Propast svijeta

The End of the World by Camille Flammarion is the first part of a comprehensive futuristic novel that depicts the apocalypse not as a sudden catastrophe, but as a long-term process that unfolds over millennia. Flammarion, a famous French astronomer and popularizer of science, starts from the scientific knowledge of the time about the development of the solar system and imagines the future of humanity faced with inevitable cosmic changes.

The novel centers on the consequences of the passage of a great comet, which causes enormous disruptions on Earth and marks the beginning of a new era in human history. After the initial catastrophe, humanity does not disappear, but adapts to new circumstances. Science, technology, and social relations develop, while civilization changes constantly over many centuries. Flammarion follows this development through a series of generations, showing how man's view of the world, religion, science, and his own future is gradually transformed.

The first part of the novel focuses primarily on the turning point in which the old world disappears and the new one is just emerging. The author combines scientific speculation with philosophical reflections on the transience of civilizations, the limits of human progress, and man's place in the universe. Instead of a classic plot with a single main character, the work presents a broad panorama of future events and ideas.

The novel is among the earliest works of European science fiction that consider the distant future of humanity on geological and astronomical time scales. The Second Part, published in Croatian in 1920 under the title The Last Days of Man, continues this vision and depicts the final stages of the development of the human species and the final approach of the end of life on Earth.

The cover of the Croatian edition of The Doom of the World was designed by Croatian painter and graphic artist Ljubo Babić, using an expressive flame motif. The illustrations in the book are taken from the original French edition, which was equipped with illustrations by academic painter Jean-Paul Laurens and collaborators, and visually follow Flammarion's cosmic vision of the future and the fall of civilization.