World Festival of Croatian Literature starts

ZAGREB, Nov 17 (Hina) – The World Festival of Croatian Literature started in Zagreb on Monday with a discussion on the need to establish a Croatian cultural institute that would be named after Marko Marulic, the most important Croatian writer in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Milan Bosnjak, an advisor at the Office for Croats Abroad, said that the Croatian people, despite unfavourable and difficult circumstances, had managed throughout history to preserve and develop its language, culture and national identity.

He pointed to the need to even more actively and more systematically promote the Croatian language and culture, noting that by establishing the institute, a structure would be developed and an opportunity created for systematic cultural work.

This would strongly contribute to the development of modern Croatian unity at the global level, including all Croats and all Croatian citizens, Bosnjak said.

Writer Stjepan Seselj said that it was high time to continue with efforts to establish the unity of Croatian literature and culture.

The World Festival of Croatian Literature was launched to connect Croatian writers who live and work in different parts of the world and to help open new and discover old topics that “we are possibly not familiar with”, as well as promote a different kind of study of the Croatian language and culture in schools and at universities, Seselj said.

Croatian Writers Society president Zlatko Krizic, too, supported the establishment of the institute, noting that it should primarily promote the study of the Croatian language and literature.