YUGOSLAVIA

   At the time of going to press, it is not clear what the future status of Yugoslavia will be - if, indeed, there will be even a rump territory left with that name.Yugoslavia was established as a nation in 1918, but the first sf works in 2 of its 3 linguistic areas - the Serbocroat and the Slovenian - long predated that. The first sf book to appear in Serbocroatwas the translation in 1873 of Jules VERNE's Voyage au centre de la terre (1864), while the first sf work by a native author was the drama "Poslemilijon godina" ("A Million Years After") (1889 in the magazine Kolo) by Dragutin Ilic. This is one of the earliest fully sf plays publishedanywhere in the world (THEATRE). In 1902 Lazar Komarcic published a work of extreme modernity for its time and place: the most exciting passages of Olaf STAPLEDON are anticipated in his Jedna ugasena zvezda ("OneExtinguished Star") (1902).In the period up to the beginning of WWII, the most important sf novels were Kroz vasionu i vekove ("Through the Universe and Centuries") (1928) by Milutin Milankovic, Gospodin covjek ("Man, the Noble") (1932) by Mate Hanzekovic, and Zivot u vasioni ("Life in theUniverse") (1933) by Stojan Radonic. In the 1930s a number of sf novels were published in instalments in periodicals; these novels were, generally, imitations of popular sf classics, signed mostly by pseudonyms. Of these, 3 by "Aldion Degal" are the most noteworthy: "Atomska raketa"("An Atomic Rocket") (1930), "Zrake smrti" ("Death Rays") (1932) and "Smaragdni skarabej" ("The Emerald Scarab") (1934). In 1935 the first Yugoslav COMIC strip was published: Gost iz svemira ("The Guest from Outer Space"), by Bozidar Rasic and Leontije Bjelski.In the 1950s the first specialized sf publishing imprints appeared - Biblioteka fantasticnih romana, Fantasticni romani and Lajka - but this was an era dominated by translations of Russian sf novels in the mode of "socialist realism" (RUSSIA). Yugoslav sf authors published during this period were writingmostly for a juvenile readership. The first of importance in the post-WWII period were Zvonimir Furtinger and Mladen Bjazic, who set the tone of the first half of the 1960s with novels like Osvajac 2 se ne javlja ("Conqueror II Fails to Report") (1959) and Svemirska nevjesta ("The SpaceBride") (1960). In that decade new sf book imprints began to publish translations of contemporary US and UK sf authors. The most important is Kentaur, with nearly 100 translations of major sf books published since1967. By the end of the 1960s the first Yugoslav sf magazine, Kosmoplov ("Spaceship"), had appeared; it ran for 24 issues 1969-70. The founder of this magazine, Gavrilo Vuckovicc, in 1972 also founded Galaksija ("Galaxy") magazine, which had an sf section almost continually during thenext 18 years.In 1976 the important sf magazine Sirius started; mainly as a monthly and ed most often by Borivoje Jurkovic, it achieved 164 issues (it ended in Jan 1990), regularly publishing Yugoslav sf in addition totranslations. Yugoslav sf had its moment of international triumph, too, in the 1970s: the film Izbavitelj ("Saviour") (1977; vt The Rat Saviour), dir Krsto Papic, won the main, Golden Asteroid, award at the Trieste FilmFestival that year. A second Yugoslav film later received an award at this festival: Posjetioci iz galaksije Arkana ("Visitors from the Arcana Galaxy") (1980) dir by the Oscar-winning Dusan Vukotic.The 1980s wereyears decisively marked by the arrival of private as opposed to state-owned publishing houses and by the emergence of many young sf authors. In 1982 Zoran ZIVKOVIC andZika Bogdanovic started a privately published sf imprint, Polaris, which specialized in rapidly taking up new sf hits; among the books whose world 1st edns have been under this imprint is 2010: Odyssey Two (1982) by Arthur C. CLARKE. Another private series, Znak Sagite ("The Sign of the Sagitta"), founded 1985 by Boban Knezevic,also brought out some important sf books.Though there are as yet only part-time sf writers in Yugoslavia, several of the authors who made their debut in the 1980s have the potential to become full-time. These include Damir Mikulicic, author of O ("O") (coll 1982); Predrag Raos, author ofBrodolom kod Thule ("Shipwreck at Thule") (1978), Mnogo vike nizasto ("Much Shouting about Nothing") (1985) and Null Effort (1990); Slobodan Curcic, author of Sume, kise, grad i zvezde ("Forests, Rains, the City and the Stars") (1988); Dragan Filipovic, author of Oreska ("Oreska") (1987) and Zlatna knjiga ("The Golden Book") (1988). Recently some widely acclaimed mainstream writers have entered the sf field. Borislav Pekic, for example, has published 3 sf novels: Besnilo ("Rabid") (1983), 1999 (1984) and Atlantida ("Atlantis") (1988).Young Yugoslav sf comic-stripartists, most prominently Zeljko Pahek, Igor Kordej and Zoran Janjetov, are published not only at home but also in other European countries. Successful GENRE-SF artists such as Bob Zivkovic also appear. Sf has alsoentered academic circles; after initial pioneering studies in the sf genre by Ivan Foht and Darko SUVIN, 3 men have since the 1970s successfully defended MA and doctoral dissertations about sf: Ferid Muhic, Zoran Zivkovic and Aleksandar B. Nedeljkovic. After the mid-1970s, FANDOM beganto flourish, and a number of local and international CONVENTIONS were organized. There are many clubs and societies.

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