Zora (The Dawn)

The first issue of  Zora (with a parallel English title The Dawn) was published in Auckland, New Zealand, on August 16, 1913, after Croatian Publishing Company was established. The editor and manager was George Leon Scansie. One of the goals of the newspaper was recognizing the term Croat for people from Croatia, instead of the term Austrians (as Croatia was at that time a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

There were other editors of Zora – P. Katavić for vol. 3, no. 35 (September 4, 1915), J. S. Petricevich for vol. 4, no. 1(January 22, 1916) and Bartul Mihaljevich (for a short period in 1915). No later than vol. 4, no.3(May 13, 1916) the subtitle The Southern Slav Bulletin was added because Zora became the official organ of the London Yugoslav Committee. The concept of the newspaper had been changed, from the appearance to the content and language. Until May 1916 most of the texts were in Croatian, and change of that practice caused subscription cancellations. By January 1918 Zora had ceased to publish.

Issues of Zora are held at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Library (printed and on microfilm). Some printed issues from the legacy of Stephen A. Jelicich are available in the archive of the Dalmatian Cultural Society in Auckland.

In National and University Library in Zagreb, 16 issues are available (from no. 7, vol. 1 to no. 5, vol. 4), one of them incomplete. The16 issues were digitized as part of the Croatian Emigrant Press Project, in cooperation with the National and University Library in Zagreb in September 2023.

List of issues of Zora in three instututions

Zora, first page of vol. 2, no. 3(January 17, 1914)

Zora, first page of vol. 4, no. 3(May 13, 1916)