Croatian – Indian Links, monograph marking 30 years of diplomatic relations 1992-2022

The title of the book indicates the time span from 1992 till 2022, but in fact, the time interval covered is much longer, which you will immediately notice while browsing through its pages.
As indicated in the title, the book consists of thirty articles, written by more than 20 scholars representing very diverse fields, grouped in four thematic sections:

1. Politics and diplomacy (consisting of 4 articles on 40 pp);
2. Missionaries (containing 5 articles on nearly 30 pp);
3. Literature, Culture, Religion and Science (with 10 articles on nearly 80 pp);
4. Indology (which has 10 articles (on nearly 80 pp)
5. Postcript (an article on 5 pp)

The book is accompanied with about 90 photos, some of them very little known.
Let me mention only one striking example, a photo which is somehow connecting this book simultaneously with several departments at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Namely, on p. 140, in an article written by late Professor Klara Goenc Moačanin, a photo of a text from the Petris Glagolitic Miscellany is included, dating from 1468, in which one can see the name of India being written in Croatian Glagolitic Script. It is an excerpt from a larger description of the Middle Age India, containing more than four pages in this 700 pp glagolitic miscellany. The indicated text is a part of the so-called Lucidarium, a Middle-Age Encyclopaedia. So, this text is very clearly connecting the Department of Indology with the Department of Croatological Studies (in particular with its Chair for Old-Slavonic Language and Croatian Glagolitism), and also with the National and University Library, where this original book dating from the 15th century is kept.
Let us notice the the logo of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is the glagolitic letter M (the so called bifurcated or branched M), which can be seen in this hall. Also, a very nice logo of the Department of Indology of this faculty, designed in 2019 according to the idea of Professor Ivan Andrijanić, contains the Glagolitic letter M.
We owe our deep gratitude to all the authors of articles written by more than 20 scholars. They made an effort to write them in a very readable and easily accessible way, even when the content was fairly nontrivial.
For me personally, especially interesting and important are the articles written by Professor Mislav Ježić. For example, in his illuminating study about Stjepan Radić and Mahatma Gandhi, he is bringing to light some new insights.
Since I have myself contributed an article dealing with Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) and Kristian Kreković (1901-1985), Croatian painter who portreyed him in 1936 in his atelier in Paris, I must emphasise my great appreciation for its inclusion. Kreković is still relatively known Croatian painter, about who three monographs were published in Spain (in Castillian and Catalonian), as well as a master thesis written in French. In all of them, his portrait of Mahatma Gandhi occupies distinguished place, as well as in Krekovic’s Gallery in Palma de Mallorca, in a hall dedicated to his ideas of world peace. The Gallery was solemnly opened by the Spanish Queen Sophia in 1981.
I am also very glad that an article written by Professor Dipendra Prasad, who serves as the current president of the Indian Mathematical Society, was included. Here I want to express my gratitude to Professor Prasad for his kind permission for his article to be reproduced in the present book. Namely, it was prepared in December 2021, while he participated at a distance from India in a colloquium prepared in Zagreb by the Indian Embassy and Croatian-Indian Society, jointly with the Cultural Society Napredak (i.e., Advancement). The lecture, delivered by my dear colleague Tomislav Šikić from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (University of Zagreb), was dedicated to the commemoration of Srinivasa Ramanujan 1887-1920), the greatest Indian mathematician in history, and Professor Prasad participated in it from India. In his address, he mentioned important contributions of Croatian mathematicians Hrvoje Kraljević and Dragan Miličić, and in particular of Marko Tadić and Goran Muić, both of them fellows of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as their disciples.
Due to the lack of space and since the number of “chapters” was predefined in the title by 30, some very interesting themes were not included into the book. For example, the name Dr. Sheoraj Singh Jain, who taught Hindi and Urdu at the Department of Indology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and actively participated with his family in endeavours of the International fund “Hungry Child” in Zagreb, founded by Vladimir Paleček (1940-1990), would certainly be a very nice additional contribution to a future edition of the book. In addition to this, the fact that more than twenty contemporary Indian mathematicians participate as members of editorial boards in five specialised scientific mathematical journals published in Zagreb, certainly deserves attention. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that a number of Croatian mathematicians contributed about a dozen of articles to a prestigious Indian scientific journal called “The Ramanujan Journal”.
A great discovery for us was the name of Croatian writer Josip Hitrec (known as Joseph George Hitrec in the USA), who at his very young age, as a student of the University of Zagreb, met Mahatma Gandhi in person in 1932. This can be seen in an article written by Hrvoje Hitrec, who is a well known Croatian contemporary writer and a close relative of Josip Hitrec.
The book has been recently presented by Mrs Jane Sha (who is a member of Croatian-Indian Society) and by the Venus Club in Mumbay on 13th September 2022.
I am very glad that the book that we are presenting now in Zagreb, enabled some very interesting themes and personalities connecting India and Croatia to be brought to light, and some of them even to be saved from oblivion.
Thank you.
Darko Žubrinić