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Post-Communism and Recent History: The Case of Croatia

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Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the Former Yugoslavia

Part of the book series: Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe ((MOMEIDSEE))

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Abstract

The chapter deals with an aspect of politicization of history through a review of the various metamorphoses of historiography during the transition period of post-Communist Croatian society. The politicization of history came to the fore in a uniquely dramatic and paradoxical manner in the most liberal Communist country, Yugoslavia. Due to complex historical circumstances, marked by many past controversies and the equally distressing recent history of the 1990s, post-Communist Croatia, a former Yugoslav republic, presents one of the most complicated cases of history shaping politics and vice versa. The inheritance of certain troublesome historical and cultural nemeses has imposed the phenomenon of an ever-present past: history is an important part of daily Croatian politics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Gross derived her hypothesis from the historiographic tradition that formed in Croatia in the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.

  2. 2.

    Despite different ideological premises, the overriding point of historical preoccupation, meaning interest and interpretation, in the modern world in general is national political history (the history of one or more peoples in a given territory).

  3. 3.

    Research into Croatian emigres by historians Ljubomir Antić and Ivan Čizmić can serve as examples.

  4. 4.

    For example, Miroslav Brandt, otherwise a lecturer on medieval history at the Faculty of Arts and Letters in Zagreb, often compared ideological projections into history. In a conversation with this author, he used motifs from ancient Egyptian history to indicate the ideological background of historical interpretation dependent on the system of social values. As the most important fact from the period of rule by Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton, Western historiography has emphasized the appearance of so-called solar monotheism (Aton), while Russian (Communist) historiography underlined the importance of the social upheavals of that era.

  5. 5.

    Given the exceptional importance the national problem had in the ongoing Yugoslav drama, it is essential to note that Greater Serbian nationalism (tied to the “anti-bureaucratic” revolution) chronologically preceded all the other nationalisms; the appearance of nationalism in Slovenia, Croatia, and elsewhere was in reaction to the actual Serbian threat. In Croatia, the most notable Communist authorities (S. Šuvar, D. Dragosavac, M. Planinc, Josip Vrhovac, and others) did not represent a “national” formation that could stand on the same footing as Milošević, because their political legitimacy was largely based on careers built by suppressing the Croatian national movement in 1971.

  6. 6.

    Examples of such tendencies are Katalinić (1993); Bakšić (1994); Beljo (1984). An identical tendency of anti-Communist and anti-Yugoslav works appeared in Serbia, e.g. Gligorijević (1991). In this latter book, arguments similar to those found in Croatian émigré literature are used to accuse the Partisans (Communists) of crimes against interned Serbian Quislings (“Kočevje became the site of massive violent death,” p. 185) and to embellish the Ravna Gora Chetnik movement, the movement’s central personality, Draža Mihailovic, and the Chetnik “duke” of the Chetnik Dinaric Division, Orthodox priest Momčilo Đujić, p. 63, 125.

  7. 7.

    Jasenovac was the concentration camp and the largest mass killing ground of the NDH during World War II, while Bleiburg is a place in Austria where Croatian and other collaborator units and fleeing civilians were turned over to Tito’s Partisans in 1945 by the British, which was followed by mass killings.

  8. 8.

    Due to the extensive number of titles representing the historical preoccupation, all (non-essential) bibliographic data has been omitted. Wider bibliographic data on such works are available at www.nsk.hr.

  9. 9.

    On the propaganda activity of the Croatian Information Center, see David Bruce MacDonald (2002, 102, 109, 113).

  10. 10.

    In 1992 the Croatian Information Center began to collect data on victims of war, forming a separate documentation unit to collect the testimony of victims of war crimes, which resulted in successful cooperation with the ICTY.

  11. 11.

    I am preparing a separate work that will analyze the social role of historians/politicians in Croatia in the 1990s. Such a research topic would be an interesting model for a more comprehensive comparative study that would encompass all transition countries.

  12. 12.

    Ingrao and Emmert (2009).

  13. 13.

    Citatation taken from the preparatory concept of the Scholar’s Initiative project: Resolving the Yugoslav Controversies.

  14. 14.

    See, for example, Biti and Ivić (2003) and Tatarin (2002).

  15. 15.

    Ivo Banac, Rat prije rata: raspad Jugoslavenske historiografije, Bosna Net Knjiga, www.bosnanet.org/archive.

  16. 16.

    The exhibitions were created with the participation of respected Croatian museum experts Nataša Mataušić, Rhea Ivanuš, Lucija Benyovsky, and others.

  17. 17.

    I believe that research into perceptions of events is crucial for research into the recent past. In an era of global communication, what people think (their perceptions) must develop parallel to research into what has really happened (establishing reliable statements on events). Both aspects reflect perspectives of the “historical truth” found in relation to mutual implications (G. Gurvitch).

  18. 18.

    Good examples of investigative journalism which prompted reaction in politics and the social sciences were the reports of D. Rohde and R. Gutman, which were followed by award-winning books: Rohde (1997); Gutman (1993). Gutman’s work is often cited in many scholarly studies dealing with the wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

  19. 19.

    See Pieter Lagrou, De l’actualité de l’histoire du temps présent, 15. 04. 2004., www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/dossier_htp/htp_PL.html.

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  1. Hrvataki institut za povijest, Zagreb, Croatia

    Albert Bing

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  1. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Gorana Ognjenovic

  2. Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Oslo, Norway

    Jasna Jozelic

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Bing, A. (2021). Post-Communism and Recent History: The Case of Croatia. In: Ognjenovic, G., Jozelic, J. (eds) Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the Former Yugoslavia. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65832-8_2

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