Franjo Ledić

Biography

Early life and Berlin Ledić was born in Derventa, Austria-Hungary, in 1892. He graduated from a public school and travelled across Europe between the years 1907 and 1910.

Return to Yugoslavia Ledić moved to Italy in 1921, where he stayed until 1925 and directed several short films. The studio was a complex in the secessionist style, nicknamed "Yugoslav Hollywood". Not long after, the company was renamed to Jadran-film, and Ledić went on to publish the first Croatian book on film (, "Film. Who Wants to Work in Film?", 1925) and the first Croatian film journal (, "National Art of Film", 1926), containing poems dedicated to himself and details on shooting his films. During the regime of the Independent State of Croatia, he worked for the ("State Movie Institute", popularly known as "Croatia film") as a news camera operator. With the end of the Second World War, Ledić was interned by the Yugoslav authorities and Jadran-film was seized by the state.

Ledić continued to publish written works in the SFR Yugoslavia, poems and prose themed around his home region of Derventa. His late publicist works, most notably his self-published compilations titled ("Mythology of the Slavs", 1969–1970), became popular in Croatia as sources on ancient Slavic paganism. Today, however, Croatian ethnologists consider them to be artefacts of the past that are, among other similar works, fundamentally unverifiable. Ethnologist Lidija Bajuk notes that Ledić's reconstruction of the 'Croatian pantheon', based largely on the work of psychologist Nikola Sučić, is "arbitrary and unverifiable", and she includes Ledić (as well as Sučić) on the list of authors whose work she believes to be "uncritical ponderings". Tea Škokić, another ethnology doctorate, believes that Ledić's interpretations of the pantheon are romanticized, and notes how he does not cite any sources for his claims.

He died on September 26, 1981, and was buried on Miroševac Cemetery in Dubrava, Zagreb.

Works

Film

("Fighting the Sun", short film in four acts, 1918) ("Suicide Club", short film in two acts, 1918) ("The End of the World", short film in two acts, 1918) Cornelie Arendt (short film, 1919) (Angelo. Misterij Zmajgrada; "Angelo: The Mystery of Dragontown", feature in six acts, 1920) retitled in 1921: ("A Horrible Night at Castle Dragontown") ("Celebration of the Millenial Anniversary of the Kingdom of Croatia", documentary, 1925) ("Third Sokol Slet in Zagreb", 1925) ("The Bell", 1926–1939) ("Gypsy Blood – The Balkan Benefactor", advertisement, 1927) remade into (short film, 1927) & ("Croatia in Word and Image" & "Croatian Weekly News", 1941–1945)

Books

(1920) ("Film. Who Wants to Work in Film?", 1925) ("National Art of Film", 1926) ("A Tale of Grandfather Ledonja", 1953) ("Grandfather's Wedding", 1955) ("Tales from the History of Derventa", 1958) ("Folk Philosophy in Proverbs about Wolves", 1960) ("Mythology of the Slavs", 1969–1970) ("Legends of Giants", 1973–1974)