The Utopia of terror: life and death in wartime Croatia

Abstract

The Utopia of terror: life and death in wartime Croatia, edited by Rory Yeomans, Rochester NY, University of Rochester Press, 2015, 323 pp., US$125.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-580-46545-8Research on history of Independent State of Croatia (NDH) has increased significantly during past decade. A trend in this work has been movement away from writing solely top-down political histories and toward employing approaches that pay greater attention society and everyday life. The collection of essays in this volume reflects this reorientation. As book's editor, Rory Yeomans, notes in his introduction: By viewing citizens as active agents of historical events, this volume provides a more nuanced understanding of how society functioned under Ustasha [Croatian Revolutionary Movement] with respect relationship between party-state and ordinary citizens; between economics and politics; among intellectuals, institutions, and regime; and between terror and everyday culture from 'inside out' (5).Yeomans begins book with an introduction multiple literatures, in which he seeks situate case of NDH in relation European fascism. He provides an extended discussion of German historiography, and specifically of cultural history of Third Reich, which he argues is useful for those seeking better understand the culture of everyday for ordinary people living in extraordinary times under Ustasha rule (14).Part I of book, Terror as Everyday Experience, Economic System, and Social Practice, begins with a chapter by Dallas Michelbacher in which he explores NDH regime's nationalization of Jewish property in Sarajevo. Highlighting role of local actors, he notes that while many properties were confiscated, NDH leaders in Sarajevo were often more concerned with economic stability than racial ideology. Chapter 2, by Filip Erdeljac, focuses on town of Karlovac and sheds light on some of ways that NDH regime sought impose its ideological order, mobilize population, and gain social support. He concludes that wartime experience of Karlovac suggests that local circumstances allowed NDH authorities establish a certain degree of legitimacy and to prevent, until much later at least, Croat citizens from going over Partisan cause (82). In Chapter 3, Yeomans offers a second contribution in which he explores attempt by NDH elite use cinema remake popular consciousness. While interesting, fact that only about 150 cinemas existed in state by 1942 suggests limited insight be gained about social change by examining history of cinema in a largely rural state such as NDH. In Chapter 4, Radu Harald Dinu reflects about communicative and symbolic function of Ustasha atrocities. His chapter deserves applause for attempting bridge a longstanding gap between research on NDH and that on violence in other contexts. Yet his discussion is frequently speculative, owing a lack of fine-grained data on motivations of local Ustashas.In Part II of book, Incarnating a New Religion, National Values, and Youth, both Stipe Kljaic and Irina Ognyanova offer (in chapters 5 and 6) analyses of place of Catholic Church in NDH, and how Ustasha authorities attempted use aspects of Catholicism create a new kind of secular religion. …