NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN ZAGREB

Witty Bookoshka to spin the festive tales of the tenth Croatian Book Night

Over 1,100 programmes on 223 locations all across Croatia spotlighting the importance of books and reading will be held on 23 April 2021 as part of the celebratory, tenth edition of Croatian Book Night, one of the most popular mass cultural events in Croatia. The overview of the previous nine editions of this successful national initiative, traditionally marking World Book and Copyright Day (23 April) and Croatian Book Day (22 April), is the focus of a special retrospective exhibition currently on view at the Central Library of the Zagreb City Libraries public library network, authored by Vanja Štalec Obradović and Ivana Radenović (Moćna desetka: 10 godina Noći knjige).

This year’s Croatian Book Night programme, closely associated with the initiative of the Government of the Republic of Croatia as part of which the year 2021 has been declared the Year of Reading (Godina čitanja), has been joined by more than 300 schools, kindergartens and other cultural and scientific institutions, 130 libraries and 120 bookshops, and includes interesting programmes organised by hospitals, tourism organisations, various associations, bodies of local administration, children’s and senior citizen’s homes, etc. Along with the part of the programme that will be held online, a considerable part of it will be taking place on a wide range of outdoor locations – in parks, by the rivers and the sea, in front of libraries, in squares and on streets, even on boats and trains.

Always attempting to respond to current social circumstances, now so particularly marked by various global and our related intimate crises, the organisers of the 2021 Croatian Book Night decided to thematise through its programme the healing power of books (Ljekovita moć knjige). Thus, the 2021 Croatian Book Night programme will include paediatric hospital wards whose little patients will receive a special storytelling treatment (Priče koje liječe), while the 2021 Croatian Book Night Organising Committee and the Croatian Railways Passenger Transport will jointly organise the On board with books programme (Putuj s knjigom).

Also, in a spirit of celebration, a classic of Croatian contemporary children’s and young adult literature, a series of novels by Hrvoje Hitrec (1943-) portraying the lives and adventures of the unforgettable Vragec brothers (Smogovci, 1976; Smogovci i strašni Bongo, 1987; Zbogom, Smogovci, 1989; Smogovci i biće iz svemira, 1993; Smogovci u ratu, 1994), will be immortalised as a result of the 2021 Croatian Book Night Organising Committee’s cooperation with the Croatian Association of Artists and the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, in a mural authored by Mia Matijević, in Peščenica, one of the old neighbourhoods in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, and the site of the adventures and misadventures of the Vragec family.

On top of all that, this celebratory edition of Croatian Book Night will include a special humanitarian initiative, jointly organised by the Croatian Book Night Organising Committee, the Embassy of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Croatia and Petrinja-based Association for the Promotion of IT, Culture and Coexistence (IKS), as part of which a temporary settlement put up in Glina following the devastating earthquake that hit this town and the entire surrounding region in December 2020 will get a special container that will house the children’s library and playroom.

The great Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, the 200^th anniversary of whose birth and 140^th anniversary of whose death we are celebrating this year, left us this profound thought: When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, almost all is lost. Can books help us, and how, to maintain our health as individuals and that of the entire society? What books would we “prescribe” for ourselves, and others, and why? Are there books that can be recommended as a cure for each age? What reading would we say can save us in the turbulent times that we live in today?

Owing to the still present anti-epidemic measures, this year’s Croatian Book Night programme will not open at the National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatian Book Night’s traditional host, but on on the Third Channel of the Croatian Radio Television, in a special TV broadcast that will feature interesting guests and present the results of the latest survey of Croatia’s book market.

Join us in celebrating Croatian Book Night’s tenth anniversary and help us prove that health is not merely not being ill, but having books in our lives!

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The organisers of the Croatian Book Night programme are the National and University Library in Zagreb, Publishers and Booksellers Association of the Croatian Chamber of Economy, Zagreb City Libraries, Publishers’ Reprographic Rights Association – ZANA (Udruga za zaštitu prava nakladnika), Knjižni blok – Inicijativa za knjigu pro-book association, books-and-culture-oriented web portal Moderna vremena and the Croatian Association of School Librarians, and it is supported by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media, Publishers’ Reprographic Rights Association – ZANA (Udruga za zaštitu prava nakladnika), City of Zagreb and Croatian Chamber of Economy.