Dragutin J. Ilić: A Million Years After (1889/2016) [Serbian, English]

Dragutin J. Ilić (1858, Belgrade – 1926, Belgrade), the son of poet Jova Ilić, and the older brother of poet Vojislav Ilić, wrote poems, short stories, travelogues, critiques, and thirteen theatre plays. One of them, A Million Years After (1889), is one of the earliest science fiction plays to be written.

In it, the last two members of the old human species spend their last days on Earth, being persecuted by a new species for which they are no more than scientific material. The new species forms the “Spirit-world” and knows no feelings, emotions or passion. The work thematises the encounters with extraterrestrial civilizations, space travel and planetary colonisation.

The author and his work had been ignored and virtually forgotten until the mid-1980s. In 1988, Sava Damianov prepared a facsimile edition of Posle milijon godina [A Million Years After], and in 1995, the play was premiered at the National Theatre in Belgrade, directed by Saša Latinović. In 2008, the digital edition of the play appeared online. This translation is the result of a workshop organized in 2014.

Originally published as После милијон година in the journal Јавор, 1889.

Translated by Marko Đurišić, et al.
Edited by Zorica Đergović-Joksimović
With an Introduction by Bojan Jović
Publisher Institute for Literature and Art, Belgrade, and University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, 2016
Open access
ISBN 9788660653521
67 pages

Commentary: Zoran Živković (Serbian, 1990), Nemanja Radulović (Serbian, 2007).

Publisher (IKUM)
Publisher (FF UNS)

После милијон година (Serbian, 1889/1988/2008, HTML)
A Million Years After (English, 2016, PDF, PDF)