Feral Tribune

Feral Tribune is the best known Croatian independent left-leaning weekly. A unique combination of "serious" news and commentary and biting satire, the magazine is a unique creation that probably could not have come to existance anywhere but in the former Yugoslavia. The magazine, to our knowledge, has no counterpart in the West. Its satire is too daring for mainstream advertisers, its reporting too uncompromising for mainstream politicians. Feral Tribune's mission is not merely to report news and entertain, but also to help turn its readers into better human beings!

The magazine was founded in 1984 as a satirical weekly supplement to "Slobodna Dalmacija", the largest daily newspaper in Dalmacija (coastal Croatia). When the parent paper was taken over by the government in 1992, Feral Tribune began its independent life as a weekly satirical newspaper. The first issue hit the newsstands in March 1993 and the first print run sold out immediately. From the start Feral Tribune met with the enmity of the authorities. First, the state-owned "Slobodna Dalmacija" sued Feral Tribune founders for "stealing" the masthead nad visual identity of their own paper, allegedly owned by "Slobodna Dalmacija". Numerous other ploys aimed at destroying the magazine followed: lawsuits by individuals connected with Tudman's authorities demanding compensation for "spiritual suffering", imposition of a pornography tax, mobilization of Viktor Ivancic, editor-in-chief, public burning of the magazine, lawsuit against editors for defamation of president Franjo Tudman, refusal by the state-owned newspaper distribution company to pay for the sold copies of the magazine, and many others as detailed in the chronology published by the magazine on its tenth anniversary.

However, the magazine survived and kept increasing its readership, along the way collecting several awards for journalism. After the death of its nemesis, Franjo Tudman, at the end of 1999, many predicted the end of Feral. However, the magazine continued to maintain a critical stance even with respect to the new authorities, mercilessly criticizing their failings to reform the state-controlled media, prosecute war-crimes committed by Croats, clamp down on the extremist right and prosecute individuals who got rich under the Tudman's regime. Consequently, the new Prime Minister Ivica Racan refused for a while to give interviews for Feral. According to magazine editor Heni Erceg, the Police tried to take her into custody in October 2000 by coming to her apartment at 3am.

The relations between the magazine and the new government reached the new low in June 2001, Prime Minister Racan refused to appear as a guest in a Croatian TV contact program after learning that Feral's editor Heni Erceg would be one of the guests. Moreover, the then Prime Minister Racan reintroduced the practice of exclusive press briefings, current under Tudman's rule, for government selected media representatives. Perhaps not surprisingly Feral Tribune was not among the government picked media. Interestingly enough, the editorial commentary regarding these two incidents was "mistakenly" lost in the printing press and replaced by a different page from an earlier issue of the daily. The printing press, Novi List, is considered to be under strong influence of the largest party in the ruling coalition, SDP.

In another example of absurd failure of the SDP-led authorities to clear up remnants of the HDZ's policies, Feral Tribune and its journalist Igor Lasic faced charges of slandering the head of the municipal library on the island of Korcula, Izabel Skokandic, in 1999. In 1997, Ms. Skokandic decided to "cleanse" the library of "Serb" books. That implied all books printed in the Cyrillic alphabet or outside Croatia, for example in Sarajevo or Belgrade, or written by "Serb" writers. The books were burnt. For this "patriotic" act, Ms. Skokandic was rewarded by the HDZ by being promoted from the acting administrator of the library to its manager. In 1999 Igor Lasic wrote the article "Girl With Matches" about this incident. The article included a transcript from the session of the local government regarding the burning of the books, which demonstrates that almost all members of the local government approved and supported the "cleansing" of the books. Consequently, Ms. Skokandic sued Feral and Igor Lasic for the publication of the article and was awarded damages by the court since the court established that Ms. Skokandic "did not, as was implied in the title of the article, order that the books be burnt, but instead had them sent to the garbage dump".

In 2004 Feral Tribune sells about 30,000 copies per issue and boasts with almost fanatical readership in Croatia, abroad and all parts of the former Yugoslavia, readership that was prepared to pay court imposed fines and thereby save its magazine. Its editorial policy remains unpalatable for mainstream advertisers, which resulted in the demise of an attempt to publish a luxury color edition of the magazine. Instead, Feral Tribune is back to its original newspaper format, and continues publishing an on-line edition.

Messages of support or complaints can be addressed to the editorial board via e-mail: info@feral.hr

Contact information:
Address: Setaliste Bacvice 10, 21000 Split, Croatia
Phone: (021)488-949, (021)488-938
Fax: (021)488-941

Alerts issued by IFEX, the International Freedom of Expression eXchange, chronicled all the major clashes between Feral Tribune and Croatian government. Since the alerts are listed by the date, the best way to quickly obtain a listing is to run a Google search.

Finally, Feral has its official web edition: Feralweb. Exclusively in Croatian, it offers free access to several articles from the print edition, and access to the full edition to its subscribers. The site also offers information about subscription, magazine, books published by the magazine and more.

Political Satire from Feral, all of it in Croatian (it's very tough to translate!):

Od sredine Kolovoza 1998. satiricni clanci iz Ferala se mogu naci na Feralwebu.

CROind press
Last Update 8/31/2007