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By Katarina Damčević
The rise of hate speech against Serbs in Croatia has been partly facilitated by influential political figures, including members of the government. This manifests primarily through attempts to whitewash the legacy of the WWII Ustaša regime and downplay the crimes it committed.
Paper presented at the 2016 European Social Science History Conference, Valencia 30 March – 2 April 2016
In December 1960, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia decided about the director of the newly founded “Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement” in Zagreb. Their pick was a major-general from the Yugoslav People’s Army. He did not have training as a historian but only secondary and vocational school education. However, he possessed other important qualifications: he had been a partisan during World War Two, he was an active member of the Communists Party and of the influential partisan veteran organization, and he was a history enthusiast. He had already published on themes from the military and political history of Yugoslavia, and he was a member of the editorial board of the “Military Encyclopedia” (Vojna Enciklopedija).
