Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Croatia – History – 1918-1945 »

In collective human memory, there have always been years that are remembered for the major political and social changes that took place during them. Thus, 1918 and 1945 were the years when the two world wars ended, and their outcomes shaped the political architecture of the world for many years. We can consider 1989 another such historical year, because it marked the collapse of a decades-long bipolar political world order. In 1989, the democratisation process began in communist Croatia, during which Franjo Tuđman became the key personality of the newly established non-Communist opposition. Tuđman’s political ascent can today be reconstructed very easily with the help of the available documents from the former State Security Service of the Republican Secretariat of the Interior of the Socialist Republic of Croatia and the relevant literature. The main chronological divide in this paper is 17 June 1989, when the Croatian Democratic Union was established in a non-public space, and Franjo Tuđman was elected its first president.

This article focuses on the historiographical editions published by Matica Hrvatska from 1918 to the first half of the 1990s, which influenced the formation of Croatia’s intellectual and cultural identity over a period of almost a century. Historiographical editions have been chronologically divided into three significant periods of their publication, which correspond to important historical and political epochs: the first period being from the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the entry of the Croatian people into the first Yugoslav state in 1918 to the collapse of the Independent State of Croatia in 1945; the second from the establishment of the second Yugoslavia until its disintegration, from 1945 to 1989; and the third from the beginning of the democratic changes in 1990 and the creation of the present Croatian state. The article shows that the works published by Matica mirrored in many ways the political aspirations of each epoch, as has been amply documented in this article. The historiographical editions published by Matica Hrvatska during the 20th century undoubtedly reflect various political and social changes that influenced the publishing policy of this oldest Croatian cultural institution. Its publishing activity experienced a particular boom during the presidency of Filip Lukas between 1928 and 1945, which is certainly one of the most productive periods in the history of Matica in terms of publishing and of cultural promotion. Unlike the socialist period, when national themes were suppressed and avoided in a certain way, and there were almost no publications on local history, in the said period Matica not only focused on national history, but also printed numerous editions dealing with the local histories of individual Croatian cities and regions. The most serious crisis in Matica’s history came after World War II, when its publishing activities were suppressed, primarily because of its previous role in promoting Croatian nationalism. Its membership had given strong support to the establishment of the Croatian state in 1941, which in no way coincided with the overall direction of the cultural policy of the post-war communist regime. In this regard, the pinnacle was the eventual ban on Matica’s work, which came in 1972 because of its prominent role in the Croatian Spring during the 1960s, until the dismissal of the Croatian communist leadership in Karađorđevo in 1971. In such circumstances, Matica’s publishing activity barely managed to survive in the framework of Matica Hrvatska’s Publishing House. This institute pursued particularly extensive publishing activity in the years when the Yugoslav communist system began to disintegrate, in 1989-1990, when it also published the works of the former dissident and future Croatian President, Franjo Tuđman. In the aftermath of the establishment of a democratic Croatian state and with the renewal of Matica’s work, its publishing activity experienced a resurgence towards the end of the 20th century, when topics from national and local history were again in its focus, as well as the previously banned books of the emigration, now published in new, Croatian editions.

Benjamin Samokovlija (Sarajevo, 31.III.1918 - Skopje, 28.II.1996), comes from a Jewish family. On April 5, 1941 he was mobilized in the ranks of the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the second half of August 1941, Benjamin joined the ranks of the National Liberation Army and the People's Liberation Army. He took part in numerous battles in the anti-fascist war for the liberation of Yugoslavia. After the Fourth Enemy Offensive of the Supreme Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia which took place in the first half of 1943, Samokovlija together with part of his partisan unit were captured by the Germans and imprisoned in Zenica. After a month in the Zenica prison, a group of 600 prisoners, including Samokovlija, were transferred to the Thessaloniki concentration camp. In October 1943, through an EAM connection, Benjamin Samokovlija managed to escape and join ELAS. He remained in the ranks of the Greek partisans until the contact with the Macedonian partisans from the First Macedonian-Kosovo Brigade on the territory of the Aegean part of Macedonia in the period between the second half of December 1943 and January 1944. He was admitted to the III Battalion and was in charge of the agitprop of the battalion, from where he was later transferred to the ranks of the II, V and X brigades, acting as a battalion commissioner and participating in the battles for the liberation of Macedonia. At the very beginning of World War II in 1941, Benjamin Samokovlija lost many of his immediate family members, including his parents and wife. As direct witnesses to the measures taken for the physical and economic destruction of the Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the German occupying authorities, their collaborators and the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia, his three sisters joined the People's Liberation War. His eldest sister Laura was killed in 1945. Benjamin Samokovlija is the holder of several military and state decorations. During his tenure, he ran a number of state-owned enterprises. It is particularly important to emphasize that for less than two decades he served as President of the Jewish community in the Republic of Macedonia, building strong friendly relations with other religious communities in the country.

From its very establishment in 1918, the Yugoslav state strived to be the state of "reconciliation". That is why the crimes over Serbs perpetrated by Austria-Hungary were not largely emphasized in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Yugoslavia, particularly not the crimes by Croats in occupation units, but conscientious researchers have still left their testimonies about them (see Reiss, 2019). For the sake of "reconciliation", nothing was said about the genocide over the Serbian people in WW2 in the territory of the ISC. Because of the strategy of "keeping silent about the genocide", crucially and for years, in the name of brotherhood and unity of Yugoslav nations, the topic did not have its place in the primary and secondary school curricula; the genocide crime perpetrated over the Serbian people was not discussed in history textbooks; for decades, it was not the topic in literature, while historians did not research the genocide crime or wrote substantially about it. However, if several generations of the representatives of the historian profession have an "alibi" for such behaviour, the generation of those writing in Serbian culture today must also take an attitude towards that sensitive topic. "To speak up" about the genocide over the Serbian people in the 20th century primarily means to write critically about the past times, with no passion, rationally and based on historical sources, "the way it really occurred".

La première partie, préliminaire, esquisse la condition croate avant 1914 : l'origine des Croates ; la formation d'unités politiques indépendantes (IXes. ) ; le déclin du royaume médiéval croate et l'union à la couronne hongroise ; la conquête ottomane et l'association des Croates aux Habsbourg (XVe-XVIe s. ) ; l'articulation de deux idéologies nationales concurrentes (XIXe s. ), le croatisme et le yougoslavisme ; et enfin, les raisons de la victoire de ce drenier courant sur la scène politique croate à la veille de 1914. La deuxième partie, largement basée sur des archives françaises, analyse la période de 1914-1918 : l'action yougoslaviste des leaders croates exilés, notamment Supilo et Trumbić ; leur "coopération conflictuelle" avec le royaume serbe en vue de la formation d'un Etat sud-slave commun ; l'attitude des gouvernements alliés - spécialement le rôle décisif de la France - vis-à-vis de l'union projetée entre la Serbie et les pays sud-slaves habsbourgeois ; les raisons de la défaite de l'action de Trumbić et de l'avènement d'une Grande Serbie, déguisée en Royaume SHS, conformément aux désirs du président du Conseil du royaume serbe, Pas̆ić. .
The first part outlines the Croatian situation before 1914 : the origin of the Croats, the establisment of their first independent political units (9th cent. ), the decline of the medieval Croatian kingdom and its union with the Hungarian crown (12th cent. ) ; the ottoman conquest and the Croats' association with the Habsburgs (15th and 16th cent. ) ; the emergence of two competing national ideologies in the nineteenth cent. , i. E. Of "Croatism" and of "Yugoslavism" ; and the victory of the latter current on the Croatian political scene on the eve of WWI. The second part analyses the period of WWWI : the "yugoslavist" action of Croatian politicians in exile, notably of Supilo and Trumbić ; their "troublesome co-operation" with the Kingdom of Serbia aiming at establishing a common South Slav state ; the attitude of the allied governments towards the projected union between Serbia and the Habsburg South Slav lands, with special reference to the crucial role of France ; the reasons for Trumbić's defeat and the advent of a Greater Serbia disguised as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, in accordance with the wishes of Serbia's permier Pas̆ić. .

Defence date: 25 March 2010
Examining Board: Hannes Grandits (University of Graz) (external Co-Supervisor); James Hughes (LSE); Michael Keating (Supervisor); Friedrich V. Kratochwil (EUI).
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The subject of this thesis is the fundamental alteration of state allegiance, political claims and their respective legitimating arguments by political elites in Banal Croatia during the last ten years of the Habsburg Monarchy. The thesis has sought to make a contribution to the study of nationalism by conceptualising nationalist claims as an event that occurs within a specific temporal and geographical framework rather than as essential propositions derived from a static nationalist ideology. The analytical approach suggested by the thesis attempts to move beyond the main paradigmatic debates of the literature of nationalism studies by conducting a theoretically informed historical analysis that seeks to contextualise local events within the wider framework of the international order. The argument has been developed by following a chronological narrative that incorporates a comparative analysis of the main political parties and actors in the Croatian parliament between 1908 and 1918. The gradual erosion of allegiance to the Monarchy was a long and protracted process that saw the gradual abandonment of the concept of Croatian state right for the principle of ethno-national self-determination. But the main objectives of all variants of Croatian nationalism remained the reform of the constitutional arrangements in Austria-Hungary until almost the very end of its existence. It was only with the realisation that the Monarchy would cease to exist that the decision to accept unification with Serbia became an acceptable option. By showing how contingency and external events shape the preferences, claims and arguments of local elites, the argument hopes to highlight the need to focus on case studies that include the international dimension as an integral component of the field of nationalism studies. From a historiographical point of view, the emphasis on the lack of inevitability of outcomes hopes that this analysis will sit uncomfortably with the grand narratives that have emerged about the creation of the first Yugoslavia, be it those who see as inevitable and those who see it as inherently bound to fail from the outset.

Defence date: 27 January 2006
Examining board: Prof. Arfon Rees, Supervisor ; Prof. Laurence Fontaine (IUE) ; Prof. Robert Frank (Université de Paris I) ; Prof. Marta Petricioli (Università di Firenze)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017