Igor Mandić

Igor Mandić (20 November 1939 – 13 March 2022) was a Croatian writer, literary critic, columnist and essayist. According to Croatian historian Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Mandić was the most important and the most versatile Croatian newspaper writer of the second half of the 20th century. His polemic texts have marked a Yugoslav publicist epoch of the 1960s and 1970s. Known for his fresh, sharp writing style

Biography

Early life Igor Mandić was born in Šibenik on 20 November 1939. His mother Adele Sirola was born in Pula to an ethnic-Italian father and an Italian-speaking Slavic mother. The Mandić and Sirola families were highly influential in Istria. During the Italian occupation of Dalmatia in World War II, Mandić's father did business with the Italians, all the while secretly helping the Partisan resistance by supplying them with typewriters, a precious commodity during wartime. Nevertheless, the communist authorities nationalized his shop in 1948, leaving the family without its only source of income.

Mandić finished elementary school in Split, where his family had moved after they lost the book store. During his university years Mandić began to write literary and music reviews, publishing them in student newspapers, literary magazines and cultural weeklies.

Work at Vjesnik In 1965, after completing his compulsory military service, Mandić settled permanently in Zagreb, working as a part-time literary critic for the Croatian daily Vjesnik. The editorial board was in a dilemma, as they wanted to keep Mandić, yet also to maintain good relations with the music establishment.

The "Mandić Affair" In 1977, Mandić published a collection of his literary reviews, containing an October 1971 review of We Are All Guilty, a book by Croatian writer Petar Šegedin who was subsequently purged for his "extreme nationalism". Following the publication, Mandić was criticized in a July 1977 speech by Dušan Dragosavac, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia, who found that this review did not sufficiently distance itself from Šegedin's theses, and accused Mandić of "nationalistic deviation". Mandić responded with a letter in which he rejected the "nationalist" label, citing several of his Croatian Spring-era articles in which he was critical of nationalistic excesses. Finally, Mandić was attacked in an article published in Vjesnik itself, which also warned against "bourgeois ideology, and the traditionally anticommunist and separatist base of Croatian nationalism". He kept his employment, but was reassigned to Erotika, Vjesnik's softcore magazine, and, while he was still able to publish his books, they went without a single review in the media.

Mandić was the editor-in-chief of Vjesnik from February to October 2000. He succeeded in introducing good-quality content and democratizing the government-controlled newspaper after a decade of Croatian Democratic Union rule, but was dismissed by the Supervisory Board for failing to boost circulation and make the paper profitable.

Mandić was interviewed in Boris Malagurski's documentary film The Weight of Chains 2 (2014). In the later years he was writing a popular weekly column for Nedjeljni Jutarnji, Ćorava kutija.

Personal life Mandić died on 13 March 2022 in Zagreb, at the age of 82.

Awards In 1999, he received Matica hrvatska's award A. G. Matoš for his book Književno (st)ratište.

Works Mandić was a prolific writer. He published literary critiques, socio-culturological feuilletons and essays. He was a lifetime collaborator of various radio and television stations.

He published following books: Uz dlaku (critics, Mladost, Zagreb 1970) Mysterium televisionis (essays, Mogućnosti, Split 1972) Gola masa (feuilletons, Znanje, Zagreb 1973) Nježno srce (polemics, Znanje, Zagreb 1975) Mitologija svakidašnjeg života (feuilletons, Otokar Keršovani, Rijeka 1976) Od Bacha do Cagea (essays and critics, Mladost, Zagreb 1977) 101 kratka kritika (Zagreb 1977) U sjeni ocvale glazbe (polemics, Znanje, Zagreb 1977) Policajci duha (polemics, Globus, Zagreb 1979) Šok sadašnjosti (essays, Centar za informacije i publicitet, Zagreb 1979) Arsen (monography, Zagreb, 1983) Književnost i medijska kultura (essays, Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, Zagreb 1984) Što, zapravo, hoće te žene (feuilletons, Znanje, Zagreb 1984; Varaždin and Pula 1985) Principi krimića (essays, Mladost, Beograd 1985) Jedna antologija hrvatske poratne poezije (anthology, Prokuplje, Zagreb, 1987) Zbogom dragi Krleža (polemics, Književne novine, Beograd 1988; 2nd ed. Profil international, Zagreb 2007) Bračna kuhinja (co-authored with Slavica Mandić; feuilletons, Grafički zavod Hrvatske, Zagreb 1989; 2nd ed. Profil international, Zagreb 2006) Ekstaze i mamurluci (essays, August Cesarec, Zagreb 1989) Romani i krize (critics, Beograd, 1996) Književno (st)ratište (critics, Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, Zagreb 1998) Za našu stvar (critics and polemics, Konzor, Zagreb 1999; 2nd expanded ed. Biblioteka XX. vek, Beograd 2001) Prijapov problem (essays, Arkzin, Zagreb 1999) Između dv(ij)e vatre (columns, Nin, Beograd 2000) Bijela vrana (columns and polemics, Prosvjeta, Zagreb 2000) Hitna služba (a selection of columns from Vjesnik 1999-2005, Sysprint, Zagreb 2005) Sebi pod kožu. Nehotična autobiografija (Profil international, Zagreb 2006) Notes (columns, Matica hrvatska, Zagreb 2007) U zadnji čas (Profil International, Zagreb 2009)