anniversary of the Latina et Graeca journal, Croatian ethnologist Milovan Gavazzi, the heroism or villainy of the central figure of the 1573 Croatian-Slovenian Peasants’ Revolt Matija Gubec, the centenary of Croatia’s industrial giant Đuro Đaković and the 80^th anniversary of the tragic death in the Holocaust of a highly talented young Zagreb actress Lea Deutsch, often referred to as “the Croatian Shirley Temple”. Particularly standing out among the new titles that will be presented through book launches are those on the history of the Croatian Parliament recently published in Hungary.

The programme of the closing day of Kliofest 2023 will include the presentation of awards in several categories to historians who distinguished themselves in 2022.

The festival, named after Clio, the patron of history from Greek mythology and the Muse that inspired poets writing heroic epics, has several purposes – to bring closer to its visitors and the general public history, as a scientific discipline, and its creators, popularise publishing in the field of historiography and affiliated sciences, encourage debate among historians on relevant professional issues and bring into focus their place and status in general in present-day Croatian society.

The festival is organised by the Croatian National Committee for Historical Sciences (Hrvatski nacionalni odbor za povijesne znanosti), Croatian History Society (Društvo za hrvatsku povjesnicu), National and University Library in Zagreb and the Kliofest association, while the Croatian Heritage Foundation, Croatian State Archives, Croatian Institute of History, Bogdan Ogrizović City Library (Knjižnica i čitaonica Bogdana Ogrizovića), Department of History at the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Odsjek za povijest Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu), Mikołaj Kopernik Polish Cultural Association (Poljska kulturna udruga “Mikołaj Kopernik” u Zagrebu), Croatian Publishers’ Rights Association Zana (Udruga za zaštitu prava nakladnika “Zana”) and Publishers and Booksellers Association of the Croatian Chamber of Economy are acting as the co-organisers.

Entrance to the festival is free.

Learn more about the programme of Kliofest 2023 (Croatian text only).