Category: Australija i Novi Zeland

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)

December 2018:

Dom i svijet (The Home and the World) was a magazine published in Perth, Western Australia in 1932. Only two issues were published. Today we do not know of any existing copies, although there is a possibility of finding some copies in private collections. The only source that proves that the magazine was published in two issues was the Australian newspaper  The Swan Express. In vol. 33, no. 48 (November 3, 1932) there is a short notice: “The Dom i Svijet will be published next week”.  The next information about the journal was published in the same newspaper in vol. 34, no. 3(December 22, 1932): “… The next issue of this magazine is indefinitely deferred…”.

January 2024:

During research in the library of the War Memorial Museum in Auckland in November 2023, a copy of the first issue of Dom i svijet was found. The copy was donated from a private collection and was made available only after previous research in that library (after 2019). The discovery of that copy is significant for several reasons – for the first time it allows the public to see the contents of the publication; it proves that the use of secondary sources in creating a bibliography is the correct way to find information; it proves that the assumption about the preservation of numerous lost publications in private collections is correct; it made the digitization possible. Digitization has been done and the issue is available in the Croatian Emigrant Press repository in open access.

Brotherly Unity (Bratska sloga) was the first newspaper in Croatian, published in Auckland, New Zealand, bi-monthly from May 15, 1899 until June 26, 1899. Only four issues were published, each consisting of four pages. In the first issue, Antun Bulat is mentioned as the editor, and Matthew Ferri as co-editor.

Croatian immigrants in New Zealand were mainly from Dalmatia (the surrounding area of Makarska and from the islands of Korčula, Hvar and Brač). The first recorded arrival of Croats in New Zealand happened in 1858 when the Austrian frigate Novara arrived in Auckland. Of the ship’s complement, 175 were Croats.  More Croatian immigrants started arriving after 1880 and they settled mostly in the northern part of the Northern Island. They mostly worked as kauri gum diggers, living in bad conditions, in small communities. They communicated only in Croatian and  did not understand English. That was the reason why they did not know the exact price of the kauri gum. Gum buyers used to take advantage of that by not paying the full price. Another problem at the end of the 19th century was very restrictive Kauri gum Industry Act that was unfavorable to immigrants. Therefore, newspapers in Croatian were very important at that time.  In no. 4 of Brotherly Unity one reader writes in his letter to the editor:

Dear Editor, today we wanted to sell kauri gum to a gum buyer…  The gentleman saw our gum and offered an unacceptable price… We gave him the latest issue of Bratska sloga showing the current price of gum in Auckland… he did not know what to do so he agreed to pay our price. Afterwards, he returned to his fellow gum buyers telling them that it is not easy to buy cheap gum from our people as we have our own newspapers and we know the price of gum in Auckland.

In time, some Croatian immigrants started inhabiting urban areas, working in trades and the catering industry. Newspapers in Croatian were a valuable source of information and a good advertising platform.

Brotherly Unity had financial problems from the very beginning. The number of subscribers was too small so in each issue editors called for new subscribers. At the same time a serious rival newspaper, Morning Star (Danica), was published. Editors of   the Morning Star were Ivan Šegetin, Baldo Marušić and Ivan Pavlinović. As far as we know, there are no copies of the Morning Star, but thanks to  Brotherly Unity we know that the newspaper was published. The editors of Brotherly Unity decided to publish a lot of criticism about the Morning Star as they were a serious rival on a small market. In New Zealand newspaper New Zealand Herald (June, 29, 1899) a text on libel case at the Auckland Police Court was published. Ivan Segetin, the editor of Danica, charged Antun Bulat, the editor of Bratska sloga for calling him “a donkey” (tovar in Croatian) and questioned his intellectual abilities.

Because of the extremely complicated situation, only four issues of Brotherly Unity were published. The lifetime of the Morning Star was probably not much longer.

Here are links to all four issue of Brotherly Unity. Copies are held in Alexander Turnbull Library Collections at the National Library of New Zealand.

Brotherly Unity, no. 1

Brotherly Unity, no. 2

Brotherly Unitiy, no. 3

Brotherly Unity, no. 4

While working on the project, digital versions of some publications were obtained. Some of the publications are not available at Croatian libraries, and some others are available only in private collections (mostly in Australia and New Zealand). Only fragments of some publications are still preserved. Here is an overview of selected publications.

Bratska sloga (Brotherly Unity)

Zora (The Dawn)

Borba (The Fight)

Dom i svijet (The Home and the World)

Napredak (Progress)

Newspapers and Facebook

Vjesnik (The Herald)

Croatian Catholic Centres

The project is co-funded by the University of Zagreb in 2018. Team members are from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and collaborators are from other institutions in Croatia, Australia and New Zealand.

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Collaborators

The aim of the project is the production of a retrospective bibliography of newspapers, journals and books published by  Croats in Australia and New Zealand. The first phase of the project involves newspapers and journals and the second phase involves books published, edited and/or written by Croats in Australia and New Zealand.

The methodology includes (1) searching catalogues of national libraries in Croatia, Australia and New Zealand, (2) content analysis of other relevant sources and (3) collaboration with Croatian organizations, associations and individuals in Australia and New Zealand.

The software used for the bibliography is open source software Koha, an open source software that is used by the Library of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

In the second phase of the project, we aim to produce a bibliography of all books written, published and/or edited by Croats in Australia and New Zealand.

The project is co-funded by the University of Zagreb funds for financing scientific activities (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) for years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2019 the project was co-funded by the Central State Office for Croats Abroad.

In 2021, book Ni s kućom ni bez kuće that is based on the research made within the project, was co-funded by the Foundation of Croatian Academy of Science and Arts and by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia.

In 2023, an extended English edition of the book was published with the title Their faraway home: the story of Croatians through publications. It was  co-funded by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia.