Suchergebnisse

The author deals with one of the most pressing problems of the 20th century - the problem of migrations. The essay is divided into four parts. In the first, the author presents empirical findings; in the second, he deals with the causes of the intra- and inter-national migrations; the third part is an outline of feasible perspectives, while the fourth offers possible options as countermeasures. The 20th century is characterized by the shift of the regional focal points of migrations. In the first half of the century, the inter-national migrations of refugees largely took place in Europe. However, in the second half of the century, the hub of the migrations shifted from the northern to the southern hemisphere. One of the major causes of migrations are wars and the accompanying violence. Other important causes are economic hardships, population boom, ecological disasters and the erosion of traditional values. Judging by the characteristics of the major causes of migrations, it is very unlikely that the situation at the turn of the millennium is going to change significantly. The only thing international organizations and states can do is to alleviate this problem by creating long-term strategies that might strike at the roots of the migration issue. (SOI : PM: S. 59)

The author presents and evaluates the political program of the wartime Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) in the Independent State of Croatia. HSS wanted a Croatian state organized on democratic bases, not a totalitarian state. They saw the postwar Croatia either as an independent state or, depending on historical circumstances, as a member of a state of confederal type in which it could keep the characteristics of its national sovereignty. Such program was represented by HSS in negotiations with the Ustasha leaders in Summer of 1943 and in the negotiations with the communist leaders in 1943/44. HSS also tried to carry out that program through the military political coup in the Summer of 1944 (Vokic-Lorkovic coup). Conspirators were removed by the leader Ante Pavelic, but the political program of the wartime HSS was not prevented, in the last consequence, by Pavelic, but by the Yugoslav, and among them also Croatian communists: after the World War Two the communists established their centralized one-party Yugoslav state. (SOI : CSP: S. 496)

The thirtieth anniversary of the Casopis za suvremenu povijest published by the Hrvatski institut za povijest (Croatian Institute for History) in Zagreb (1969-1999) gives the occasion for a review and analysis of its contents, looks, and accomplishments. Casopis was initiated at the then Institute za historiju radnickog pokreta Hrvatske (The Institute for History of the Workers Movement in Croatia) in order to expand the research beyond workers and their political and union organisations and beyond the period of the World War II, which were dominant themes at the Institute. This intention resulted in the expansion of the research and in the publication of the results in the journal. The tradition of co-operation with researchers outside of the Institute and with those abroad continued. The journal published numerous themes from national history as well as history of other nations and minorities. The problems of historical methodology and of evaluation of books and other works were not neglected. One of the marks of the journal is the presence of polemics. The journal succeeded in maintaining these characteristics in spite of changes of the political situations, by which it was stamped. (SOI : CSP: S. 459)

Newspaper articles about Hungary on the pages of Vjesnik in the period between 1945 and 1950 were relatively numerous, but dealt exclusively with political circumstances and relations. Three basic stereotypes could be seen in the writings about Hungary, and it is indicative that they were formed in a relatively short period of four years and that they were radically opposite to each other. The first one, in the period from the end of the World War Two up to the establishment of complete communist command in Hungary in the Fall of 1947, when the defeated forces and civil political groups were ascribed negative aspects of Hungarian life and relationship with Yugoslavia, with affirmation of all the activities connected with national democratic, communist orientation. The other, in the short period between the Fall of 1947 and Summer of 1948, when the articles about Hungarian themes had solely positive characteristics. The third, after the resolution of Information Bureau of the Cominform in Summer of 1948, when the newspaper pages on Hungary were again full of negative articles, but this time Hungarian communist leadership was blamed for all the negativities. The picture about Hungary which one could get from the newspapers was generally incomplete, oriented primarily to the political events. It obviously depended on political and ideological orientations of Yugoslav ruling communist circles. The information was in the service of achieving exclusively political goals, not to give thorough and complete information to the readers. (SOI : CSP: S. 518)

The author discusses the works by Croatian and foreign theologians and historians (Ivo Pilar, Alois Hudal, Janko Simrak, Krunoslav Draganovic, Fran Grivec and Dragutin Nezic) about the Serbian Orthodox Church which appeared in the inter-war period. These authors posed a series of questions which are still open for debate today. Pilar describes the Serbian Orthodox Church as an institution which has an important role in the process of Serbian national integration. Hudal analyzes the reasons for the decline of Catholicism in the Balkans, discussing the negative consequences which befell the Roman Catholic Church in the Yugoslav Monarchy, which supported the expansion of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The works of Simrak, Nezic, and Draganovic deal with the complex process of attempting a union between the Roman Catholic Church and orthodox Christians. The author mentions that these writers and their works are not well known to the Croatian public, and that only during the 1980s was more intensive research undertaken by Croatian academics on the topic of the political and cultural activity of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The author concludes the article by suggesting that these works by Croatian and foreign historians and theologians can serve as the basis for further research on this topic. (SOI : CSP: S. 573f.)