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essay about authorbibliographyartist's influences
MARIJAN MIKAC
29. January 1903
country
Ex Yugoslavia
period
1915-1946

Marijan Mikac (Senj, 1903 – 1972, who died on a ship while returning to Argentina) was a writer and poet. Although he was trained as a sailor and worked on ships, Mikac is one of the first authors of Dadaist prose and poetry in Croatia. He was an active collaborator of Zenit magazine, best known for the "novel" Monkey Phenomenon, which he wrote while sailing on the Barcelona-Gibraltar-Algeria routes. His poetry was anti-poetic. Mikac was a follower of Micic's interpretation of Balkan modernity. The wider public recognized him for the novel Adventures of Moric Schwarz, which pointed to prewar German attitudes toward Jews. In the spirit of his Dadaist beginnings Mikac didn't forsee the cruel genocide which would follow, but instead created a humorous superstructure which depicted Nazis as disguised Jews. Shortly before World War II and after working in Berlin for the local offices of major U.S. film companies, Mikac returned to Croatia. While in Berlin he managed to attract a movie producer to film his novel Monkey Phenomenon. In 1941 in Croatia Mikac was appointed director of the State Directorate for Film. He was the founder of local professional film production and enabled filming of the first Croatian art film Lisinski. After the war he emigrated to Argentina where, in 1954, he wrote the first Croatian novel on Bleiburg entitled In the Procession of Death.