Slobodan Šnajder (born July 8, 1948) is a Croatian writer and publicist. Šnajder was born in Zagreb, where graduated in philosophy and English studies from the Faculty of Philosophy. He was co-founder and editor of the theatre journal Prolog as well as editor of the edition published by Cekade. His short stories, essays and plays were published since 1966. From January to June 1993, he was a columnist in daily newspaper Glas Slavonije (Početnica za melankolike), and, since January 1994, in daily newspaper Novi list. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the left-wing magazine Novi Plamen. The Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb (HNK) has already staged the two of his plays, Kamov, smrtopis (Kamov, the Necrography) (1978) and Držićev san (Dream of Držić) (1980), both produced by Ljubiša Ristić. Kamov, smrtopis was staged in March 2003 by the Zagreb Youths’ Theatre (ZKM) in the production of Branko Brezovec. A play about Josip Broz Tito, The Bones in Stone, was staged in March 2007 at the National Theatre of Bitola, Republic of Macedonia, directed by Branko Brezovec. During the 1990s – the Franjo Tudjman decade – Šnajder was excluded from the Croatian theatres and his plays were not staged. However, the political suspension did not apply to Europe, so many of his texts were staged in this period: Hrvatski Faust (Croatian Faust) (among other theatres, at the Viennese Burgtheater, and at Theater an den Ruhr directed by Roberto Ciulli); Zmijin svlak (Snakeskin, staged in Tübingen, Mülheim, Frankfurt/Main, Veroli/Rome, Oslo, Kopenhagen, Vienna, Krakow, Dublin, Warsaw, Belgrade); Utjeha sjevernih mora (Comfort of the Northern Seas) (Frankfurt (Oder)); Nevjesta od vjetra (Bride of the Wind) was premièred as a play at the Schauspielhaus Bochum in 1998, produced by Werner Schroeter; The Fifth Gospel, the play about Ustaše concentration camp Stara Gradiška, directed by Branko Brezovec, 2004, Kampnagel, Hamburg, and ZKM, Zagreb. For the last sixteen years, he has been writing political columns, symbolically entitled Opasne veze (Les Liaisons dangereuses), in the daily newspaper published in Rijeka – Novi list. The selection covering the columns written until 1999 was published in the book Kardinalna greška (Cardinal Mistake), while the ones published from 1999 to mid-2004 were collected in another book – Umrijeti pod zvijezdom (To Die Under the Star). His columns, just as his plays, have their advocates and opponents, as well, both today and as it used to be in the 1990s.
Pronounced for Doctor Honoris Causa of University of audiovisual arts ESRA on 16.03.2012