Vjekoslav Majcen (1941-2001)

Heritage of the Keeper of Heritage

The death of Vjekoslav Majcen at the age of 59 has left a big void in Croatian film historiography. Employed as a researcher in the Croatian Film Archive, Majcen was during the past decade the only film historian who had systematically researched the early period of Croatian cinema. As a pionir in the field, he could not rely on some broadly accepted and shared corpus of facts, but had to ’invent’ his own method of research.

Relying mainly on archival written material, his research has uncovered important data that is of interest not only to film scholars, but for the researchers of the Croatian cultural life in the first part of the 20th century. Majcen has published several books, the most important being the one on educational film, one of the thoroughest studies on the subject published in any language.

His approach was essentially different from the auteurist criticism dominant in Croatian writings on cinema. Appart from his continuing interest in the older cinema, he has prepared several authoritative filmographies, the last being one of the Croatian cinema 1991-2000.

He was also an editor of this review in which he kept diary of all the important film events in Croatia. He will be missed not only by his coleagues and friends, but in Croatian cultural life in general, since his extremely important work has no heir.

Boris Vidović