Today Croatia Research Articles

The Ustasha genocide over the Serbs: The continuing Dolus Specialis

The key characteristic of the criminal aspect of the genocide, which distinguishes it from other violations of international humanitarian law and raises it to the level of the "crime above all crimes", is the existence of the so-called genocidal intention of "complete or partial destruction of a specific national, ethnic, racial or religious group". The gravity and monstrosity of the content of such intention, as q rule, require that it is deeply rooted in the conscience of the members of the group perpetrating this crime, while such inveteracy also implies the permanence of the intention, or genocidal idea. During World War II, the Serbian people, together with Jews and Romas, in the Independent State of Croatia were the victims of the genocide, the crime that abhorred even the Nazis. The idea and intention of the extermination of the Serbian people from the territory considered as Croatia's national territory by the Croatian nationalists, although existing for centuries in the past, got its "theoretical formation" in the 19th century, primarily in the works of Ante Starčević, who was called the "Father of the Fatherland" while he was still alive. The Ustasha openly showed their enthusiasm and inspiration by Starčević's works during World War II, claiming that there would not have been the Independent State of Croatia if it had not been for Starčević. The Ustasha ideology persisted after World War II, primarily through the activities of the Ustasha emigrants, but Croatian nationalism, open to accept the Ustasha ideological legacy, also persisted in the territory of Croatia itself. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the revival of the idea about the secession of Croatia and its realization also led to the revival of the idea of the Serbs as a "destructive factor" in Croatia and the necessity of their elimination from that territory. Tuđman's Croatia resumed the Ustasha ideology in all its elements, including its attitude towards the Serbs and the genocidal intention, which had been largely realized during World War II. Drawing on the experience from the ISC, the Serbs became organized and prevented the repetition of the fate of their ancestors and relatives killed during World War II, but did not succeed in avoiding the "ethnic cleansing" from the territory of Croatia. The manner in which today's Croatia interprets events both from World War II and from the 1990s shows that the Ustasha ideology is still deeply rooted in the significant element of the Croatian society, including practically the entire top government of Croatia. An essentially important element of the Ustasha ideology is its genocidal intention towards the Serbs still living in Croatia.

A Room with a landscape: Vedute from the Palace of the Privileged Company of Trieste and Rijeka

Abstract In the oldest Austro-Hungarian sugar refinement plant opened in mid 18thcentury in Rijeka, today Croatia, a series of “idealized” landscapes pained by unknown artisans include depictions of slaves. The so-called Vedute ideate are a rare depiction of the racialized slave labor in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that points to the invisible labor, which enabled industrial production of sugar and made visible the relation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, together with the peripheral port town of Rijeka, to the global flow of capital and the history of colonialism. By drawing on Catherine Baker’s recently published “Race in Yugoslavia” we look at how representation of slavery did not receive critical assessment while the resentment for the racialization across ethnic lines, in relation to Europe proper where the inhabitants ex-Yugoslavia are themselves racialized as the European other, perseveres. With the repurposing of the industrial building in the framework of European Capital of Culture project, Rijeka 2020 – Port of Diversity, the Vedute ideate will be publicly displayed as part of the Museum of the City of Rijeka display but it is uncertain whether the museum will recognize colonialism as a constituent part of Rijeka’s industrialization and development.

Europa i jej wyobrażone granice w medialnym dyskursie chorwackim po 2012 roku

Europe and Its Imaginary Borders in the Croatian Media Discourse after 2012 Today Croatia is one of the countries situated on the border of the European Union. It joined the EU in 2013, i.a. already after the financial crisis of 2008 and just before the permanent crisis resulting from the indebtedness of the Southern peripheries of the EU, revealing of the humanitarian situation of migrants at the Mediterranean and Balkan borders of the Union, as well as a rise in xenophobia in numerous member states. Therefore, imaginary borders of Europe in the Croatian media discourse after 2012 can be a significant research field. This paper presents preliminary results of an analysis of a large corpus of articles from the Internet issue of a daily newspaper Večernji list from October 2012 until October 2017. The analysis is focused on the linguistic modelling of the notion of Europe (especially in the context of the European integration) and its limits (especially in the context of migration). A brief background concerning the cultural history of the notion of Europe in the Croatian cultural universe is also provided.

ЧИННИКИ РОЗВИТКУ ТУРИЗМУ В ХОРВАТІЇ

International tourism is gaining increasing influence on the country’s competitiveness in the world markets. The article is dedicated to Croatia, one of the most successful countries in the former Yugoslav republic. Its disintegration became one of the world’s national conflicts, where many human bloods were shed, by the way, it is similar to that which Ukraine is going through today. The Croats managed to put an end to the separatist conflict, embark on a plan for economic stability and enter the European Union. It was investigated that tourism was one of the priority development areas that the country focused on. It is determined that Croatia is one of the most important tourist destinations in the Mediterranean region, and the tourism industry is developing successfully and generating a stable income. The article considers the system of factors which became the prerequisite for the development of the tourist industry in Croatia. Their role in the development of the modern tourism industry in Croatia has been characterized. The main natural-geographical factors are investigated – relief, climate, water factor and nature reserve fund. It is determined that the advantage of Croatia is not only the clean and warm Adriatic sea but also the availability of thermal waters and mineral springs, as well as a unique natural reserve fund. The significance of human-geographical factors – socio-geographical position, historical-geographical, demographic, cultural-historical, level of socio-economic development, material and technical base and transport factors are revealed. Interestingly, the accession of Croatia to the EU was not prevented either by the territorial problems that the country had with Slovenia, nor the restrained attitude of the population towards European integration, nor the external debt of the country, which exceeded the crisis mark for the European Union. An analysis of the level of economic development in Croatia showed that Croatia had become one of the poorest countries of the EU at the time of its accession to this organization. The analysis of the main indicators of socio-economic development of the country in 2017 showed that today Croatia has become a very attractive European country, which tourists are willing to visit. The basis of Croatia’s economy is the service sector, whose share in the country’s GDP is 70.8%, of which direct revenue from tourism is 10.9%. The key factor in the development of tourism in Croatia is the material and technical base. In particular, the system of accommodation of Croatia for quality and service is not inferior to other European countries. Roads are the most modern and safe in Europe. The importance of tourism development in Croatia for the ecological and geographical factor is analyzed. It has been determined that an effective system of governance has been created in Croatia for the protection of the environment. Effective state tourism policy contributes to improving the attractiveness of Croatia in the tourist market and accelerates integration processes in the world economy.

Robert Bartini and His Contribution to the Development of Transport and Aviation

After the First World War, the young Soviet Union (USSR) desperately needed new engineers and scientists who would provide the new country with development of modern industry and transportation. At that time, Western European countries had knowledge and experience, especially in the field of aviation. One of the young engineers was Robert Bartini, who was educated in Austria-Hungary and Italy, and graduated from Milan Polytechnic Institute. In 1923, he fled Italy to escape Fascists and emigrated in Soviet Union. This article is a brief description of aircraft designer Robert Bartini and his role in the development of the military, passenger and transport aviation. In addition, it presents his vision of the intercontinental and continental high-speed transport, which was his focus in the last years of his work and creation. He worked as a researcher and expert in the former Soviet Union, therefore, more detailed and relevant information on his work has been revealed to the public in recent years. In Russia, he is very popular as a researcher and developer. There are many books about him in Russian and Italian language, but not in English. Thus, his work is still quite unknown in the West. He was born in Kanjiza (today Serbia) in 1897, and spent his youth in Fiume (Rijeka, today Croatia).

Turisti iz Slovenije u hrvatskom primorju – obilježja i prostorni raspored turističkog prometa i internetske turističke ponude

The Croatian Littoral has been the most important tourist destination for tourists from Slovenia for decades. The coastal areas of Istria, Kvarner, and Dalmatia, including the Adriatic islands, became widely popular among Slovenes in the period of intense tourism development in the once common state of Yugoslavia. Today Croatia is the destination of as many as 60% of all private trips from Slovenia. In the introduction the affinity of Slovene tourists for travel abroad is supplemented with statistical data on their visits to the Republic of Croatia. In the next sections special emphasis is placed on the number of Slovene tourists and overnight stays, their average length of stay and spatial distribution in the Croatian Littoral in 2007. These data are then compared to those from 1999. The central section of the article consists of a detailed analysis of the content of the internet tourism offer of Slovene travel agencies as presented on their websites. The objects of the analysis were the structure of advertised destinations in the Croatian Littoral across counties and the structure of offer by type of tourist services (summer vacation, travelling/trip, cruising).

The Siscia curse tablet from a linguistic point of view : a new autopsy

In 1912, during the dredging works of the river Kupa (in Sisak, today Croatia) a curse tablet was found by workers. Its text was published several times which showed differences in certain sections. On one hand it was due to the poor legibility of the text. On the other hand the reason of the discrepancies is that only some of the researchers could examine the tablet personally, the rest of them applied photographs or previous editors’ sketches which they interpreted in their own way. Because of the divergent readings, even establishing the correct text order of the outer and the inner side of the tablet has given rise to much controversy. Despite these problems, the text of this curse tablet has become a standing exemplar of vulgar Latin features on the course of the past 100 years, handbooks and publications on the Latin of imperial times refer its well-known “mistakes”. For obvious reasons, a new autopsy could not be delayed any longer. This paper aims to present a revised and interpreted reading of the Latin curse tablet from Siscia based on a recent autopsy.

From written records to seismic parameters: the case of the 6 April 1667 Dalmatia earthquake

On Wednesday 6 April 1667, an earthquake occurred, and severely affected a large area of the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, also known as southern Dalmatia, in today Croatia, and part of Montenegro. This paper summarizes the seismological data existing today on this large earthquake, with special attention to how such data were gathered by means of investigating hitherto not considered historical sources of earthquake records. The obtained set of 37 macroseismic intensities in European Macroseismic Scale-EMS98 was processed, to obtain an epicentre located not far from the most damaged places, amongst them Ragusa (today Dubrovnik), and an Mw value of 6.4 ± 0.3.

Development of the first adult respiratory extracorporeal membrane oxygenation center in Croatia under emergency circumstances.

We report on the challenges of establishing a successful adult respiratory extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) center in a developing country like Croatia under emergency conditions. We further introduce measures that would improve the outcome of patients treated with ECMO for respiratory failure at the national level. 100 consecutive adult patients treated with venovenous (VV) ECMO for acute respiratory failure were enrolled to the database prospectively from October 2009 until June 2016. A review of methodology in establishing an adult respiratory ECMO center is provided. 7 years after the establishment of the first respiratory ECMO center in Croatia the hospital mortality was 44% and ECMO procedure survival was 71%. With this data, our results are comparable to an average extracorporeal life support organization (ELSO) center. Our results demonstrate that a successful adult respiratory ECMO center can be established under emergency conditions even in less developed countries like Croatia. Today Croatia's respiratory ECMO network is insufficiently organized and the Ministry of Health should provide a comprehensive, national, ECMO network strategy. Currently, and contrary to the opinion of the world's leading experts, any hospital in Croatia is allowed to perform the ECMO procedure without any control or validation. Only if health-policy makers in Croatia reconsider this issue will we be able to provide the best care possible for respiratory ECMO patients at the national level.

Can Local Governments in Croatia Cope with more Responsibilities?

The decentralization process started in 2001 by broadening the responsibilities of local self-government units and changing the sources of financing public functions. In spite of these steps toward decentralization, today Croatia exhibits low level of fiscal decentralization compared to EU and SEE countries. In the paper we show that large differences in fiscal capacity between local government units and their large reliance on received grants represent one of the main barriers for further decentralization process. Based on the analysis of the results of conducted interviews with representatives of local and regional units, we present recommendations for further process of decentralization.

Prostitutes and criminals: beginnings of eugenics in Croatia in the works of Fran Gundrum from Oriovac (1856-1919)

Fran Gundrum (1856-1919) was a Croatian physician, encyclopedist, and an advocate of medical enlightenment and healthy lifestyle. In order to identify and analyze Gundrum’s ideas about the problems of prostitution and criminality, we studied all of his books, booklets, and articles published between 1905 and 1914. We showed that Gundrum’s theories of heredity, morality, and sexual hygiene incorporated many of the important discussions of his time, especially those related to the Darwinian paradigm. Gundrum’s project of collecting statistics on prostitutes was the first such study published on the territory of today's Croatia. Although he rejected the notions of born prostitutes and born criminals, defended by Italian criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, he still regarded eugenics as a convenient method of dealing with the ills of society. He believed that criminals were degenerate individuals representing a violent threat to the society and that it was legitimate to use radical means, such as sterilization and deportation, to deal with this problem. Organicistic view of the society prevented him from seeing the individual rights as important as that of the society to protect itself. Nevertheless, this view led to many humanistic ideas, such as the binomial illness/poverty in case of prostitution, which influenced many prominent works of social medicine movement.

Protestantism in Serbia

Protestantism began to spread into the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina only 20 years after it first emerged in Germany. Fon Taube' speaks of 'hundreds of reformed parishes' in Vojvodina and Slavonia (in today's Croatia). The growing threat from the Ottoman Turks in the south, however, soon forced many Protestants to move westward. The earliest Reformed parish was established in Zrenjanin in Vojvodina in 1551 by Szegedy Kiss Istvan, followed soon by six more in the region, but they were soon destroyed by the Turks, who occupied lands from Zemun to Virovitica. Some towns and villages managed to preserve the 'new faith', but the Counter-Reformation soon brought a new wave of persecution, and Protestantism was almost expelled from Vojvodina by the end of 1550s. 'Christians were always in conflicts: Franciscans against the Calvinists and Lutherans ... who were more persecuted by the Catholic Church than by the Muslims.' 3 As the Reformation spread through Europe in the sixteenth century its influence was felt in the southern parts of Austria. In Slovenia, the Roman Catholic canon of Laibach, today's Ljubljana, Primus Truber! came out in opposition to Rome. Clergy and government assailed him but nobles protected him until 1540, whereafter he was driven unto exile and became a Lutheran pastor in Kempten (Germany). 'Many of the sons of the nobles were sent to the universities of Wittenberg, Tiibingen, and later Geneva. Several cities, such as Graz and Klagenfurt, joined Lutheranism as a form of protest against the Hapsburg policies.' 5 The spread of Lutheranism in Carniola and Carinthia owed much to the nobleman Baron Johannes Ungnad von Sonneck (1493-1564). He controlled land in presentday Croatia as the governor of Styria, but because of his adherence to the Reformation he was compelled to flee to Wiirttemberg in Germany, whose duke was supportive of Protestants. In 1560 Primus Truber and Baron Ungnad met in the town of Urach in Germany, near Tiibingen, where Truber had become a parish priest and where Ungnad was living in the territories of the duke of Wiirttemberg. Truber was working on the translation of the New Testament into Slovenian,o and in 1557 and 1560 he published the Gospels, Acts and Romans in Tiibingen. When Ungnad was given a printing press by the duke of Wiirttemberg and set it up at the duke's residence Truber joined him and for the next five years (1560-64) they printed Protestant books in the Glagolitic and Latin alphabets (the former for Croats in Dalmatia and the latter for Slovenians), and also in the Cyrillic alphabet, letters

Language and Politics in Today's Croatia

Language and Politics in Today's Croatia