PRVI SVJETSKI RAT U DJELU DR. FRANJE TUĐMANA
WORLD WAR I IN FRANJO TUĐMAN’S WRITINGS

Author(s): Stjepan Matković
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Politics of History/Memory, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: World War I; Austro-Hungary; Croatia; national question;
Summary/Abstract: Franjo Tuđman’s views on World War I and the immediate postwar period constitute a minor, but still important part of his multileveled opus. Tuđman believed this period to have been one of the key turning points in modern European history, with a distinct and complex impact on Croatia’s position. In his opinion, the outcome of the war caused Croatia to lose its historical statehood attributes that had been present to a limited extent in its subdualist position in the Habsburg Monarchy, only to disappear altogether in the monarchist Yugoslavia after 1918. On the other hand, he advocates the real political opinion that the disintegration of Austro-Hungary had been an unavoidable historical moment, since this multiethnic community had failed to find a key to the solution of the burning national question. Still, the outcome of the war, out of which the members of the Entente and their military allies emerged as the victors, was the decisive influence on the collapse of the existing system in Central and South East Europe. His ideas about this area of history, a product of his research into an extensive number of historical sources and literature, were later incorporated into his political practice, which is evident in his striving to establish a pluralism of political parties after he took over Croatia’s helm in the process of Croatia’s abandonment of Yugoslavia.

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