History of the Institute
The current Croatian Institute of History (since 1996) is the successor to the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement (1961-1990) and the Institute for Contemporary History (1990-1996). The Institute is today the largest public research institute in the field of humanities in the Republic of Croatia, and its research includes the study of the past of Central and Southeastern Europe, with an emphasis on the history of the Croatian people in contact with other peoples.
Institute for the History of the Croatian Workers’ Movement (1961 – 1965 – 1990)
The desire of the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to publish the history of the workers’ movement and revolution of the people of Yugoslavia was crucial for the establishment of the Institute. In this sense, the Commission for the History of the Workers’ Movement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia decided in 1959 to do this within ten years, in the form of a multi-volume book. Although this was later abandoned due to the lack of research into recent national history, the lack of organized archival materials, and the lack of scientific and professional staff, these were the foundations for the establishment of the Institute in Zagreb. It is important to note that similar research institutes were established in other Yugoslav people’s republics at that time, with the same intention.
The available data indicate that Zvonko Brkić , then executive secretary of the Central Committee of SKH, proposed to Major General JNA Franjo Tuđman to organize the Institute as the director. Obviously, in coordination with the top of the SKH, Anka Berus , president of the Commission for History of the CK SKH, and Ankica Magašić, president of the Council for Culture and secretary of the Commission for History of the CK SKH, approved the appointment Franjo Tuđman and on December 23, 1960. Zvonko Brkić officially offered Tudjman the position of director. In the end, with the decision to establish the Institute, the founders appointed 12 members of the first Council, and appointed Franjo Tuđman as the director.
The founders referred to the Law on the Organization of Scientific Work from 1957, published in the Official Gazette of the FNRJ. The Institute took over all the rights and obligations of the previous one Archives for the history of the labor movement in Zagreb. It was decided that the Institute would start its work on October 1, 1961, which is also the date of its foundation. It was registered in the register of scientific institutions on October 28, 1961 under the name Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement. For several months, the Institute was located at Opatička Street 8 in Gornji Grad in Zagreb, in the building previously used by the Archive for the History of the Labor Movement, and in 1962 it moved to the neighboring building at Opatička 10.
The founding of the Institute was the first organized attempt to place research into the history of the labor movement in Croatia on a scientific basis. However, given the founders, while satisfying scientific and professional needs, it was difficult to avoid satisfying the founders’ political and ideological needs.
According to its Rules from 1962, the Institute was governed by a Council, a Board and a Director. In addition to the Council, there was also a Board of the Institute, which had seven to eleven members. It consisted of the director, assistant directors and members elected by the collective from among its ranks. The Board adopted regulations, resolved financial issues, discussed work plans and reports on work. According to the Statute, the director had to be a prominent “scientific or political worker”. He was appointed by the founders on the proposal of the Institute Council. In addition, there was a Scientific Council of thirteen members and an Editorial Board of the Paths of Revolution of seven members.
Since its founding in 1961, the Institute has become the central historiographic institution in Croatia responsible for researching the recent period of Croatian history, more precisely for that part that is connected with the development of the working class, socialist thought, and the social democratic and communist parties. In addition to the newly founded Institute, historians who were engaged in scientific research in Croatia were gathered in Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU), the Old Slavonic Institute and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb and Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar . Of course, individuals also worked in other institutes of a humanistic and social orientation, especially archives and museums.
The first change in the institute’s name took place in 1965, when the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement was renamed the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement of Croatia (IHRPH). Obviously, the name should have emphasized not only that it was an institute, and a historiographic institute dealing with the history of the workers’ movement, but also that its research was mainly related to Croatia and Croatian topics.
However, the interpretation of history offered by Tuđman and some associates of the Institute did not coincide with the previous interpretations of the history of the partisan movement and the communist revolution. F. Tuđman, with the support of several of his associates, disagreed on several important historiographical issues with the leadership of the SKH and several historians outside the Institute. Later, the question of those who died in the Jasenovac camp also arose. In October 1965, Tuđman sent a study to the Commission for History of the Central Committee of the SKH, which, according to him, reached the generals. Ivan Gošnjak and Josip Broz Tito , and warned of the incredible figure of 600,000 to 800,000 killed.
At the time of Tudjman’s leadership, the Institute discussed the contribution of Croatia, Croatian communists in the Partisan movement and rejected the responsibility of Croats for the defeat of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, but at that time, of course, the question of Andrija Hebrang or the mass executions of officials and soldiers of the Independent State of Croatia and the persecution of political opponents after the war was not yet open.
In April 1965. Vladimir Bakarić attacked Tudjman and some members of the Institute as nationalists. The commission that was set up to evaluate their work met on July 2, 1965 and punished Tudjman with a severe reprimand. However, after it was assessed in 1967 that he continued with his policy, in April of the same year he was attacked by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia and its Presidency, and the Council of the Institute demanded Tudjman’s resignation. Pressured by all sides, Tudjman resigned as director on April 7, 1967.
If we were to briefly describe Franjo Tuđman’s activities as head of the Institute, we could say that he was convinced that the Institute’s role was to promote the “Croatian interpretation” of recent history, because he believed that historiography was a means of political activity. He was suspicious to politicians as a nationalist, and to historians as a man who used historiography for political purposes.
After a few months, on July 14, 1967, the Institute Council elected a new director, at the proposal of the founder. Dušan Bilandžić . The new director immediately reorganized the Institute, which resulted in a reduction in the number of employees. Some left for political reasons, and some for financial reasons. After two years, Bilandžić resigned on September 30, 1969, and went to become the director of the Center for Social Research of the Presidency of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. On October 1, 1969, he was elected acting director. Zlatko Čepo , the former acting secretary of the Institute, continued to perform the duties of secretary. He was elected director on October 24, 1972. If we count the phases according to the directors, the third phase of the Institute begins with Zlatko Čepo. Given that the situation had not yet been resolved, socio-political organizations also offered support to the Institute. However, despite the expressed wishes, the Institute fell into a financial crisis. In addition to financial problems, the Institute was also troubled by the fact that its founders did not adhere to the statutory provisions and obligations, which endangered its operations. Despite all appeals, the financial crisis continued, and the number of employees continued to fall.
However, despite the difficulties, the smaller number of researchers and the reduced program, ambitious plans were persisted with. In addition to the planned cooperation with regional institutes of similar orientations, such as the Historical Institute of Slavonia in Slavonski Brod, the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement of Dalmatia in Split and the Center for the History of the Workers’ Movement in Rijeka, closer cooperation was also planned with the history departments of the faculties of philosophy in Zagreb and Zadar, the North Dalmatian Institute of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Adriatic Institute in Zagreb, and also Institute of Contemporary History from Belgrade.
The beginning of the 1970s is also associated with the first traces of the idea of transforming the Institute from an institute for class history to an institute for national history. Of course, the concept of the Institute was understood in this broader sense from the very beginning, but until then there had been no proposal to formally transform the Institute into an institute for national history. After the personnel purge, there were even fewer opportunities for this, but apparently such an atmosphere was created in society that for the first time the need for an institute in which the national component would replace the class component in the name was expressed. However, the idea of changing the name after the dismissal of the leadership of the SKH headed by Savko Dabčević Kučar was not mentioned until the name was changed to the Institute for Contemporary History in 1990.
Two years after the closure of the journal Putovi revolucije (1964–1967), in 1969 the Journal of Contemporary History . In the early 1970s, the external collaboration program was radically reduced and many contracts that had foreseen the publication of about fifty books were terminated. The institute focused on co-publishing, or collaborators were allowed to publish with other publishers.
The thematic orientation of the Institute in the early 1980s is partly revealed by the number of collaborators by period: in the period up to 1918 there were five collaborators, in the period from 1918 to 1941 six, in the period from 1941 to 1945 eleven and in the period from 1945 five collaborators. However, this data is supplemented by the fact that among the six new employees in recent years, four of them were accepted into the section dealing with the period after 1945, and the section for “history of the period of socialist construction” was renewed. In addition to the regular Journal of Contemporary History, in 1982 the following were launched: Historical contributions . In fact, it was planned to publish a collection of works with larger works, such as master’s degrees, which could not be published in ČSP due to their scope, and this idea soon turned into the launch of a magazine.
One of the problems, as seen by the Institute’s leadership, was the tolerance of personal choice of research topic, which resulted in individuals’ resistance to participating in writing joint books, which was justified by defending the “freedom of individual work and advancement.”
The institute was marked by a new scandal in 1981. Namely, in the autumn of that year Ivan Jelić resigned from the position of President of the Scientific Council and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contemporary History. He resigned due to the attack of the City Committee of the Union of Associations of Veterans of the People’s Liberation War (SUBNOR) of Croatia, which on July 28, 1981, sent a protest to Školska knjiga, the publisher of the book Encyclopedia of Croatian History and Culture published in 1980. They reacted to Jelic’s claims in the encyclopaedic unit “Concentration Camps” and “Terror of the Occupying-Ustasha Rule” that “tens of thousands” of people were killed in Jasenovac. It was claimed that these were “forgeries”, “a revision of the basic and at the same time the most painful facts from the time of the Ustasha-Nazi reign of terror” that goes “in favor of the enemy’s defensive-propaganda theory about the guilt of the Partisans for war suffering” and “a brazen act of covering up the Ustasha crime of crimes”.
Despite all the adversities, by the mid-1980s the Institute had grown into the largest institution in the field of historical sciences in Croatia and Yugoslavia, becoming the carrier or coordinator of projects in the research of contemporary history. The Institute’s plans and reports included those of the Historical Institute of Slavonia and Baranja in Slavonski Brod (later the Center for Social Research of Slavonia and Baranja), which in the mid-1980s decided to integrate with the IHRPH, the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement of Dalmatia in Split, and the Center for the History of the Workers’ Movement and the Homeland of Istria, the Croatian Littoral and Gorski Kotar in Rijeka. These institutes or centers covered the same field of work with an emphasis on regional history, and were not registered as scientific institutions. The only regional historiographic center that was not involved in the work on the Institute’s projects was the Center for Historical Research in Rovinj, which was engaged in research on the history of the Italian minority.
Institute of Contemporary History (1990 – 1996)
A new change in leadership occurred in the late 1980s. Zlatko Čepa was replaced as acting director on January 1, 1987. Zorica Stipetic, employed at the Institute since 1962 and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the 1980s. In the meantime, Eastern Europe was swept by a wave of democratization and the collapse of the communist system. The liberalization and democratization of Yugoslavia ran parallel to the political crisis, confederalization and, as it turned out, the collapse of the state. In such conditions, the republican institutes for the history of the labor movement changed their names and adapted them to the actual content of their research, but also to abandon the formal historiographical patterns of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The first to do so was the Slovenian Institute for the History of the Labor Movement, which changed its name in 1989 to Institute for Recent HistoryIt was soon followed by the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement of Croatia.
The Institute for the History of the Croatian Workers’ Movement registered the new name, Institute for Contemporary History (ISP), at the District Court in Zagreb on 10 April 1990. The name change was the very end of a logical sequence of what had already been confirmed in the Institute’s activities, especially its programmatic orientation, research results and the scientific focus of its staff.
So in 1990 Croatia had three institutes that covered, at least in principle, approximately the same periods and areas. Apart from the Institute of Contemporary History, these were Institute for Croatian History, Faculty of Philosophy and Institute for Historical Sciences, Academy of Sciences and Arts in ZagrebIn addition to them, the history of the Croatian people since the early Middle Ages has also been studied by scientific institutions outside Zagreb, especially in some research centers of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
In accordance with the new concept of scientific and developmental research, the Institute of Contemporary History, according to the development plan dated 2 April 1991, organized its activities for the next medium-term period on the basis of new projects that significantly changed its scientific and research orientation. Six new projects represented the basis for further expansion of the institution’s research programs. All of them were focused on organizing scientific and research activities in recent national history, which means that the Institute decided to cover as wide an area of recent Croatian national history as possible, with all projects (except for the project “Military Border – Materials and Studies”) being focused on researching the development of modern Croatian civil society from the mid-19th century to the present day.
In these circumstances in July 1991 Mirko Valentić became the director of the Institute, and in 1994 the Institute’s research focus was further expanded, as is evident from the work plan for the period 1994-1998, in which the number of projects increased to ten. Of particular importance was the fact that the Institute focused its research on earlier periods of Croatian history, up to the early modern period.
The Institute’s management was focused on expanding the research core of the Institute for Contemporary History in the period, thus ensuring the institution’s survival and its transformation into a central state institute whose projects cover all periods of Croatian history.
In parallel with the launch of new scientific research projects, the Institute has continued to participate in the work of some reputable foreign institutions with which it began cooperation before 1990, as part of research into the history of the labor movement, and therefore one cannot speak of a radical cut in the scientific profiling of the Institute, at least when it comes to its international cooperation, but rather of the emergence of previously neglected issues of Croatian history. For example, a kind of continuity in the Institute’s international cooperation is represented by its continued participation in the work of the International Conference of Historians of the Labor Movement.
In order to more effectively present the research results of the Institute’s employees and to print works from Croatian historiography and literary-historical heritage, as well as to publish valuable materials and cartographic collections, the Institute launched the Croatian Historian Library in 1993. This marked the beginning of an edition in which a valuable library series of monographs and archival materials was published in the following years, noted both domestically and internationally, and unparalleled in domestic historiographic production.
At the same time, during this period, the first steps and preparatory work were taken towards the restoration of the Institute Palace, especially the famous Golden Hall, which was unfortunately in a dilapidated state. These efforts were prompted by the fact that the palace at Opatička 10 is a first-class building and as such is listed as a zero-category cultural monument.
Croatian Institute of History (1996 – )
On February 19, 1996, at the instigation of the director Mirko Valentić The former Institute for Contemporary History, upon its entry into the register of the Commercial Court in Zagreb, began to operate under a new name as the Croatian Institute of History. In practice, the Institute continued to operate as before, but the change of name was much more than a mere formality. The previous name reflected, and to some extent limited, the focus of research on contemporary Croatian history. The new name also formally removed the obstacles to the research being focused on topics from all periods of Croatian history. In addition, even before the name change, researchers working on earlier periods were working at the Institute, who had been brought together on several scientific research projects since the early 1990s.In the same year 1996 The Institute’s research activities were expanded with 14 new projects divided into 8 scientific research programs. The topics of these projects continued to be mostly focused on modern and contemporary history, but individual topics of regional history were also introduced , as well as the study of Croatian Latin historiography.
One of the programs was related to the organizational expansion of the Institute, i.e. the establishment and start of operations of the Institute’s branch in Slavonski Brod – the Croatian Institute of History, Branches for the history of Slavonia, Srijem and BaranjaWork on its establishment began in 1995, and the idea of establishing it was initiated a year earlier by the future head of the Branch. Mato Artukovic. Slavonski Brod was not chosen as the seat of the Branch, given that from 1961 to September 1963 an institute focused on researching the history of Slavonia and Baranja operated there. At its session on 4 June 1996, the Governing Council decided to establish the Branch for the Study of the History of the Croatian People in the Region of Slavonia, Srijem and Baranja, with its seat in Slavonski Brod. Since then, the Branch has established itself not only as a significant part of the Croatian Institute of History, but also as a significant institution within Croatian historiography, whose activities can serve as a shining example of researching the regional history of various Croatian regions. In 2001, the Branch in Slavonski Brod also launched a magazine, the annual Scrinia slavonica , which is published regularly every autumn under the editorial direction of Stanko Andrić.
In the meantime, the development of the Zagreb headquarters continued. This primarily refers to the rejuvenation and expansion of the staff, which was initiated in the early 1990s with the admission of the first junior researchers. The vast majority of junior researchers admitted during the 1990s and those admitted later successfully fulfilled their obligations and, with more or less luck, obtained permanent employment. At that time, many of them were also involved in the work of the journal editorial boards, participated in the organization of scientific and other conferences, and in other activities within the Institute. Given the passage of years, the junior researchers who began their careers during the 1990s have become, as established historians, a kind of support for the entire work of the Institute.
An important segment of the Institute’s cooperation with other institutions is cooperation with universities, i.e. the participation of researchers from the Institute in conducting university teaching. The Institute’s cooperation with Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb (today the Faculty of Croatian Studies), where the study of history was launched in 1996. The leading role in the launch and organization of this study was played by researchers from the Croatian Institute of History, led by the then director Mirko Valentić. At the same time, researchers from the Institute were occasionally involved in teaching at other units of the University of Zagreb and at other Croatian universities. The same pattern can be observed through the cooperation between the Institute and Croatian Catholic University since 2010. The participation of the Institute and its researchers is more than noticeable in professional associations, in the Society for Croatian History and Croatian National Committee for Historical Sciences (CNOPZ).
During 1998 and 1999, the Institute Palace, from a former dilapidated building with compromised statics, once again became one of the most beautiful and representative historical spaces in the city of Zagreb. By 2001, departments were established within the Institute in accordance with new legal regulations as a new form of organizing research groups. The following departments were established:
- I. Department of Medieval History
- II. Department of Modern History
- III. Department of 19th Century Croatian History
- IV. Department of Contemporary History
- V. Department of Croatian Latin Historiography
- VI. Department of the Slavonski Brod Branch for the History of Slavonia, Srijem and Baranja
The newly established departments were supposed to integrate existing projects, but this was not entirely possible due to their inherited organizational structure and research areas. Harmonization of the research areas of the departments and projects was only possible by applying for 23 new Z-projects to the then Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia during the same year 2001. Among the projects that were applied for and accepted and later successfully managed was the project “The Creation of the Republic of Croatia and the Homeland War 1991-1995-1998.” (led by Zdenko Radelić ), which followed the request of the Government of the Republic of Croatia of March 9, 2001, to launch research under the working title “Homeland War and War Victims in the 20th Century”. The launch of this project is connected to the doubts and debates in the Croatian public at the time about the character of the Homeland War and to the expressed need to launch scientific historiographical research into this important period of recent Croatian history.
After the establishment of the Croatian Memorial and Documentation Center of the Homeland War In 2005, a close research collaboration was established, which continues today.
The launch of the new project cycle in 2002 coincided with the election of the new director of the Institute. Milan Kruhek , who had previously been deputy director and was no stranger to the tasks of running the institution. The new director took over the Institute in early 2003 as an institution that had been strengthened in terms of staff in previous years and whose premises had been thoroughly renovated and equipped with equipment that enabled the successful work of researchers. During his term at the head of the Institute, the achieved level of success in project work was maintained, and a larger number of junior researchers were hired. In 2005, another scientific journal was launched Review of Croatian History published in foreign languages.
The year 2006 was marked by the application of new Z-projects, and at the same time as the application of new projects, the last months of Kruhek’s term as director expired, and he was replaced by the former deputy director and editor of the Journal of Contemporary History. Stjepan MatkovicThe new director took office at the beginning of 2007, and Milan Kruhek continued to lead the then Department for the Medieval History of the Croatian People.
The originally planned project period was to last until 2010, but due to the planned changes to the law on scientific activity and related changes in the organization of scientific research, the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports extended their duration and funding until the end of 2011 (eventually these projects were extended until the end of 2013).
At the end of 2010, the regular procedure for the election of the new director of the Institute took place. The specificity of this election was the application of as many as three candidates, all researchers from the Institute itself, which in its own way speaks volumes about the human resources capacities at the Institute’s disposal. The Governing Board of the Croatian Institute of History had a difficult task and in the end, based on the report of the Competition Committee, elected the following as the director: Jasna Turkalj, who took office on January 1, 2011.
During this period, the internal structure of the Institute did not change, but due to the change in the model of financing project work (the end of the so-called Z-projects in 2013) and the need to apply for competitive tenders from the national foundation and those of the European Commission, the focus of research shifted to thematic expansion of research topics and a diachronic approach to researching individual topics. Accordingly, after 2013, interdepartmental research work was intensified so that research teams were composed of employees employed in different scientific and research departments. During this period, the Institute submitted project proposals to European Union tenders for the first time, so in addition to implementing projects funded by the Croatian Science Foundation, from 2016 to 2019 the Institute participated in the implementation of one research project funded through the EU Horizon 2020 program.
In the period from 2019 to 2022, he was elected as the director. Gordan RavancicDuring this period, research work continued according to the previous guidelines and largely to the same extent, although two disasters (the COVID-19 epidemic and two major earthquakes in 2020) caused a temporary reorganization of the Institute’s work. Namely, due to the renovation of the Institute Palace in the fall of 2022, the Institute was temporarily relocated to a new address at Gajeva 2a (Zagreb).
At the beginning of 2023, he was elected as the director of the Institute. Miroslav Akmadza, the previous head of the Branch. Due to the new Law on Higher Education and Scientific Activity (2022) and the need for more efficient research work, a new Statute and a new Program Work Strategy were adopted in 2023, which restructured the previous scientific departments, and the new structure defined these departments:
- Scientific Department of Medieval History
- Scientific Department of Early Modern History
- Scientific Department of Modern History
- Scientific Department of Contemporary History
- Scientific Department for Historical Sources and Digital History
- Branch for the History of Slavonia, Srijem and Baranja
* The text about the history of the Institute is mostly taken from: Half a Century of the Past. Croatian Institute of History (1961-2011) , eds. Zdenko Radelić and Jasna Turkalj, (Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, 2011), 13-126; Bibliography of the Croatian Institute of History (2011 – 2020), edited by Darija Pancirov and Martina Jurčić, (Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, 2021), 7-24.
Croatian Institute of History
The premises of the Croatian Institute of History are located at Opatička 10. It is a unique building, located in the Upper Town, rich in history and value.
