Ljubavnici i luđaci

Julienne Bušić's novel Lovers and Madmen is an exceptionally layered, emotionally charged and documentary-worthy work that functions simultaneously as a moving, almost cinematic love story and as a harrowing testimony to the cruel underside of political extremism and the struggle of emigrants.

The plot begins idyllically, with the meeting of the young, free-spirited American Julienne Schultz and the charismatic Croatian emigrant Zvonko Bušić in Vienna in the 1960s. Their romance quickly turns into an obsessive, fatal symbiosis in which personal feelings are completely subordinated to a higher idea – the struggle for a free and independent Croatia. The author describes without reservation the psychological dynamics of this relationship, where the boundaries between intimate love and political fanaticism are soon completely erased, which gives the book's title its full and ambiguous meaning.

As the plot progresses, the couple's life turns into a continuous flight, accompanied by constant paranoia, recruitment and threats from the Yugoslav UDBA, which brings them to the brink of existence. The culmination of the novel depicts the preparation and execution of a desperate act – the hijacking of an American passenger plane in 1976. Although their intention was not to harm the passengers, but solely to throw a global media spotlight on the aspirations of the oppressed Croatian people and distribute a political manifesto, the action ends with a dramatic development of events, surrender to the police and a fateful court epilogue.

The greatest value of the second part of the book lies in the authentic, stripped-down depiction of prison life and the long-term imprisonment that Julienne served in American federal institutions. She skillfully dissects her own psychological breakdowns, feelings of guilt, isolation, but also internal transformation. Using excerpts from actual letters, court documents, and her own writings, the author offers neither superficial political rehabilitation nor justification, but a profound human study of the price an individual pays when he uncompromisingly sacrifices his own life in the service of a higher historical vision.