The Ideology of Nation and Race: the Croatian Ustasha Regime and its Policies toward the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945
The Ideology of Nation and Race: the Croatian Ustasha Regime and its Policies toward the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945

Summary/Abstract: Contrary to the general historiographical view that has either ignored or down played the influence of racial theories on Ustasha policies toward the Serbs of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), this article highlights how the question of 'race' permeated Ustasha attitudes on the 'Serb problem' and connected with this, on the wider question of Croatian national identity. Ustasha ideas on race evolved from the attempt to confirm Croatian national individuality in the face of the racial supranational ideology ofYugoslavism and expansionist and assimilationist greater Serbian nationalism. This article will examine how the Ustashe distinguished the 'Aryan' and 'Nordic-Dinaric' Croats from the 'Balkan-Vlach' and 'Near Eastern' Serbs and how these racial definitions shaped Ustasha policies toward the Serbs.

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