STUDIES AND RESEARCH
The time when Vjenceslav Novak frequented the cinema theater
A historical research paper on several
journalistic responses to the film by the notable Croatian
novelist Vjenceslav Novak (e. g. his SF story Telepatoautophotocinematograph,
published in 1900), and on some characteristics of the
surrounding cinematic life in Croatia at the time.
When Zagreb photographer Rudolf Mosinger invited Samuel
Hofmann from Vienna with his cinema equipment and Lumiere’s
programme of films to organize the first film show in Zagreb
in 1896, Zagreb population hailed the new invention with
enthusiasm. The film experience was considered better then
experience with glass photographs (in German: Nebelbildern or Glasdiapositiven).
The wide popularity of film (even with Zagreb nobility),
lead the Department for religious observances in Zagreb
to issue a permit for school organized children’s attendance
at chosen film shows (generally, entertainment shows in
town were forbidden for school teachers and school children).
At the time, Izidor Kršnjavi (a notable public figure,
art historian) has, as a head of the Art society, established
the »Art&Science Theater« called Urania, and he and
Oton Kučera (an important Croatian physicist) organized
(in December 1900) the end of century multimedia show presenting
the contemporary image of the world — of nature, politics,
art and science — through verbal exposition, astronomical
and microscopical pictures, X-ray pictures, photographs,
slide projections, music and — cinema projections.
They
gave a guided tour through the cosmos and over the planet
Earth, from the Northern pole to Africa, they showed images
from Boer war and from China, gave a tour through the World
Exposition in Paris and through the Louvre and finished
the show with the Croatian Anthem. The show was an obvious
inspiration to Vjenceslav Novak, an imporant Croatian novelist
(at that time a high school professor and feuilletonist
in the main daily paper Obzor), and he wrote a SF
story (published in 1900 under the pseudonym dr. Urania)
about the new invention by »dr. Optica«, invention
named telepatoautophotocinematograph, a small device
enabling its owner to choose telepathically a target and
project its image on the wall in front of him.
The author
developed a satirical phantasy what could be learned through
such an device (e. g. a Croatian parliament representative
writes his speech and an English parliament member spies
him, and the next day Croatian representative is surprised
as he reads his words and ideas in an English press report
from the English parliament). Within the article there
is also a casual description of the cinema’s nature: »cinematography,
a known art of capturing images of life with photographic
apparatus, and then enabling us to reproduce them at any
time, the reproduced images being equally vivid as they
were at the time they were taken.« (film was called, besides
»cinematograph«, also a »live photography« at that time
in Croatia). Vjekoslav Majcen |