Slavko Juraga
In a fictional Central European country democracy and freedom are only illusion, because behind polished surface there's many cases of murders and manipulations with the people. Police and city authorities are helpless when it comes to revealing the evil and culprits behind it. In the center of this story is the writer Ivan Gajski, whose friend died under sketchy circumstances. Gajski reveals that those who most advocate democracy are not only the same involved in these crimes, but they also did some of the murders as a part of TV production. Gajski meets all kinds of characters through this quest of his, including the woman of his wife Sara, and professor Bošković who discovers the origins of present Evil - the dark past of European continent.
Destinies of few people from Dubrovnik, as well as Croatian fighters against Yugoslav People's Army in the battle of Srdj, mountain behind the town's walls.
A German family Keller arrives to the coastal village to spend summer holidays with their Croatian friends. Horst Keller and Roger Katushic were friends ever since Karl May's film adaptations took place there. Their children were friends for years, too, and they look forward to the reunion. Fantasizing about free life and "cowboys & Indians" adventures in the canyon of the Cetina river, the boys go there without knowing that the three cruel Chetniks who had just escaped from prison hide there.
When a train carrying atomic warheads mysteriously crashes in the former Soviet Union, a nuclear specialist discovers the accident is really part of a plot to cover up the theft of the weapons. Assigned to help her recover the missing bombs is a crack Special Forces Colonel.
Matija Remetin is young man who is studying drama in Zagreb just before the outbreak of WW2. He rents the room at Marija Slajner, widow who's three previous tennants had commited suicide. Remetin begins to notice beautiful and mysterious girl on the other side of street and begins calling her Nausikaja.
At the end of 1991, a prisoner Ivan escapes from Serbian camp. He finds a hideout in the property of a wealthy Serbian landowner Stevan, who eventually finds him and offers him two choices - to submit him to the authorities, or to make Ivan work for him. Ivan accepts the latter and while staying on the farm he gradually introduces the landowner's deranged family. He also meets his daughter-in-law Anica, a beautiful Croatian woman married to landowner's bloodthirsty son who fights in Croatia. A secret love affair is being developed between the two Croats.
A young man is determined to find out what happened to his grandfather who was arrested and then disappeared in WW2, why did the new communist government label their family as traitors and why was his father killed many years later.
The US Army has decided to modernize its cavalry, so Colonel James E. Devers is ordered by a general to convert a horse unit to motorcycles, but his men are easily outclassed as riders by a pack of rowdies, especially Grady Westfall; when he is arrested risking a long jail term, he's given one way out: enlisting as Corporal, assigned as driving instructor. Unit commander Captain Jack Hassler reviles his unorthodox boyish methods as undermining discipline and tradition, not to mention flirting with the Colonels daughter Beryl Ann, but he's needed, especially when his unit is deployed on a secret mission in Spain.
A young officer, after finishing the Military Academy as the best in his class, suddenly and with no visible reason, leaves his home town, girl, parents, safety and eventual career and leaves to a remote provincial town to find and create his life and destiny. The story of a lonely man without illusions and bitterness, who collects simple pieces of sense, humanity and love through his actions.
The story begins in a small rural village in Ladimirevci, Eastern Croatia in 1943, where a land owner Sima is helping the Partisan Movement and the official Ustasha regime in order to save the life of his son Beneš, who is enlisted in the German army. Sima doesn't want to let his son fight for the wrong side any more, and doesn't want to give him to the Partisans either, so he hides him in his attic for the time being. The story is interwoven with episodes of Sima trying to muster a beautiful stallion - Sokol - who only answers to his son Beneš and clearly doesn't like his old man.
It is 1945 in Zagreb, and everyone is settling into the new regime following the disturbances of the war. Matilda is a wealthy widow of a war hero and has an apartment so spacious that she is required to take a boarder. Fortunately for her, the handsome young Lt. Horvat, the communist housing officer, has taken a fancy to her and has assigned his fiancee to be Matilda's new roommate. Where Matilda is soft and rounded, Lilijana is hard, skinny, and given to revolutionary pronouncements rather than tender endearments. The lieutenant loves them both, though he naturally finds Matilda more attractive. His situation is simplified when Lilijana, though pregnant, is transferred to another post. However, his commander is horrified that he has a lover in addition to his fiancee and demands that he choose whether to continue his career or continue his affair.
It’s the winter of 1942. A freight train on the section of the Slavonian railway Vinkovci-Nova Gradiska is under a special Gestapo escort. Fleeing misfortune and evil brought by war, the last wagon is the place of encounter of politicians, war smugglers, deserters and tamburitza players.
