National identity-building and the “Ustaša-nostalgia” in Croatia: the past that will not pass

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 772-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stevo Đurašković
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
National Reconciliation ◽  
Better Than

Most scholarship on post-Communist Croatia claims that the first Croatian president, Franjo Tuđman, intentionally rehabilitated the legacy of the World War II (WWII) Croatian Ustaša and its Nazi-puppet state. The rehabilitation of the Ustaša has been linked to Tuđman's national reconciliation politics that tended toward a particular “forgetting of the past.” The national reconciliation was conceptualized as a joint struggle of both the Croatian anti-fascist Partisan and the Croatian WWII fascist Ustaša successors to achieve Croatian independence. However, the existing scholarship does not offer a comprehensive explanation of the nexus between national reconciliation and the rehabilitation of the Ustaša. Hence, this article will present how “Ustaša-nostalgia” does not stem from Tuđman's intentions, but rather from the morphological gap occurring in Tuđman's nation-building idea. Namely, Tuđman's condemnation of the entire idea of Yugoslavism and Yugoslavia eventually brought about the perception that any historical agent advocating the idea of an independent Croatia is better than any form of Croatian Yugoslavism. Finally, the article will present how contemporary Croatian society is still seeped in “Ustaša-nostalgia” due to the hesitation of the post-Tuđman Croatian politics to come to terms with the legacy of his national reconciliation politics.

Analogies at War

2005 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. CHRISTOPHER JESPERSEN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
American History ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Events

The frequent use of the Vietnam analogy to describe the situation in Iraq underscores the continuing relevance of Vietnam for American history. At the same time, the Vietnam analogy reinforces the tendency to see current events within the context of the past. Politicians and pundits latch onto analogies as handles for understanding the present, but in so doing, they obscure more complicated situations. The con�ict in Iraq is not Vietnam, Korea, or World War II, but this article considers all three in an effort to see how the past has shaped, and continues to affect, the world the United States now faces.

When Croatia Needed Serbs: Nationalism and Genocide in Sarajevo, 1941-1942

Slavic Review ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Greble Balić
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Policies ◽  
The State ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent State

While a central policy of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II called for the removal of “Serbs,” the majority of people who identified themselves (or were identified by the regime) as Serbs in Sarajevo—the second largest city in the state—remained “safe.” In order to understand why this was the case, Emily Greble Balic examines the interplay between local identity politics and state policies of genocide and nation-building. In so doing, she sheds light on such broad issues as the ambiguity of national identity at the local level; the limitations of traditional understandings of “resistance”; and the options open to members of the victim, or “foreign” group, as a result of the disjunction between national and local agendas.

scholarly journals Hiroshima’s Hibakusha: The Costs of Human Health in a Nuclear Age

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Powell
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World War ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Many

At the end of World War II, Japan, as well as the rest of the world, was thrust into a new age of unbelievably destructive possibilities: the first use of nuclear weapons against human beings. Not only could such a bomb flatten an entire city, it could do so in only an instant. The poorly understood scars that were left showed a new level of war that the world needs to come to terms with. By considering the many medical effects of the atomic bomb on the victims of Hiroshima City, which encompasses the initial blast, radiation, and traumatic effects, we can gain a better understanding of the terrible costs of human health in nuclear war.

“A World of Tomorrow”: Trauma, Urbicide, and Documentation in A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Cornish
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Identity ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Collective Trauma ◽  
World War ◽  
Publication History ◽  
The World ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

The World War II diary A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City (2005) documents one woman’s story of survival in the spring of 1945 in Berlin, during which upward of 130,000 women were raped by soldiers of the Red Army. First, this essay introduces the politics of recuperating the English translation of the diary within the context of the scant supporting historical documentation and memorialization of Berliner women’s experience during the occupation. Second, it demonstrates how the diary produces a feminist account of survival and a narrative for collective trauma by examining the diarist’s representations of the effects of rape and rubblestrewn Berlin. Third, the essay details the complicated publication history of the diary through a consideration of the relationship between the trauma sustained by the survivors of mass rape and the blows to German national identity that it documents.

scholarly journals Statistics in Serbia

2004 ◽  
pp. 225-252
Author(s):  
Miodrag Nikolic
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Development ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Preparatory Period ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Types Of Information

From 1804 and the liberation from the foreign rule, Serbia tried to build a state of the European type. These efforts are indicated by the creation of numerous institutions which include statistics, too. Statistics offers testimonies about states and societies, representing them to the domestic and world public. It does so by collecting data about the territory and population, economy and culture of a country. The collected data are processed and published. Thus the politicians, scientists, businessmen and broad public acquire insights useful for the implementation of their activities and for a better understanding of the environment in which they work. Even before The First Serbian Uprising there were state institutions in the territory of the then Serbia. For the needs of that administration certain counts were made. But it was the work of foreign empires. Only the statistics created for the needs of Serbia?s own Principality, later Kingdom belongs to the history of Serbian statehood. That is why the national uprising begun in 1804 marks its justified historical start, and World War II was a logical moment for the end of this review. Understanding the development of the statistic service requires at least two types of information. First, it is useful to bear in mind those factors of social development which imposed the need for statistics in Serbia. The second set of remarks is related to the fact that Serbia at the time took the example of the statistical services in the more developed part of the world. Remarks about the stimuli from these two sources given in this text are only a reminder of the obligation to carry out still unfinished essential studies of the past. There were statistic reaserches in Serbia even before the foundation of the statistics service. Everything done in this area before 1862 belongs to the pioneering attempts, to the preparatory period, to prehistory. However, precisely these first endeavours clearly reveal governmental reasons for which statistics was created. That is why the statistics endeavours even before the establishment of the state statistics service also deserve attention.

scholarly journals The Winter War: Preparation and Technology of War

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 5052-5055
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Russian History ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The World ◽  
Armed Violence ◽  
Winter War

The theme of the World War II held in the period of 1941-1945 never loses its relevance because the threat of armed violence and military aggression in present days is too great. Therefore, the historical experience should become the property of the younger generation, so it does not repeat the mistakes of the past. Without speaking against the pluralism of scientific approaches and assessments in the study of the past in general, it is impossible to agree with the bias in the description of historical processes that take place today in Russian history. With the coming to power of the new political forces, many historical events concerning the past of the country are rethought, there is a rewriting of historical facts in favor of politicians, to justify their actions

scholarly journals Newsreels versus Newspapers versus Metadata

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (14) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Indrek Ibrus ◽  
Maarja Ojamaa
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Digital Archives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Newspaper Articles

This article offers a comparative take on the ways audiovisual versus verbal digital archives model our understanding of the past. We focus on content metadata schemas and their role in modeling histories and framing the uses of audiovisual databases. Our empirical corpus includes verbal and audiovisual objects from the five-year period just before the World War II (1935-1939) as presented in two digital databases – the Analytic Bibliography of Estonian Journalism and the Estonian Film Database. The article compares how the different metadata schemas for newspaper articles and newsreels model their objects. As a consequence, metadata schemas shape contemporary perceptions of historical realities in different ways.

U.S. Strategic Debates over the Defense of Japan: Lessons for the Twenty-first Century

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Futoshi Shibayama
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
First Century ◽  
Military Power ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Japanese Military ◽  
The World ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Past Half

AbstractWhat is the current meaning of Japan's military power and what contribution has that power made to America's strategic position in East Asia, even the world, over the past fifty-five years? Could there have been an alternative to Japanese rearmament? Answers to these and other related questions lie in the American debates on the nature of Japan's defense situation in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Regional and global strategic circumstances have obviously changed over the past half-century, just as have weapons systems themselves. Strategic controversies from 1945, however, endure as the fundamental framework for considering Japanese military power and its possible alternatives.

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