Professor Vladimir Devidé, Croatian mathematician, is better known as outstanding Japanologist. His tireless enthusiasm over the past fourty years, including numerous published monographs and hundreds of public lectures, resulted in surprising popularity of haiku poetry throughout Croatia. It is especially nice to see him surrounded with youngest haiku poets in Croatia, at the primary school age.

According to Professor Devidé, counting the number of prizes won at various international competitions in haiku, Croatia can be ranked among the most successful nations in the world.

a tiger's shadow
on the wall... a kitten
in front of the lamp

The name of PEN is derived from the name of Croatian inventor Slavoljub PENKALA. He invented the mechanical pen in 1906 and fountain pen in 1907 which are bearing his name and now they are in everyday use.

Penkala invented a new plastic mass substance called ebonite, and used it for production of gramopne records. He then signed a contract with the Edison-Bell company, England, and a new company Edison-Bell-Penkala Ltd. was founded in Zagreb which started the production of gramophone records based on his original technology.

Gary Gabelich, USA Croat (his parents are from the city of Split), has won the world record with his automobile "Blue Flame" in 1970, achieving the speed of 622.4 miles/h (more than 1000 km/h). Even more interesting is that this record was unbeaten for as long as 13 years. In 1985 the Long Beach City Council named a park in his memory, Gabelich Park (near San Pedro and Los Angeles).

These two lovely portraits have been made around 2001 by Antun-Boris Svaljek, Croatian painter. They adorn Villa Astra in the town of Lovran, Croatia, belonging to Lovranske vile Ltd, directed by Mr. Vjeko Martinko. In 2006 The Guardian announced ten best places to stay in Croatia, with Lovranske Vile on the first place. Many thanks to Mr. Vjeko Martinko for permission to use the photos.

Croatia - Austria

The above table represents only one page from The Vienna Telephone Book (2007). Its four columns contain the following second names:

Horvarth, Horvat, Horvath

All of them are variations of the standard Croatian name that we use today: Hrvat (HR), the English version of which is Croat or Croatian. Please, note that we do not claim that all these persons from the book are Croats by nationality. But it is without any doubt that the source of their second names is Croatian.

The next page in the Vienna Telephone Book is almost entirely, throughout more than three columns, filled with other versions of Croatian name:

Horwath, Horwarth, etc.

We have counted more than 100 such names per column, which makes altogether about 700 explicit Croatian second names in the book! But many names in the telephone book correspond to a family. If we take two or three members per family in avarage, then we see that in Vienna only there are probably between 1400 and 2000 persons (if not even more), bearing the Croatian second name. For the entire Austria the corresponding number is, of course, much larger.

Similar is the situation in Prague (Czechia), Budapest (Hungary), Bratislava (Slovakia), and in Ljubljana (Slovenia).

According to the Prague Telephone Book 1999/2000 there are as many as 516 individuals having second names of Croatian roots:

• Charvat and Charvatova (380, several pages...),
• Chorvat and Chorvatova (10),
• Chorvatovicova (1),
• Horvat (21),
• Horvath and Horvathova (79),
• Horvatik and Horvatkova (14),
• Horvatovic and Horvatovicova (2),
• Krobath (1),
• Krobot and Krobotova (8).

Why is the Croatian name so frequent in the mentioned countries? A part of the story is related to White Croats, and another part is here.

For comparison, in The Zagreb Telephone Book (Zagreb is the capital of Croatia) the second name of Horvat and its various derivatives

Horvacic, Horvat, Horvatec, Horvatek, Horvath, Horvaticek, Horvatic, Horvatin, Horvatincic, Horvatinec, Horvatinovic, Horvatovic, Horvatus, Hrvacanin, Hrvat, Hrvatic, Krobat, Krobot

appear more than 2,800 times!

RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE

MINISTÈRE DE LA MARINE

DIRECTION DE LA NAVIGAITON ET DES PÊCHES MARITIMES

Le Ministre de la Marine certifie que, par Décret en date du 10 mai 1912, le Président de la République Française a décerné la Médaille de Sauvetage en or de 2ême classe à Monsieur le capitaine Medanovich commandant le vapeur hongrois (!) "Kostrena", qui a recueilli à son bord, le 25 janvier 1912, aprés de maneuvres rendues trés difficiles
par l'état de la mer, tout l'equipage du vapeur français "Gaulois" de Bunhergue (?), en perdition au [?large ac tl Corogne?]

Par Directeur de la Navitation et les Pêches Maritimes

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Paris, le 10 Mai 1912

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