ACS Bulletin 54

ISSUE No. 54

Spring 2010

IN THIS ISSUE News from the President............... …1 ACS Meeting and Dinner............. …1 Panel Summaries…………………1-4 Convention 2010...........................5 ACS Members & Friends...........5-8 In Memoriam……………….........8 Books & Reviews...…….….....8-12 Membership Dues…..……….….12

ASSOCIATION FOR CROATIAN STUDIES The ACS is a professional organization dedicated to the advancement of scholarly studies related to Croatia and the Croatians. The ACS was founded in 1977 and it is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS).

Officers: Aida Vidan—President Jasna Meyer—Vice-President Gordan Matas—Vice-President Ivan Runac—Secretary Ellen Elias-Bursac—Secretary/Treasurer Bulletin Editor: Nancy Crenshaw

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SLAVIC STUDIES The ASEES (AAASS) represents scholarship in the field of Russian, Central Eurasian, Central and East European studies. The association has twenty-eight affiliates that are concerned with particular topics, areas, or peoples within the field. The AAASS publishes the quarterly journal Slavic Review. http://www.aaass.org

Dear ACS members, It was a pleasure to see many of our members at the annual AAASS convention in Boston last November, where they presented on a variety of topics pertaining to Croatian literature, language, film, history, politics, and intellectual life in general. Despite difficult economic times, which have made traveling more complicated, we had a broad representation and a good selection of excellent papers.

During our business meeting we discussed several issues relevant to our future activities, among them the question of an official scholarly publication.

A unanimous conclusion was reached concerning joining efforts with the Croatian Academy of America, and to that effect I will be meeting with that organization’s executive board later this spring. We all hope this will mark the beginning of a long and productive collaboration. We will also discuss options for making the content of old issues of Journal for Croatian Studies available online.

A part of our business meeting was devoted to our principal activity, the organization of panels and round tables for the AAASS convention. Some of the ideas initiated during the meeting (and the dinner that followed in a nearby restaurant) resulted in many fine proposals, and we are currently awaiting their approval.

In a general effort to be environmentally conscious, as well as to save our resources, please let us know if you would prefer to receive our Bulletin in electronic form only. From this issue on we will feature a new column dealing

with useful websites pertaining to Croatian culture, history, and politics. Please forward to us your web discoveries with a brief explanation stating why or in which ways you have found the site(s) useful. The Web is a vast resource, but useful information can sometimes be hidden from plain view. We hope these practical pieces of information will facilitate your research, teaching, or simply your discovery of things Croatian.

With best wishes for a productive spring and relaxing summer, Aida Vidan 2009 ACS ANNUAL MEETING/DINNER The meeting was held at 7:00 p.m. in the Marriot Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting opened with remarks by President Aida Vidan who spoke about the history of the Association. She announced the Bulletin would soon be on our Web site.

Our President has been talking with the Croatian Academy about working more closely together and having the Journal of Croatian Studies serve as the official journal of our Association. Almost all of the other associations under the AAASS umbrella have a scholarly outlet. The Journal would be the ideal place to publish some of the fine papers that are read at our panels.

Elinor Murray Despalatovic resigned from the position of Secretary/Treasurer. Ellen EliasBursac will replace her.

After the President’s remarks, everyone present was asked to

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introduce themselves and say a few words about their work.

The Meeting concluded with a brief discussion of possible panels for the 2010 AAASS Convention, to be held in Los Angeles.

The meeting was adjourned for dinner at the Fairmont Copley Plaza.

Elinor Murray Despalatovic PANEL SUMMARIES Panel: Dubravka Ugrešić Mark Baskin opened with a few remarks as chair, pointing out that three of the participants in the panel had appeared as characters in D. Ugrešić’s writing, including himself.

J. Lukić’s paper, ―From an Exile to a Transnational Migrant,‖ traces Ugrešić’s evolution as a writer from Have a Nice Day, still located in the worlds, which have already started to disintegrate, and Nobody’s Home, which is about migration and transnationalism and minor literature, and Ugrešić’s treatment of identity in the context of transnationalism.

In her paper ―Attack on 'Fortress Europe': Post-Communism and the European Union in Recent Texts‖ by Dubravka Ugrešić, Nataša Kovaĉević also looks at the increased focus on the transnational in Ugrešić’s writing, as articulated in Nobody’s Home and the novel Ministry of Pain, focusing on Ugrešić’s treatment of the political in the context of European ―identity.‖ Maša Grdešić was unable to attend so Sibelan Forrester generously offered to join the panel in an informal capacity with some remarks, raising, among other things, the question of the ―father‖ in Ugrešić’s writing in contrast to the ―mother,‖ remarking on the dynamic of the way Ugrešić related, through her writing, to her Zagreb colleagues.

Goce Smilevski sent his comments to be read, as he was unable to attend. In them he described what it was like as a member of the younger generation to discover the writing of Dubravka Ugrešić after 1990. The other discussants got the discussion going with the lively and attentive audience of 30. There were many points made. It was a broadly held consensus that the novel Museum

of Unconditional Surrender is one of the masterpieces of late 20th century literature.

Intellectuals, Church and State in Late 19th-Century Croatia "All for Faith, Fatherland and Freedom: The Rise and Fall of Liberal Catholicism in Croatia" presented by William B. Tomljanovich.

In the middle of the 19th century, Croatia had a peculiarly high number of Catholic clergy among its nationalists and liberals, most notably the Bishop of Djakovo and National Party leader Josip Juraj Strossmayer (1815-1905). This peaked in the period between the reopening of constitutional politics in Austria 1860 and the great crash of 1873. At this time, the Croatian clergy took much of the role of the professional middle class elsewhere in national and liberal movements, as the liberal priesthood centered their activities around the National Party and their newspapers (Pozor / Obzor), despite vocal opposition to this from Cardinal Archbishop Juraj Haulik. The clerical presence in national and liberal circles declined due to mainly external factors, including the campaign of Pius IX—which culminated in the Vatican Council, the drop in status of the priesthood, the increasingly secularizing policy of Croatian liberals not directly affiliated with the Church (in particular the Croatian School Law of 1874). Finally, the Croatian clergy itself, under the leadership of Archbishop Josip Stadler became more and more identified with an illiberal "clericalism," although this examination shows this was more the product of a change in the content of liberalism rather than a shift in the views of the Croatian priesthood.

Summary of Ellen Elias-Bursac's paper: In his juxtaposition of Kaptol and Griĉ in the novels Zlatarovo Zlato [Goldsmith’s Gold] and Kletva [The Curse], Šenoa unambiguously lays out an anti-clerical world view which equates the Catholic Church with

corruption and betrayal of the Croatian national movement, and situates spirituality and true piety in Griĉ, rather than Kaptol. In The Curse, Šenoa’s last novel which he was writing at his death in 1881, situated in the late 14th century, he takes to the point of caricature the divide between what he perceives as the good piety, with its focus on the Croatian national cause, and the evil manipulation of the internationally oriented Catholic Church, by contrasting the renegade bishop of Zagreb who dedicates himself to keeping the Croatian nobility united in their fight against imperial domination with the ensconced bishop who is interested only in amassing his personal fortune. With the exception of Nada Klaić, critics have drawn almost no attention over the last hundred years to the anti-clericalist dimension in Šenoa’s novels. ―Autobiography, Prosopography and Identity: Serbian Elite, Church and State in Late 19th Century Croatia‖ was presented by the historian Nives Rumenjak (University of Pittsburgh) in the panel ―Intellectuals, Church and State in Late 19th-Century Croatia‖, organized

by Dr. Ellen Elias-Bursac.

Dr. Rumenjak’s paper concentrated on three issues. The first issue was her new historical method of complementary biographies in ethnicity and identity research, developed through the extensive study of Serbian minority in Croatia and Austro-Hungary. Secondly, based on her prosopography (collective biography) of Serbs in the Croatian Diet and the Serbian Orthodox Church-School Congress at the turn of the 20th century, she discussed the relation of the Serbian progovernmental elite, the Orthodox Church, and Austro-Hungarian state, and focused on Bude Budisavljevic of Prijedor, the most influential Serbian intellectual, politician, and writer in Croatia in that period. The third issue was Dr. Rumenjak’s examination of Budisavljević’s private identity in relation to church and state, mainly

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based on Budisavljevic’s heretofore almost unknown autobiographical autograph ―Memories of My Life‖ (―Pomenci iz moga ţivota‖), a document which has extraordinary historical and cultural significance.

Combining the prosopographical and autobiographical research on Serbian collective identities in relation to church and state, particularly within the under-researched individual and private discourses of the Serbian progovernmental elite, her method of complementary biographies resulted in several important outcomes. One of the more notable findings includes a lack of broader Serbian national identification among middle and higher social layers of the Orthodox ethnicity in the Lika-Krbava region before the 1880s. Furthermore, the autobiographical research clearly shows that Budisavljevic, the native born Likaner from Bjelopolje near Korenica, possessed both Croatian and Serbian identities, which confirms scholarly neglected existence of transnational identities among elite groups in modern history.

Finally, Dr. Rumenjak’s prospographical research reveals that the relationship between the Magyar government, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian bureaucracy in Croatia from the 1880s onward, became crucial in blocking the nationalization and modernization of reintegrated civil and military Croatia.

That equally affected the Croatian and Serbian middle-class as the main holders of modernization. Dr. Rumenjak concluded that the Serbian Orthodox Church and the institution of church-school autonomy, up until the beginning of the 20th century, played both within the oppositional and the pro-governmental Serbian politics in Croatia the potential role in the attempt to integrate, nationally and politically, Serbian ethnicity in Croatia and Hungary.

The panel ―Subversive Biographies of the Croatian Renaissance‖ was chaired by Anita Peti-Stantić

(University of Zagreb) and the discussant was Ivo Šoljan (Grand Valley State University). The first paper was by Marijan Despalatović (Connecticut College) who discussed ―Marcus Marulus Spalatensis: Humanist and Practical Moralist.‖ Despalatović stressed that Marko Marulić’s writings run along two parallel and, as far as the Christian doctrine is concerned, sometimes irreconcilable lines. A Christian lives in an inimical world fraught with temptation and outright mortal danger.

He is a man of faith and a citizen, his loyalty is to the distant ionic centre of his faith, Rome, and to his native city and land, especially when both are endangered, the first by worldly preoccupations, corruption, and indifference, the second by brachial force, in the case of Split by the flood of Ottoman conquest. Marulić drew moral lessons for his compatriots in ―De Institutione,‖ and looked at his world in ―Judita,‖ the story of the brave widow who killed Holofernes in order to save her people. ―De Institutione‖ was an early example of ―devotio moderna,‖ works intended for laymen and based upon a novel, humanistic reading of classical theological texts in order that ―studia humanitatis‖ may be joined to ―studia divinitatis.‖ ―Judita‖ was ―u uersih haruacchi slosena,‖ about a Biblical heroine and meant to awaken the conscience of his people and sustain their spirit. ―De Institutione‖ was found to be doctrinally suspect by the Office of the Holy Inquisition in 1612 and placed on ―index librorum prohibitorum et expurgatorum.‖ ―Judita‖ escaped the eyes of Rome, probably because it was written in Croatian.

The second presentation, by Aida Vidan (Harvard University) was on ―Marin Drţić and Refracted Mythology: Prologue as a Subversive Genre.‖ Vidan focused on Drţić’s most famous play, Dundo Maroje (Uncle Maroje), which was first performed during the carnival season of 1551, and in particular on its first prologue. Despite its roots in the classical comedy of Plautus and Terence, the prologue in the renaissance acquired a somewhat different role. While in classical

authors its principal function was that of an antefatto or exposition, or a settling of accounts with critics, in the renaissance the prologue opened up more directly towards the audience by means of a direct address and an attempt to ground the subsequent play in a contemporary context. Writing in the vein of commedia erudita, Drţić wants his audience to believe that the prologue itself and its function as a commentary on current affairs is in fact superior to the dramatic function itself. The prologue is spoken by the magician Long Nose (Negromant Dugi Nos), and in it he depicts the lands of the Great and Small Indies, of New and Old Indies, which are inhabited by all kinds of grotesquelooking creatures. Why did Drţić choose the faraway lands of the Indies bizarre looking animals as a way to comment on Dubrovnik’s political circumstances? Vidan proposes that in order to fully understand the implications of the first prologue one must seek answers in another genre, that of the framed short story, specifically collections such as those by the Italian authors Morlini, Straparola, Firenzuola, Doni, and Basile, all of which seem to have roots (either structurally or thematically) in the Panćatantra, a fourth-century Indian collection of oral tales. Reading the prologue in this context, as well as in light of Jean Dayre’s 1930 discovery of Drţić letters to Cosimo de’ Medici, provides a pungent commentary on the playwright’s attempt to overturn Dubrovnik’s government. It seems likely that the grotesque animals from the magician’s speech in the first prologue to Dundo Maroje, and the mention of Great, Small, New and Old Indies are not coincidental, but rather that their evocation is part of a deliberate and finely calibrated design to criticize political practices in Dubrovnik, since the animals in the Indian collection have an unmistakably didactic role: to teach future kings, in Pomet’s words, how to rule in the world.

The third paper, ―Plautina et Darsiana: A Theft Duly Acknowledged,‖ was read by the discussant on behalf of Lada Ĉale Feldman (University of Zagreb). She

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opened her paper with Drţić’s quote in which, as if anticipating later criticism, he proudly proclaimed his Miser to have been ―entirely stolen from a book more ancient than ancient age is--from Plautus.‖ Plautus was a cornerstone of Italian commedia erudita and comic theory, but Drţić must also have had an unmediated contact with the works of the ancient master of comedy, for already in 1525 a troupe of amateur players was accorded permission by the Ragusan Little Council to perform unknown Plautine comedies in Dţivo Volĉić's house. Plautina, Ĉale Feldman argues, did not bring with it merely a few dismissible, empty ―patterns,‖ as Drţić's critics would have us believe—that is, comic types, motives and lines of action—but rather a far more sophisticated linguistic, dramaturgical and psychoanthropological universe whose realization on local soil meant much more than simply following a literary fashion: it placed Drţić squarely on one of the two major sides of a lively debate in renaissance and baroque Europe concerning comedy. His works defy attempts to see in him either a plagiarizer of Italian models, or a naturalistic painter of everyday life in Dubrovnik, or a political cryptographer, or a hypnotized transcriber of his own unconscious anxieties. Drţić chose precisely those procedures that have little or nothing to do with the ―imitation of ordinary life‖ and everything to do with the idea of the play as an artificial construct following the logic of a saturnalian game or fantasy, rather than that of reality—an idea we are reminded of during the course of each of his plays.

John P. Kraljic presented on the panel The King’s Testament—The 80th Anniversary of the Royal Dictatorship of King Aleksandar I of Yugoslavia 1929–2009 where he read the paper entitled ―The Communist Party of Yugoslavia and King Aleksandar’s Dictatorship—The Tasks of the Party.‖ The abstract is found below. Other participants included the chair Michael Eoghan Allen, George Mason U; Mario Jareb, Croatian Inst, of History (Croatia)

who spoke on ―How to Create a Dinaroid Uebermensch or the Ideology of King Aleksandar’s Dictatorship;‖ and Hrvoje Ĉapo, Croatian Inst. of History (Croatia) with the paper ―King to the Army’s Taste: The Influence of Military Circles on the Dictatorship of Aleksandar KarĊorĊević I.‖ The discussant was John Paul Newman, U College Dublin (Ireland).

In his paper, Mr. Kraljic examined the ideological positions of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) during the period of 19291934. The years of King Aleksandar’s Dictatorship neatly coincide with the so-called ―Third Period‖ which the Communist International (Comintern) predicted would see capitalism’s entry into an acute crisis, requiring Communist Parties to engage in revolutionary action while attacking other leftist parties.

The CPY’s implementation of this policy at its 1928 Dresden Congress led to the takeover of the Party by a left-leaning ―anti-factional‖ leadership led by Djuro Djakovic. This led to a schism in the Serbian Party, where most members sought to work with the Socialists and to use any opportunity provided by the Dictatorship to engage in union activities. The CPY continued to fight ―internal‖ ideological enemies during the early 1930s, engaging in attacks against, among others, former leader Sima Marković and Dalmatian Party leader Vicko Jelaska.

The paper continues with a discussion of the ―tasks of the Party‖ as outlined by Party leaders at the time.

These included the establishment of a ―worker-peasant government,‖ reflecting the Comintern’s assessment of Yugoslavia as being in the ―medium stage‖ of capitalist development where ―bourgeois-democratic reforms have not yet been completed‖ which could require a two stage, bourgeois and proletarian revolution, though subsequent directives noted the latter would occur immediately after the

former. This analysis led the CPY to wind itself into a pretzel, finding predominately agrarian Serbia ready for an immediate socialist revolution while more economically advanced Croatia had to first resolve its national question. The CPY made further questionable analyses by labeling the Dictatorship as a ―fascist‖ one. The author noted the CPY’s then support for the break-up of Yugoslavia did not remain unconditional, but had only been taken as being the ―correct‖ line during ―this period‖ of capitalist development. Thus, though Marx and Engels labeled the Croats’ desires for political emancipation in 1848 as being anti-revolutionary, Croatian Party leader Kamilo Horvatin argued changing times caused the Croats to become a ―suppressed nation‖ whose ―national-liberation movement . . .directed against Versailles Yugoslavia . . . objectively has an anti-imperialist character‖ which can only benefit the revolution. While the CPY cheered the 1932 Lika uprising, the Party warned against supporting Ante Pavelić who led ―nationalfascists.‖ The Party also condemned the November 1932 Zagrebačke punktakcije, describing it as Vladko Maĉek’s attempt to reach a ―counterrevolutionary agreement‖ with Serbian imperialism’s ―democratic wing.‖ These positions did not stop Party members from actively applying its ―United Front from below‖ tactics to reach out to lower ranking members of the HSS and Ustashe. In that connection, the Party established the Croatian National Revolutionary Group (former HSS member Ljudevit Keţman acted as nominal editor of its paper, Hrvatski put), but this organization had little influence among nationalist Croats. The author further discussed the CPY’s continued agitation for the violent overthrow of the capitalist social order, though it warned Party members against ―ultraleftist deviations‖ which ―can appear in attempts to turn the Party into a

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terrorist group, in individual actions, in primitive heroism.‖ The author concludes that, while the CPY clearly had no positions independent of those of the Comintern, from a practical perspective, the Dictatorship forced Party members to strengthen intraParty ties at the expense of ties to Moscow.

AAASS 2010 CONVENTION The 42nd National Convention of the Association will be held in Los Angeles, California, from Thursday, November 18, to Sunday, November 21, 2010 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites. The theme of the 2010 convention is ―War and Peace.‖

MEMBERS & FRIENDS New member Nives Rumenjak, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar, University of Pittsburgh, 2008-2011. Dr. Nives Rumenjak holds a Ph. D. in History from the University of Zagreb. For more than ten years, Dr. Rumenjak worked at the Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb, where she attained the position of Post-doctoral Fellow and completed her research on Serbian ethnicity and modernization in the Habsburg Empire. Dr. Rumenjak's area of expertise is prosopography of the Serbian political, economic and cultural elite in late 19th century Croatia, on which she has published two single-author books.

Since September 2008, Dr. Rumenjak is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, affiliated with the Center for Russian and East European Studies. In February and December 2009, CREES invited her to deliver two lectures on the subjects, ―Power of Economic Nationalism: Golden Age of Serbs

in Croatia in the Early 20th Century‖ and ―Producing Ethnic Identity and Enemies in a Multinational State: Political Cartoons and Auto Stereotypes Among the Serbian Minority in the Habsburg Empire.‖ At the National Convention in Boston she presented the paper ―Autobiography, Prosopography and Identity: Serbian Elite, Church and State in Late 19th Century Croatia.‖ While furthering her historical-biographical studies in ethnicities and modern identities in 19th century Croatia, she proposed the panel ―Military Society in War and Peace: Cultural Identifiers in the Croatian Military Frontier‖ for the 42nd AAASS Convention in Los Angeles.

Currently Dr. Rumenjak enjoys participating within Pitt’s academic community and intensively prepares several articles on prosopographical method and on ethnicity and nationalism in modern Croatian history to be published in American, British and Croatian journals and anthology. Most recently, in 2009, Dr. Rumenjak published her article, "Poĉeci Privrednika: u okrilju Matijevića i Srpske banke u Zagrebu" in the anthology on history of the Serbian economic society ―Privrednik‖ in Zagreb.

information about the conference, email erstic@fk615.uni-siegen.de.

July 22 Prof. Dr. Ludwig Steindorff (Kiel): Jugoslawischer Nachfolgekrieg – historischer Überblick Dr. Dunja Melĉić (Frankfurt a.M.) Politische Medien und Jugoslawischer Nachfolgekrieg OStR Tihomir Glowatzky (Bamberg) Nedjeljko Fabrio: Triemeron July 23 Prof. Dr. Elisabeth von Erdmann (Bamberg) Vergewaltung-Strafe.

Zur Selbstwahrnehmung vergewaltigter Frauen im Kontext des Islam Prof. Dr. Slavija Kabić (Zadar) Slavenka Drakulic: Als gäbe es mich nicht Prof. Dr. Susanne Regener (Siegen) Esmas Geheimnis Dr. Uta Fenske (Siegen) Hans Christian Schmid: Sturm Prof. Dr. Walburga Hülk (Siegen) Prof. Dr. Gregor Schuhen (Siegen) Anonyma

II. International Symposium Dedicated to Matthias Flacius Illlyricus Labin, Croatia, April 22-24, 2010 Matija Vlaĉić Ilirik (Labin, 1520 – Frankfurt-am-Main, 1575) was a Lutheran reformer, theologian, linguist, philosopher and church historian and one of the On July 22-23, there will be a most famous sons of Labin. He conference at the University of spent most of his life in Germany Siegen (NordrheinWestfalia/Germany) on the topic: where he first studied theology, Not Only Esma’s Secret: Mass Greek and Hebrew, and was Rapings during the war in Bosnia Luther’s student in Wittenberg. He and their adaptation in Literature dedicated his life to teaching, and and film. Initiator and organizer of to the spreading and defending of the conference is Dr. Mirjana what he believed was the true Erstić. Cf. about her: Portal Lutheran understanding.

He hrvatskih znanstvenika published more than 200 books, (http://pohz.nsk.hr). For more pamphlets and other materials, 5 Bulletin of the Association for Croatian Studies – No. 54 Spring 2010

primarily about theology, church history and Biblical interpretation.

The opening of the symposium is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, April 22.

Most of the conference papers will be presented on Friday. On Friday evening a guided tour through the Flacius Museum, located in his birth house, will be given.

Saturday is reserved for concluding remarks and discussion and for a group excursion in Istria.

The official languages of the symposium are English, German and Croatian. The papers presented will be published in a book with the conference proceedings.

The panels include Flacius in the Center of Scholarly Research in Croatia and Germany in the 20th Century; Flacius and Philosophy; Flacius and Theology; Flacius and Theological Controversies; Flacius and History and Reformation on the Territory of Present-Day Croatia and Slovenia. For more information visit http://www.flacius.net/.

"From the Other Side of the Ocean: Canada's Božidar Vidov and the Molise Croats of Italy," Migracijske i etničke teme, 25, no.

3 (2009), 263-287. (STAN GRANIC) Following an overview of the history of the Molise Croats, their distinctive language, Italian laws protecting their linguistic rights, and recent publications dedicated to helping to preserve their endangered idiom, the author provides a brief biography of Boţidar Vidov (1913-2000) before exploring Vidov's publication efforts related to this community.

Vidov, who first visited the region in the 1940s and then later in the

1960s, joined members of the Molise Croatian community in 1967 to launch the periodical Naš jezik / La nostra lingua. He served on the editorial board of this periodical and from 1968 to 1981 he published eleven books and booklets specifically for, or about, the community. These publications included language manuals, poetry collections, almanacs, a brief history and music collections.

Vidov drew material for his publications from the pages of Naš jezik, his own research findings while visiting the community, and from sources collected and documented by members of the Molise Croatian community and others. Through his self-financed publishing initiatives, Vidov sought to imbue members of the community with a sense of pride in their language and cultural heritage, and attempted to fill the void after Naš jezik ceased publication.

These eleven publications foreshadowed later more substantial and successful efforts in the 1990s, and especially in the new millennium, to produce important linguistic manuals, various literary collections, and other publications dedicated to the Molise Croatian community and the preservation of their endangered language. A PDF of the article is available at: http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?sho w=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=68608 WEB NEWS In this issue we feature the website Hrĉak http://hrcak.srce.hr/ Portal znanstvenih ĉasopisa Republike Hrvatske / Portal for Croatian scholarly publications.

Hrĉak is a site that presents in one location Croatian scholarly and professional publications; it

operates on the principle of open access to works or, at least, to abstracts. Users enjoy an easy search of both publications and articles (alphabetically or by area of study) as well as by author’s name, title of the article, or keywords. The main areas included are natural sciences, technical sciences, biomedicine and health, social sciences and humanities.

Hrĉak also offers tools to editors that allow for free and fairly simple electronic publishing and increases visibility and search options for already existing electronic publications. Needless to say, this significantly improves access to various reading audiences and the scope of influence of the publication. For researchers interested in Croatian subjects, this is also a great source of information.

This portal is developed and supported by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia. It was realized by SRCE (the University Computing Center in Zagreb), while the basic idea was generated by the Croatian Information and Documentation Society.

The annual conference of the International Studies Association was held in New Orleans, LA, from February 17-20, 2010, and had as a general theme Theory vs.

Policy? Connecting Scholars and Practitioners. The panel that dealt with political topics pertaining to Croatia was entitled ―Stability in Western Balkans: Between Theory and Practice‖ and included two papers on this topic: Lidija Ĉehulić who spoke on Enlargement of NATO and Influence on the Stability in the West Balkans, and Radovan Vukadinović who discussed Russian Policy Toward Western

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Balkans. Both participants are professors at the Faculty of Political Science at University of Zagreb.

In her paper Prof. Ĉehulić reminded the audience that the term ―Western Balkans‖ was introduced during the 2000 EU Summit in Zagreb and included all states of the former SFR Yugoslavia, minus Slovenia, plus Albania.

She systematically examined the achieved level of ties between NATO and countries that during the bi-polar era made up the so-called system of Balkan security, notably: Greece, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and countries created after the break-up of SFR Yugoslavia— Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, FYR Macedonia, and Kosovo. She pointed out that due to many cultural, historical, civilization, religious, national and other reasons political elites in part of the countries of this region resent using the term ―Balkans‖ in their transitional development, thus demonstrating to Europe their firm desire to become part of the so called ―Western democratic world‖ as soon as possible. The focus of her presentation, however, was the extended process which resulted in Croatian membership in NATO. Immediately after the establishment of a sovereign state and its international recognition, the Croatian leadership has declared NATO membership as one of the primary goals of its international policy. But the armed aggression that followed, where one third of the country was occupied, the fight for physical liberation of the country, and Croatian involvement in fights in Bosnia and Herzegovina have all stopped Croatian advancement towards NATO. Almost to the very end of the past century Croatia was, together with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,

internationally the most isolated country in Southeastern Europe.

Although NATO forces, as well as EU forces, have been assisting Croatian liberation in various ways, due to the war that was imposed on it and all the circumstances that it lead to, Croatia was left out of all institutional forms of cooperation and all NATO programs designed for the post-socialist countries.

During her visit to Croatia in May 1997 and talks with president Tudjman, U.S. State Secretary Madeleine Albright demanded the following: Croatian support to and consistent implementation of Dayton Peace Accords, return of refugees and persons displaced during the armed conflict in Croatia, and cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. One year later, the U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, William T. Montgomery, confirmed Croatian efforts in all these areas.

Croatia's approach to NATO begins after the 2000 democratic parliamentary and presidential elections when Croatia, almost overnight, becomes a member of the Partnership for Peace. This was immediately followed by Croatia's accession to NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP), and, together with Albania and FYROM, Washington includes Croatia into the program for adjustment with NATO standards, the so-called Adriatic Charter.

This all culminates on NATO’s 2008 Summit in Bucharest where allies recognize Croatia as a country that deserves invitation to join NATO during the Summit in Köln and Strasbourg in 2009 and finally becomes a full NATO member.

Croatia had to invest additional efforts and time to address the socalled "package" of special conditions demanded by both

NATO and the wider international community: establishment of and participation in functional regional cooperation, physical return of refugees and persons displaced during the conflict, as well as return of their property, fight against various types of crime, establishment of the rule of law, and full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in Hague.

On the other hand, the level of public support for NATO and Croatia's membership was directly dependant on readiness of the Croatian government to put these "special" conditions on its daily agenda, as well as on psychological readiness of Croatian people to accept these requirements after all the sufferings and liberation of the Country. As levels of stabilization in economic, financial and social conditions in the country were gradually rising and as some crucial issues in Croatia's neighboring countries were slowly being solved, the preconditions for fulfillment of the mentioned criteria were also created. Croatian membership in NATO will not automatically solve all of its transitional and post-war problems but will certainly serve as a better political and security framework for a faster overall development and for better communication with the rest of the modern democratic world.

Prof. Vukadinović examined Russia’s role in the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and disintegration of the European socialist system. He stressed that Russia suffered a tremendous shock that led to a crisis of the economic, social and political system. No other empire was faced 7 Bulletin of the Association for Croatian Studies – No. 54 Spring 2010

with a so quick and complete disintegration in the times of peace, and this fact had a strong impact on Russian foreign policy.

In analyses of Russia's foreign policy, the Balkans are positioned as an important region where the Tsar's Russia, and later Soviet Russia, had wide possibilities for action combined with a strong geostrategic interest. In times after WW1 and WW2, the Balkans were defined by the 2 + 2 + 2 formula: NATO members Greece and Turkey, the Warsaw Pact members Bulgaria and Romania, and the non-aligned states Yugoslavia and Albania. During and immediately after the Cold War times these six states were further divided. With Slovenia, which is a NATO member, and Croatia, which has just became one, the strategic circle of interest for Russia is, in a political and strategic sense, closed. Slovenia never had a significant Serb minority, and in Croatia, this minority is to a large extent reduced, therefore any chances of creating some stronger pro-Russian policy by calling upon the Orthodoxy are practically nonexistent. Membership in NATO— often cited by Russian analysts as the strongest obstacle to Russia's strategic activity—is now a reality for both these countries.

For this reason, Russia’s main attention is focused on Serbia which, many believe, is the only Russian East European ally at the moment and a country that needs Russia as an alternative, owing to its political position. In addition, there exists a favorable blend of historic ties and relations, possibilities for specific joint economic projects, and a desire for realization of strategic cooperation such as Serbia’s position outside

the NATO and Serbian readiness for cooperation with Russia on political and military levels.

The Role of Western Powers in Yugoslavia's Demise and the Recognition of Croatia (19871992), an abstract by Branko Salaj.

Policies pursued by leading Western powers bear a great deal of responsibility for the violence in the breakup of ex-Yugoslavia, which during the Cold War had become their client state. When the Communist bloc started to implode in the second half of the 1980s, they tolerated violent internal forces which eventually initiated the first wars on European soil after World War II and led to the breakup of the country.

What was the nature of the internal strife and what did it reveal about the relations of the outside powers which could, but did not, prevent/stop the conflict? Do the present regional policies of the international community mitigate the causes of tensions and create conditions for a lasting peace?

The 1974 Yugoslav constitution marked an important step toward a confederate union, thus preparing the country for the post-Tito era. During the 1980s, this decentralizing trend in Yugoslavia came under strong attack by the central Serb-dominated political, economic and military power nuclei in Belgrade. In 1987 they coalesced in support of the new president of Serbia's League of Communists, Slobodan Milošević, who first used extreme nationalist agenda in an attempt to centralize the federal state under his authority, and, when this misfired, to unite all Serbs in a single country, a Greater Serbia.

His campaign rallied followers under the banner of a militant challenge to the federal principle, which was the key element in creating and sustaining the post-WWII Yugoslavia under Communist rule. Wars in exYugoslavia 1991-1995 were a direct outgrowth of this challenge.

In his bid to centralize federal

power, Milošević initially had a reform-oriented but ethnically less identified competitor, Ante Marković, for the post Yugoslav prime minister.

Having received assurances that he would be able to control secret services for the next government, Milošević withdrew from the race and Marković became Yugoslav prime minister in the spring of 1989.

Western powers gave Marković their formal support and occasionally criticized Milošević nationalist antics and strong-armed tactics but indirectly continued to support him.

They turned down Marković's bid for foreign financial backing of his reforms, which significantly eroded his standing and boosted Milošević's chances. Also, elements in the General Staff of the Yugoslav army close to Milošević were told by their Western interlocutors that a planned intervention against Slovenian liberal circles—then the most pronounced critics of centralization—would not be actively opposed.

During the initial stage of his ascendance to power Milošević was often presented to Western audiences and decision makers as a man who would transform Yugoslavia into a market economy, a Yugoslav version of Gorbachev. Western intelligence, particularly the CIA, warned early about the destructiveness of his nationalist concept and did not believe him to be a genuine economic reformer.

However, important sympathizers of Milošević, among them Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and President Bush's National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, thought otherwise.

The aim to centralize Yugoslavia was also a Western priority, and Milošević was apparently considered to be the man with the will and resources to do it, albeit for his own purposes. For some of the big powers even the idea of Serb political supremacy was quite an acceptable one, although they, for evident reasons, did not care to publicly elaborate on it. Hence, Western powers tacitly accepted the strongarmed means by which the Serbian leader established in 1989 full control

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over Serbia's two autonomous provinces and the republic of Montenegro. He thus created a debilitating 4-4 tie in the collective Yugoslav presidency and after a while the federal government grinded practically to a halt.

Milošević continued his campaign but his bullying tactics and an extreme nationalist identification encountered stiff resistance in Slovenia and Croatia. The Leagues of Communists in the two republics left their federal party organization and allowed the first free multiparty elections in the spring of 1990. This ushered into power political parties which had national sovereignties in their programs but were still seeking a solution within a loose Yugoslav confederation. At this very sensitive point, however, the Deputy Secretary Eagleburger, while publicly condemning Milošević's tactics, confirmed the unity of Yugoslavia as a primary goal of American diplomacy and the opposition to Milošević in the northwestern republics as the main threat.

The newly elected Croatian leadership made an effort to reach a comprehensive political agreement with representatives of the Serb minority but three rounds of discussions were stopped on orders by Milošević. Starting in mid-August 1990, Serbia's secret services started instead to foment local uprisings in Croatian regions with predominantly Serb population and practically cut communications between northern and southern Croatia.

These operations were closely coordinated with and secured by the Yugoslav People's Army, JNA, almost completely taken over by Serb officers.

Tensions in Yugoslavia continued to mount during a profound transformation of international environment.

Although the Communist bloc quickly imploded and Yugoslavia's role as a buffer eroded accordingly, Western powers retained a keen interest in keeping Yugoslavia afloat. Western support for the country's unity was supposed to assure the leaders of the Soviet Union that the West would pursue a hands-off policy towards centrifugal

forces in their country. The United States also became very engaged in the Persian Gulf crisis. Milošević was left free to pursue his centralist agenda but urged to do it as softly as possible.

When Slovenia and Croatia promulgated new democratic constitutions at the end of 1990 and agreed to a six-month period during which to either negotiate the terms of a confederation or secede, Milošević made a deal with the Slovene leadership. He acquiesced in principle to Slovenia leaving Yugoslavia and then turned the full force of military pressure on Croatia. Early in 1991, two military coups were averted in the last moment by the slightest of margins. Milošević, confident in the ability to attain his objectives by military means, rejected Slovene and Croat confederate proposals.

During that period the U.S. strongly pressured its European allies to insist on the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, which in practice meant support for Milošević despite, as the Europeans pointed out, his extremely bad record in the field of human rights. Despite their own reservations, European politicians then started to flock to Belgrade, assure Milošević of their support and distance themselves from the republics opposing the centralization drive. Strengthened by such statements, Milošević felt, as his closest collaborator confided, that he could ―cross the Rubicon:‖ in early May, twelve Croatian policemen were brutally murdered and twenty wounded in an ambush in a village on the river border between Croatia and Serbia. Political discussions had come to a dead end.

In a round of talks in Belgrade in late June, immediately preceding proclamations of independence in Slovenia and Croatia, Secretary of State Baker tried in vain to mediate and left disenchanted, still stating support for the integrity of Yugoslavia but leaving the diplomatic field open to European partners. His departing statement, however, was interpreted even among seasoned Western diplomats as a ―green light‖ to Milošević. By the end of June the two northwestern republics proclaimed

their independence and the crisis moved into a new phase.

In the summer of 1991, after a brief armed interlude in Slovenia, the JNA retired from the country together with Serb insurgents under direction from Belgrade in an offensive to insure control of Croatian territory planned to become a part of Greater Serbia. The war had started in earnest.

Left formally on their own in summer of 1991, European powers almost immediately discovered deep differences in their views. Germany had grown receptive to the idea of applying to ex-Yugoslav republics the principle of national selfdetermination which was so important for its own reunification. Britain and France, on the other hand, insisted on territorial integrity of Yugoslavia as a whole. The Netherlands, which presided over the European Community during the second half of 1991, had a difficult task of finding a way out of the impasse.

Split on matters of principle, the Conference on Yugoslavia, instituted by the EC and presided by Lord Carrington, turned out to be heavily influenced also by the military situation on the ground. To complicate the international positioning further, the UN Security Council started also dealing with the situation and did so in a highly prejudicial manner. Three weeks after the EC Conference started its work, on September 25, 1991, the Council decided on an embargo on imports of arms for the whole territory of exYugoslavia and left practically unarmed Croats to face the fourth largest army in Europe. Eventually, Croatian blockades of the JNA barracks produced some weapons, which, complemented with some forbidden imports, stiffened Croatian defenses.

Still, Croatia's defense posture was so desperate by the middle of October that Deputy Secretary Eagleburger felt confident enough to assure the Yugoslav ambassador in Washington that the United States, while aware of Milošević's efforts to create Greater Serbia, would not punish him with other than economic

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sanctions, to be put into effect only once such a state actually materialized. The very same day, with his position thus strengthened, Milošević turned down an EC proposal, accepted by other republics, to turn Yugoslavia into a confederation.

Even geopolitics on the highest level made an impact on international jockeying around the recognition of Croatia. It loosened the FrenchGerman axis within the EC. But when Germany exhibited some interest in French ideas for a separate European defense identity, it had a somewhat chilling effect on the understanding which Paris had reached with NATOoriented London against the recognition. Predictably, at the NATO meeting in Rome on November 7, 1991, the talk of purely European defense provoked a sharp rebuke by President Bush Sr. who feared the negative impact of the French initiatives on the cohesiveness of NATO. The Europeans, who in the meantime had made some progress along the diplomatic path towards recognition of Croatia, hastily retreated, almost returning to initial non-commitment, and the EC Conference was suspended.

However, with the JNA personnel stretched thin, and the need for general mobilization looming in Serbia torn by economic problems, Milošević expressed interest in positioning an international peacekeeping force around the territories which he controlled within Croatia.

Lord Carrington, hastily dispatched on November 12 to Belgrade to discuss it, digressed so far from his negotiating brief to even mention the possibility for the Serb minority in Croatia to hold in due time a referendum on possibly joining Serbia. This show of mellow adaptability on top of a general diplomatic retreat was enough for Milošević to order a final bloody attack on Vukovar and a start of preparations of the main assault on Dubrovnik three weeks later.

In the meantime, while European statesmen had taken a timeout of almost a month to concentrate on the historic issues of integration at the Maastricht meeting, Lord Carrington

asked constitutional experts within the EC Conference under chairmanship of Robert Badinter for an opinion on the nature of the Yugoslav breakdown.

Within nine days Carrington received the opinion affirming general dissolution (and thus opening the door for recognition of its constituent parts), but he needed another nine days to make it public. In the meantime the U.S. State Department started a last-ditch effort against recognition with a multifaceted campaign and using the United Nations as an important platform.

After a tumultuous debate of European foreign ministers on December 16 which ended with a hazy open-ended compromise, Germany decided to take a sovereign decision to recognize Croatia three weeks later on January 15 and was eventually joined by other EC members. Three months later even the United States concurred.

Eagleburger's old mentor and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who in November 1991 had become the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Yugoslavia, arranged at the end of 1991 a cease-fire and the presence of a peace-keeping force around the areas which the Milošević forces had taken by force. An uneasy peace had come to Croatia, but the strife, started by Milošević, would continue in a much bloodier version in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

It took a new administration in the U.S. and a painstaking reappraisal of the policy within it to develop a new approach to the expansionist policies of Milošević. Ultimately, the rules of the engagement, both in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, were changed. Having achieved a better military balance, Croatia could retake control of its entire territory and develop itself into a stable democracy while a provisional constitutional patchwork, agreed in Dayton to legalize Greater Serbian land grab in Bosnia-Herzegovina, left behind an unstable, divided country with many accumulated problems.

Western ambitions to centralize Yugoslavia came to nothing, but they facilitated war-mongering, tolerance of enormous human suffering and—

under the guise of realism—a seemingly fatalistic acceptance of the results of crude violence. Afterwards, there was very little preparedness to help progressive forces in Serbia in a critical and profound reexamination of value premises and myths which over the last century pushed their country into an expansionist behavior. By avoiding to call for such a travail de mémoire, the international community has taken a great responsibility for the fragility of long-term peace prospects in the region.

Vjeran Pavlakovic was recently promoted to Docent (Assistant Professor) in the Cultural Studies Department at the University of Rijeka. Some of his recent and forthcoming publications are: ―Collaboration and Resistance: The Comparative Culture of Memory and Yugoslavia’s Contested World War Two Past,‖ in Darko Gavrilović, ed., Facing the Past, Searching for the Future: The History of Yugoslavia in the 20th Century (Sremska Kamenica: CHDR, 2010); ―Komemorativna kultura Bleiburga, 1990–2009,‖ in Tihomir Cipek, ed., Kultura sjećanja 1945 (Zagreb: Disput, 2009); ―From Conflict to Commemoration: SerbCroat Relations and the Anniversaries of Operation Storm,‖ in Darko Gavrilović, ed., Serbo-Croat Relations: Political Cooperation and National Minorities (Novi Sad: CHDR, 2009); ―Crvene zvezde, crne košulje: simboli komemoracije i sukobljenje istorije Drugog svetskog rata u Hrvatskoj,‖ chapter in Gordana Đerić, ed., Pamćenje i nostalgija: Neki prostori, oblici, lica i naliĉja (Belgrade: Filip Višnjić, 2009); ―Španjolski Siget: Simbolika Alcazara u hrvatskim novinama,‖ in Časopis za suvremenu povijest, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2009); ―Radicalization at the University of Zagreb during the Spanish Civil War,‖ in Historijski zbornik, Vol. 62, No. 2 (2009).

Dean Vuletic has been awarded his PhD in History from Columbia University, where he defended his

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dissertation―Yugoslavia Communism and the Power of Popular Music‖ in 2009. He is currently teaching the courses ―East Central Europe in the Twentieth Century‖ at Columbia University and ―Culture and the Cold War‖ at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. In the following academic year, he will be a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, where he will work on transforming his dissertation into a book.

In examining the reception, surveillance and appropriation of Western, popular music in Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1961, his dissertation argues that the mass consumption of it compelled the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) to alter its strategies in cultural politics and foreign policy in order to appease popular desires at home and fashion a liberal and modern image of itself abroad. Between 1945 and 1961, popular music went from being one of the least established cultural forms in Yugoslavia to one that united its citizens more than any other. This transformation occurred as the party realized that popular music had a peculiar power based on its international character, modern technologies and widespread popularity, especially among youth.

However, the power of popular music was not significantly harnessed by the party until 1957, when it began promoting major investments into the development of a Yugoslav popular music industry through festivals, radio programs and record companies. Until then, its attitudes towards popular music had been confused as party leaders found themselves mired in the contradictions of early Yugoslav communism. For example, before 1957 the party had pursued a cultural politics that privileged folk music even though this was discordant with its policies of cultural, economic and social modernization. And while the party always regarded the first generation of youth to mature under the Yugoslav socialist system as a test case for its success, it had continued to privilege folk and classical music in its cultural politics even though it was popular music that was more bewitching for the young. Yet another contradiction lay in the CPY’s aim of creating an authentic Yugoslav supranational culture to which all of the state’s national groups would subscribe, but the appeal of this was undermined by its own foreign policy as Yugoslavia’s citizens found Western cultural alternatives more alluring than domestic ones. This was most evident after 1950, when the CPY began

opening up Yugoslavia to Western cultural influences, unlike any of its Eastern European kin, as it courted economic, military and political support from the West after its expulsion in 1948 from the Cominform, the international organization of communist parties, and consequently experimented with new cultural, economic and foreign policies. Indeed, while this openness towards Western cultural production became a mark of exceptionalism that distinguished the CPY from its Eastern European relatives throughout the Cold War, this dissertation shows that the ideological reconciliation of it was a tangled process for the party throughout the 1950s.

Please email all materials for the fall bulletin to Nancy Crenshaw, editor, nancycrenshaw@comcast.net.

This includes notice of publications, book reviews, family and business notices, obituaries, and any other pertinent information. Photos will be printed as space allows.

~IN M EM O R Ia m ~ REV. STANISLAUS GOLIK 1915-2009 Rev. Stanislaus Golik died peacefully on September 7, 2009, in Omaha, Nebraska. He was born in Mrkopalj, Croatia, on November 13, 1915. After finishing his formal education in Senj and Zagreb, he was ordained to the priesthood in the summer of 1939, on the eve of World War II. At first he served as an educator and then as assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Senj. During the war, he was known for his charitable work and for helping anyone in need. At the end of the war, he left for Italy and, while there, he continued to help the needy. He served as papal representative for Croatian refugees until 1947, and became a well known priest among Croatian refugees at the time.

After his arrival to the USA in 1947, Rev. Golik served for four and a half years as assistant pastor at Ss. Peter and Paul Croatian Catholic Church in South Omaha, and then, being multilingual, he served at various ethnic parish communities in the city. He served as pastor of St. Charles Church in North Bend, Nebraska for eighteen years, before retiring in 1986. However, even after his retirement, he remained involved in various pastoral activities.

The Mass of Christian burial for Rev. Golik was celebrated at the Croatian Catholic Church in Omaha. The great number of clergy and people who came to honor Rev. Golik at this farewell celebration indicated that he was not only liked but truly loved.

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Rev. Golik was a loyal member and true supporter of the ACS from its outset until his death. Besides paying his dues faithfully, he was one of those members who could not attend AAASS conventions or ACS meetings, but he heartedly supported ACS activities and was excited about its successes, always eager to read the summaries of various panels. We are proud that Rev. Golik was a member of the ACS and we thank him for his long support. To his relatives we send our belated sympathies, and may he rest in peace!

Ante Ĉuvalo

DR. GEORGE (JURE) PRPIĆ (1920 – 2009) I apologize to my former professor and dear friend, the late Dr. Jure Prpić, and his family for not being able to write a timely obituary in his honor for the Fall 2009 issue of the ACS Bulletin. At the time, my family and I were too preoccupied with our move to Croatia/Bosnia-Herzegovina.

However, this short text about him should remind our ACS members and his friends of the life and work of this wonderful man, husband, father, friend, and scholar.

Jure Prpić was born on November 16, 1920, of Croatian parents in Djala, Banat, where his father moved from Lika and his mother from Hrvatsko Zagorje. His elementary schooling took place in Nasice and Pozega. After graduating from the Real Gymnasium in Pozega in 1939, he and his family (parents and six more siblings) moved to Zagreb where Jure began his university studies. He received his diploma in Jurisprudence in 1944. However, his life dramatically changed soon after graduation.

As a war-time young university graduate, Jure was caught up in the great tragedy that beset the Croatians at the time.

In May of 1945, with thousands of others, he found himself as a post-war refugee in Austria. While in Austria (19451948), he studied history at the University of Graz and, with some of his friends, tried to promote at least a minimum of cultural activities among his fellow Croatian refugees. From this time we find a collection of poems, expressing the anguish of those unstable times.

After coming to the U.S.A. in 1950, Jure lived for a few months in Cincinnati and then moved to Cleveland, where he labored as a factory worker in the Cleveland Twist Drill Co. for five years. In 1951, he married Hilda Hermann (Slovenian-born) in Montreal, Canada, whom he had met earlier in Graz, Austria. While working full-time at his factory job, he enrolled as a part-time student at John Carroll University and, in 1956, he received an M.A. in history. Shortly after that, in 1959, Jure earned his Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University. His dissertation turned later into a wellknown book The Croatian Immigrants in America, which was published in 1971. From 1958 until his retirement in 1989, George Prpić taught history at John Carroll University in Cleveland, where he became a well-respected personality among his colleagues and students. I was one among numerous other graduate students who were not only his students but also his friends. Jure shared with us more than his knowledge of history. He taught us with love, and he really cared for each one of us. Who can forget his deep voice, his always calm personality, and his favorite saying at times of exams and also of political turmoil: ―This too shall pass.‖ Dr. Prpić authored numerous books, booklets and articles. He wrote many articles in various Croatian immigrant publications (Journal of Croatian Studies, Hrvatska Revija, Zajednicar, Hrvatski Glas, Danica, Hrvatski kalendar, Nasa Nada, Studia Croatica, etc.). Besides his contributions in historical literature, especially in the history of Croatian immigration, he was also a poet. Some of his well-known works are: The Croatian Immigrants in America (1971); South Slavic Immigration in America (1978); Croatia and Croatians: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography in English (1982); with his wife Hilda Croatian Books and Booklets Written in Exile (1973 and in Croatia in 1990); and A Century of World Communism (1973, 1975); Posljednji svibanj (1973 and in Croatia 1990).

Dr. Prpic deserves a special place in the history of the Association for Croatian Studies. Besides being one of its founders (1977), for quite a long time he was its main pillar and promoter. He selflessly served as ACS secretary/treasurer and editor of the Bulletin from 1977-1991. He was tireless in expanding ACS membership and soliciting support for its activities. The ACS and its members will remain thankful to him, as well as to his wife Hilda, for all that they did for Croatian studies in America.

After 88 years of a not so easy but fruitful life, Dr. Prpić passed away on April 23, 2009. The Mass of Christian burial was at St. Paul Croatian Catholic Church in Cleveland. Those of us who had the privilege of knowing Jure Prpić as a friend and colleague can bear witness that he was truly a gentle soul, a genuinely good person.

May his wife Hilda and their children, Frank and Maya, find comfort in the fact that they shared their lives with a wonderful man. I remember him fondly.

God bless, dear friend and mentor.

Ante Ĉuvalo-Ljubuški

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BOOKS & REVIEWS Dr Gerard Toal, Professor & Director, Government and International Affairs, www.gia.vt.edu Virginia Tech in the National Capital Region announces that later this summer the book BOSNIA REMADE: ETHNIC CLEANSING AND ITS REVERSAL will be published by Oxford University Press. He is the first author, and the coauthor is Dr. Carl Dahlman from the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio.

CROATIA: ASPECTS OF ART, ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE with an introduction by John Julius Norwich, Frances Lincoln Limited, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-7112-2921-1.

Available from Amazon.com for $40.95.

The credit for conception and realization of this book goes to Jadranka Njerš Beresford-Peirse, who won the 1999 INA (sponsor of this publication) award for the promotion of Croatian culture in the world. She is the founder and Trustee of the International Trust for Croatian Monuments (www.croatianmonuments.org). The book has no listed editor, but Jadranka must be its silent editor.

The book is a collection of 12 scholarly essays, written by British, Croatian and American academics and specialists on art and architecture. Their brief biographical information is provided in the ―List of Contributors.‖ The essays are highly

readable and enjoyable for non-specialists as well, and are free of discipline-specific jargon. There are detailed and informative endnotes for most essays, together with current scholarly bibliography and suggested further readings. Each chapter is richly illustrated with excellent color photographs, some of full-page size. The quality of writing, illustrations and

printing make this book a valuable and enduring gift for any occasion.

The Preface by Jadranka BeresfordPeirse reminds us how little known is Croatia’s share in the European and world cultural heritage. This book aims to present ―an insight into some aspects of art and architecture which may be unfamiliar to a wider audience outside of Croatian borders, and some which may be understudied.‖ It is her hope that the book ―will inspire further research and serve as a reference for both specialists and all those who are interested in the arts in Croatia and their wider context and who may take pleasure in walking in the footsteps of the authors.‖ There are now seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Croatia.

In the Introduction, John Julius Norwich reflects on the past millennium of the Croatian political position in Europe and concludes that ―Croatia is now at last enjoying the freedom and prosperity that it has for so many centuries deserved and so seldom managed to achieve.‖ ―A survey of Croatian History‖, written by Stjepan Ćosić (translated by R. Harris), covers 13 centuries of history, during which the Croats created distinctive cultural values and achieved territorial and national integration (and finally independence), while negotiating free or forced choices between the great powers of Europe. Historical maps illustrate the key periods.

Branko Kirigin in ―Ancient Greeks in Croatia‖ presents the up-to-date archaeological evidence and the ancient literary sources for the Greek colonial settlements of the 4th - 3rd century BC on the central Dalmatian islands of Hvar (Pharos-Stari Grad), Vis (Issa) and Korĉula (Melaina Kerkyra), and on the coastal area around Split (TrogirTragurion, Solin-Salona, StobreĉEpetion). The system of Greek land division into plots assigned to the colonists is still visible in the plain of Stari Grad. In 2008 this landscape monument was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, as the best preserved of such systems that are known today. We get glimpses of the Greek-Illyrian contacts and exchange from the 6th century BC on until the Roman involvement in the late 3rd century BC. The most recent excavations on the small island of Palagruţa uncovered a shrine of Diomedes, which Greek sailors frequented on their open-sea trade route up and down the Adriatic. There are good illustrations of many sites and artifacts, although the later do not have information on their museum location.

The chapter on ―Roman Art in Croatian Dalmatia First to Third Centuries AD‖ by J. J. Wilkes is a survey mainly of imported and locally produced marble sculpture, representing imperial and private portraits, figured funerary monuments and religious art, followed by a shorter overview of public and private architecture, including mosaics. There is an informative discussion of style and dating evidence for the sculpture followed by reflections on the images of the Olympian deities and those of Illyrian cults assimilated to classical deities. An appended catalogue of objects and sites with bibliography supplements the survey.

The art and architecture comes only from Roman cities in the coastal area, therefore the use of the term ―Croatian Dalmatia‖ in the title. The Roman province of Dalmatia extended over the present day Bosnia and Hercegovina. One missing updated bibliographical reference is that of M. Suić’s Antički grad na istočnom Jadranu, 2nd edition 2006. ―The Palace of Diocletian at Split‖ by Sheila McNally is a scholarly and elucidating article on the past and current debate regarding the key issues in interpreting this retirement residence of the Roman emperor: ancient and modern names for the site (villa, palace, castle), use of fortification, and above all the design, function, meaning and relationship of ceremonial and sacral spaces. The author’s compelling ideas on the building’s role in imperial ceremonies and imperial cult bring her to conclude: ―The original strength of the complex lay in its multiple uses; its continuing legacy stems from the grandeur of its experiments.‖ Reading the chapter on ―Illuminated Manuscripts in Croatia‖ by Christopher de Hamel is like discovering a gold mine of European medieval and early modern literacy. In the author’s words ―to visit Croatia in pursuit of manuscripts is like stepping back into the distant European past…..many are still in the possession of monasteries or medieval churches, preserving a way of life which has hardly changed since the Middle Ages.‖ The essay is a richly illustrated survey of manuscripts written in Latin, Glagolitic and Germanic between the 7th to 16th centuries, which were brought into Croatia or produced in the country. Into it is woven a narrative of monastic orders and their scribes and illuminators, the most important being Giulio Clovio (Juraj Gloviĉić (1498-1578).

Donal Cooper’s ―Gothic Art & the Friars in Late Medieval Croatia 12121460‖ is an overview of architectural and

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artistic patronage of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in the major Adriatic cities. This heritage is the best preserved in Europe, after Italy, but is poorly known in the Anglophone art historical literature.

The author’s aim is ―to reference and synthesize‖ rich literature in Croatian, Italian and German. One shall also find in this essay much on the history of the mendicant orders in Croatia and the artists they commissioned, as well as important references to documents in local archives.

The next four chapters deal with the Renaissance and Baroque periods in the Adriatic region, with a common theme of artistic exchange between Croatia and Italy, in which Croatia is a significant but often overlooked partner.

David Ekserdjian’s ―The Renaissance in Croatia and Italy: the Chapel of the Blessed Giovanni Orsini‖ begins with an overview of painters and sculptors originating from and working in both sides of the Adriatic.

His discussion of the Trogir masterpiece ―ensemble whose sheer artistic quality and virtual completeness make it one of the most remarkable sculptural decorations of the entire Renaissance‖ clearly integrates Croatian artists and patrons into the Italian Renaissance. The three sculptors, Niccolo di Giovanni Fiorentino, Andrea Alessi and Giovanni Dalmata, are documented in the surviving contract, which offers Ekserdjian the evidence for addressing problems of attribution, iconography and chronology.

In his poetic essay ―Nikola Boţidarević‖ Joško Belamarić (G. McMaster translator) interprets the style and iconography of this Dubrovnik painter trained in Italy, who signed his name as Nicolaus Rhagusinus and Nicolo Raguseo. His most famous work, a triptych in the Dominican church, shows St. Blaise holding a model of Dubrovnik. The surviving four works, out of 17 recorded, were all private votive offerings, what inspired Belamarić to relate Boţidarević to the socio-intellectual milieu of his humanistic patrons, the mercantile aristocracy of Dubrovnik.

The two chapters written by Timothy Clifford, ―Italy and Dalmatia: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting & the Decorative Arts, c. 1400-1800‖ and ―Dubrovnik: Italian Art, c. 1400-1800,‖ the author himself calls ―pioneering works in English on Italian art in Croatia.‖ The artistic heritage is discussed separately for each coastal and island (Hvar, Korĉula) city in the former, while the latter is a guided tour of Dubrovnik’s treasures.

Clifford offers new ideas on the attribution and iconography of Italian and Italianate art in Dalmatia, all through

historical narrative of artists and patrons in their socio-cultural context.

The last two chapters cover the continental region of Croatia. ―Castles and Manor Houses of Croatia: Winning or Loosing‖ by Marcus Binney is an impressionistic tour of selected sites in Zagorje and Slavonia (maps included) built during the 17th to 19th centuries.

Binney enriches his perceptive descriptions of the settings, architecture and interiors with information on the past and present owners and occupants, while reflecting appreciatively and critically on the current conditions and future possibilities of the properties.

Brian Sewell’s essay on ―Museums of Zagreb‖ starts with a critical debate on the Mimara Museum and the questionable attributions, integrity and quality of most of its paintings collection. Sewell continues discussion of attributions of some works in the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters and relates the life and work of bishop Strossmayer with his art collection, whose later 19th century paintings helped to start the Gallery of Modern Art. Among them were the works of three painters who founded modern painting in Croatia, Vlaho Bukovac, Celestin Medović and Nikola Mašić. The works of the best known Croatian artist of the 20th century, Ivan Meštrović, are exhibited in a 17th century house in which he lived from 1922-1942. Of the short comments on five other museums we should mention Sewell’s selection of two ancient pieces of world significance in the Archaeological Museum. One is an over life-size bronze copy of Apoxyomenos, found in the sea off Mali Lošinj in 1999 and which ―adds Greek glory to a significant collection of classical antiquities that are primarily provincial Roman.‖ Last year the statue was transferred to its permanent home on the island of Mali Lošinj. The other is 14 m long linen wrapping of a mummy, the so called Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis, which contains the longest known text in the Etruscan language, a unique survival of lost ―books.‖ This book is a most delightful way to learn about Croatian social and intellectual history through art.

Ivancica Schrunk The British and Vis: War in the Adriatic 1805-15 by Malcolm Scott Hardy Published by Archaeopress 2009, 152 pages.

ISBN 9781905739158. www.archaeopress.com Croatia and the UK don’t share that many links, but there is one that is perhaps not as well known as it should be. The island

of Vis was once occupied by the British between 1805-15. Although cricket was introduced to the island at that time, there is rather more to the story. We take a look at the book and consider if Vis could enhance the connection.

There is an awareness of Britain’s links with the island of Vis. A lot of this focuses on Tito’s use of the island as a centre for the partisan resistance during the Second World War. Consequently, quite a few British servicemen served there during the war.

However, the shared history goes back much further, to 1805, when the British moved in due to the campaigns against Napoleon. This is largely now remembered due to Captain William Hoste, who reputedly was responsible for introducing cricket to Vis. Matches are still played there—the subject of occasional pieces in the British press.

Malcolm Scott Hardy’s work gives us a much fuller version of the British presence on Vis during the Napoleonic Wars. Well illustrated, Hardy has done extensive research in military archives to shed new light on this period and clarify certain aspects.

Captain Hoste is a casualty of this work. From the very start of the book, the author points out that Hoste’s reputation has been inflated since his death. Indeed, some less than flattering accounts of his behavior are related, as well as positive aspects. Less familiar names who played their role in this part of Vis’s history such as Lord Bentinck and Captain Robertson are given their due.

Military history enthusiasts of this era will most likely gain the most from this work, but it is accessible to the general reader. Hardy gives an account as to the political circumstances of the time, and why the British were in the Adriatic and on Vis in particular. Indeed, correspondence from Lord Liverpool in London authorizing the occupation of Lissa (as Vis was then known) is reproduced.

The author considers all aspects of

Bulletin of the Association for Croatian Studies – No. 54 Spring 2010

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this period. We get the military and the political situation, but space is also devoted to aspects of everyday life on the island, including inter-action with the locals.

Correspondence from the time comments on matters varying from the looks of the local women (―tolerably looking damsels‖), and yes, the first cricket matches. Cricket it seems was used to while away time at this ―wretched‖ place.

Quite a lot of intrigues are covered as well. Aside from the straight military campaign, one reason for the British presence in the Adriatic was to encourage dissent against the French in the areas under their control as well as furthering British trade and son. The sometimes complex events coming out of this are described-an Irish secret agent even makes an appearance.

The book is illustrated throughout, with many illustrations form the time reproduced, a large number in color. This is used to great effect for the designs of the British forts. This is a huge strength for this work, as a number of these forts still survive and are visible to this day.

Fort George particularly benefits from this, with photographs of more recent times. The author points out--with a photograph from the time--that Fort George was even used as military installation during the Second World War. In the overall scheme of things, Vis played but a small role during the Napoleonic wars.

However, the occupation of the island by the British has left its visible mark in the form of the forts and indeed memorials and graves, a lot of which can still be seen.

Consequently, Hardy’s work will greatly enrich the time anyone may spend in visiting the island.

It is to be hoped that the book will in its way promote further British-Croatian cooperation. Those links are hardly unknown, especially with regard to the Second World War, but they are arguably underplayed. After all, Vis celebrates St. Georges day--and on the same date as England too. It would be no bad thing for diplomats of both countries were to have a copy of this work as part of their required reading.

Further, perhaps it could inspire some restoration work on the forts.

Visitors to the island can certainly go to them, but some work is in order, which

could help the island’s tourist potential as much as providing a symbolic link with the UK. Fort George can be reached--but one needs to be cautious due to its state of disrepair.

For anyone with the slightest interest in Vis or British-Croatian historical links, this is a work that should be top of the reading list. It would also make a superb companion for any trip to the island.

Brian Gallagher is editor of Croatia Business Report where this article originally appeared. www.croatiabusinessreport.com Nenad Vekarić and Boţena VranješŠoljan. Eds. Početak demografske tranzicije u Hrvatskoj. ZagrebDubrovnik: HAZU u Dubrovniku u suradnji Sveuĉlište u Duborvniku, 2009. pp. 367.

Dubrovnik Annals Volume 13 Zagreb-Dubrovnik 2009, 106 pages Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Institute for Historical Sciences in Dubrovnik Lapadska obala 6 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia 385-20-371-222 nenad.vekaric@du.t-com.hr

Anali. HAZU, Zavod za povijesne znanosti u Dubrovniku. Vol. 43. ZagrebDubrovniki, 2009. p. 391.

http://www.zavoddbk.org/

Nella Lonza. Kazalište vlasti: Ceremonijal i državni blagdani Dubrovačke republike u 17. i 18. stoljeću.

ZagrebDubrovnik: HAZU, Zavod za povijesne znanosti u Dubrovniku, 2009. pp. 591.

CONTENTS Articles Ana Marinković, Territorial Expansion of the Ragusan Commune/Republic and the Churches of Its Patron Saints; Netta Lonz, Pulling the Witness by the Ear: A Riddle from the Medieval Ragusan Sources; Zdenka Janeković-Römer, The Family Records of Andreas de Pozza from 15691603; Nenad Vekarić, Homicides Among Relatives in the Republic of Dubrovnik (1667-1806).

Nenad Vekarić. Nevidljive pukotine: dubrovački vlasteoski klanovi. ZagrebDubrovnik: HAZU, Zavod za povijesne znanosti u Dubrovniku, 2009. pp. 158.

Bulletin of the Association for Croatian Studies – No. 54 Spring 2010

Zdravko Šundrica.

Tajna kutija Dubrovačkog arhiva.

(Vol. II) ZagrebDubrovnik: HAZU, Zavod za povijesne znanosti u Dubrovniku, 2009. p.

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464.

Musa, Dušan, editor. Zbornik radova. Uloga Hrvata u Hercegovačkome ustanku (1875. – 1878.) Ljubuški: udruga ―Vojvoda don Ivan Musić‖, 2009, p. 391.

ISBN 978-99589924-0-7 Contributors are: Ivo Luĉić, Miroslav Palameta, Zlatko Hasanbegović, Josip

Vrandeĉić, Andrija Nikić, Marijan Sivrić, Andjelko Mijatović, Milo Jukić, Ţivko M. Andrijašević, Ivica Puljić, Miho Shimizu, Radoslav Dodig, Ivo Raguţ, and Stanislav Vukorep.

The book has three sections: I. Hercegovina, ustanak i okruţenje. II. Hercegovaĉki ustanak i prilike uoĉi i za vrijeme ustanka. III. Odjeci i refleksije Hercegovaĉkog ustanka. A summary in English follows each contribution.

Zavod za povijesne znanosti u Dubrovniku; Hrvatski raĉunovoĊa, 2009. pp. 512.

Benedikt Kotrulj. Edited and translated

by Zdenka Janeković Römer. Libro del arte della mercatura=Knjiga o vještini trgovanja. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: HAZU,

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