EUGEN KUMIČIĆ (Jenio Sisolski) was born 0n 11 January, 1850 at Brseč in Istria. He was the follower of A.Starčević and the leader and the vice-president of so called “pure party of justice”. For several years was the member of Croatian Parliament when he proved himself excellent orator and oponent of the Hungarian politics. He was the editor of journals published by his party, such as “Hrvatska vila” (Croatian Fairy) (1882-1883) and “Hrvatska” (Croatia) (1887-1888), where he published many of his literary and political articles.

He developed as a writer mostly due to his rural origin, and due to his being the follower of the party of justice that is openly reflected in his literary work. Owing to his essey “On novel” written under the influence of Emil Zola, at that time in Croatia he was considered the originator of naturalism in the Croatian literature.

He wrote novels, short stories, plays, articles and esseys. His novels and shorts stories usually fall in three groups:

The first group includes novels and stories (“Jelkin Bosiljak”/Jelka’s Basil, “Začuđeni Svatovi”/Astonished Wedding, “Sirota”/The Poor Woman and other works) in which he gives a romantic presentation of the life of Istrian people, first of all of fishermen, sailors and peasants.

The second group includes so called urban novels (“Olga and Lina”, “Gospođa Sabina”/Mrs.Sabina) in which strong influence of naturalism can be noticed.

The third group includes historical novels (“Urota Zrinsko-Frankopanska”/The Conspiracy of Zrinski and Frankopans and “Kraljica Lepa”/The Queen Lepa”.