Biography
Branko Hećimović was born in 1934 in Zagreb. In 1958 he took a degree from the Zagreb Faculty of Philosophy in Croatian language and Yugoslav literature. He took a doctorate in 1965, with a dissertation on Croatian dramatic literature between the two wars. He was head of the drama studio and editor of the art programme of Radio Zagreb up to 1972.
From 1972 to 1977 he was subject editor in Školska knjiga, and from 1977 worked in the Literature and Theatre Studies Institute of the Croatian/Yugoslav Academy, and was appointed head of the Institute in 1990. He was the initiator and president of the theatre and theatre studies event Krleža Days in Osijek. He has always dealt with lexicographic work, and is one of the chief associates of the Croatian National Theatre Encyclopaedia. For several years he was a member of the editorial board of the series of books Five Centuries of Croatian Literature. In 1980 he was elected an associate fellow of the Croatian Academy. He took part in many scholarly and professional symposia, is the author of several drama anthologies, theatre reviews, essays, articles and columns about recent theatre issues.
He wrote seven books of his own, complied seven anthologies, tens of collective works and wrote a great many scholarly papers. During his work he particularly championed the cause of the documentary holdings of the Theatre Collection taking on national dimensions, that is, that the material from all the areas of Croatia should be listed, collected and put in order, as well as material about all theatre people, particularly playwrights.
He authored many theatre exhibitions included: Exhibition about Krleža; Šenoa Family and the Croatian National Theatre; Dance Theatre Today/ Thirty Years of Dance History in Germany; Statesman and Playwright Vaclav Havel; Slovene Theatre Posters; Tito Strozzi; and others. He was a member of many juries for literature, theatre work and radio drama, and took part in the work of numbers of symposia.
He lectured at the Slavonic Studies School in Dubrovnik and in the chair of Croatian theatre studies at the Academy for Theatre, Film and Television. For his work, he was awarded, among other things, the Bartol Kašic Prize for Scholarly Work; the Marko Fotez Prize; the Order of the Croatian Daystar with the Figure of Marko Marulić.
NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on December 13, 2002.
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Selected bibliography
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