Preispitivanje historije i historiografije Jugoslavije tokom Drugog svjetskog rata: slučaj Sarajeva

Author(s): Emily Greble Balić / Language(s): Bosnian Publication Year: 0

In this essay, Emily Balić raises questions on the way that historians approach the study of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. She discusses the limitations of military and political histories and suggests that scholars need to examine social, legal, religious, and cultural aspects of the war. To make her case, she offers examples from the history of Sarajevo during the Second World War. The first example analyzes the limitations of the dominant paradigm of “collaboration” and “resistance” in the wartime literature. The second example explores categories of identity as they pertain to the genocide committed against Serbs, Jews, and Roma in the Independent State of Croatia.

Zloupotreba rezultata antifašističke borbe - prilog razumijevanju događaja nakon pobjede nad fašizmom

Author(s): Muhamed Filipović / Language(s): Bosnian Publication Year: 0

This work examines the abuses that resulted from different factions that participated in the anti-fascist movement both during the Second World War and in its aftermath. Filipović notes that on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary, scholars have focused on the actual victory and the positive aspects of the destruction of the greatest evil ever born in the western world: fascism. However, he argues that such a victory was not complete; that evil was not totally eradicated; and that sixty years later, there are various attempts to revive fascism as well as to justify fascist ideas and practices.

Saveznički zračni napadi na Zagreb i okolicu 1945. godine

Author(s): Marica Karakas Obradov / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

Allied Air forces became an important factor in the military and political consideration of the territory of the Independent State of Croatia after the autumn of 1943, when they established bases in Southern Italy. At first, Allied Air forces struck at the territory of Dalmatia, but afterward they expanded their activities to the north. Zagreb and its environs were situated on the path of Allied Airforces directed at southern Germany, Austria and Hungary, consequently during 1944 and 1945 they were considered secondary targets, though sometimes they also became direct targets. In this period Allied Airforces bombed Zagreb, in varying degrees of intensity, 21 times, 11 of these attacks came in 1945, while the environs of the city were bombed or fired upon 44 times, 29 of those occurred in 1945. In these attacks, 554 persons (516 civilians, 38 soldiers) were killed, and 790 persons (741 civilians and 49 soldiers) were wounded. National Defense units carried the burden of the passive antiaircraft defense of people and property in Zagreb, while in the environs fire-fighters fulfilled this function. Zagreb and its environs, as was the case with all the other targets on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, were attacked from the air for military-strategic reasons, as well as to break the morale of the population. The cost of these attacks was borne most often by the civilian population who paid for them with their lives and material goods.

Jasenovac 1945.

Author(s): Mario Kevo / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

The author discusses the camp at Jasenovac in 1945, that is to say, the article deals with certian events tied to the Ustaša camp at Jasenovac up to the escape of inmates in April 1945. A review of events is given from the liberation of this territory by the Yugoslavian Army and the arrival of the Provincial Commission of Croatia to confirm the crimes of the occupiers and their collaborators. The last portion of the article briefly describes the issues regarding the activities of the camp during the war; an appendix to the article introduces several eyewitness accounts and other documents.

A magyar zsidóság és a fasizmus a marcia su Romától 1938-ig

Author(s): Gábor Andreides / Language(s): Hungarian Publication Year: 0

Zsidókérdés Magyarországon 1944 után

Author(s): István Bibó / Language(s): Hungarian Publication Year: 0

Levél Borbándi Gyulához

Author(s): István Bibó / Language(s): Hungarian Publication Year: 0

The fate of Russian émigrés in Czechoslovakia

Author(s): Anastasie Kopřivová / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Between the two world wars, a large community of Russian émigrés that had been forced to leave their homeland and flee the Bolshevik terror lived in Czechoslovakia. The young state offered them a background and support. However, that all changed after the end of WWII. In 1945 many Czechoslovak Russians met their tragic fate personified by members of the Soviet secret police who came to arrest them.

15 March 1939 and the occupation of Prague Castle

Author(s): Pavel Zeman / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The occupation of the Czech lands in March 1939 and Adolf Hitler’s stay in Prague on 15 and 16 March 1939 have been described in both specialist and memoir literature. Yet new archival materials relating to these events are still emerging. These include the report on the occupation of Prague Castle from May 1939 by JUDr. Karel Strnad, an official of the President’s Office, and two German documents: on President Emil Hácha’s return from Berlin on 15 March 1939 and on Adolf Hitler’s stay at Prague Castle.

The first transports of European Jews in the history of the holocaust

Author(s): Jan Dvořák,Jan Horník,Adam Hradilek / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The 18th of October 2014 marked the 75th anniversary of the departure of the very first transport of European Jews in the history of the holocaust – one that left Ostrava for Nisko upon San in the eastern part of the General Government where the Nazis planned to set up an extensive “reservation” for Jews displaced from the conquered territories and the whole of Germany. As part of the Nisko Plan , a total of seven transports with more than five thousand Jews departed from Ostrava, Katowice and Vienna in the latter half of October 1939. Their journey materialised even though, by the time of departure of the first transport, the top Nazi officials had dismissed the entire plan of establishing a Jewish reservation between the Rivers Vistula and Bug. The ensuing destinies of thousands of Jewish deportees varied; however, most of them were to die or suffer in Nazi as well as in Soviet prisons and camps.

“There Was the Tailor from Bohemia” - The nazi “euthanasia” programme and germans from český krumlov

Author(s): Pavel Zeman / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

English journalist Gitta Sereny’s book of interviews with Franz Paul Stangl, a participant in the Nazi “euthanasia” programme and the commander of the annihilation camps in Treblinka and Sobibór in occupied Poland, Into that Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder, was published in the UK and the USA in 1974. The extensive tome brought a direct testimony from one of the prominent perpetrators of Nazi crimes while touching on the involvement of Germans from Bohemia in the Third Reich’s annihilation programmes.

About the crimes committed by the totalitarian regimes in Estonia

Author(s): Toomas Hiio / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The independence of the Republic of Estonia was proclaimed exactly today 92 years ago. Today is Independence Day in Estonia. Estonia lost its independence in 1940 according to the secret protocol of the non-aggression agreement between the Communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and did not regain it after the end of the WWII. Th e occupation and annexation of the Baltic States was never recognised by the United States of America and other Western countries. Estonian diplomatic representations were active in the United States and the United Kingdom for the duration of the Cold War. Estonian passports issued by these representations were accepted as valid travel documents in many Western countries.

The memory of institutionalized violence and historical semantics

Author(s): Hubert Orlowski / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Tido J. Gašpar a jeho chápanie slovenského národného socializmu

Author(s): Martin Vašš / Language(s): Slovak Publication Year: 0

Tido J. Gašpar začal popri svojej umeleckej tvorbe produkovať politicky angažovanú publicistiku už v období prvej Československej republiky (ČSR). Postupne, najmä v priebehu 30. rokov sa politicky angažovaná publicistika dostávala do centra jeho tvorivých a publikačných aktivít. Paralelne so zvyšovaním počtu politicky angažovaných článkov sa jeho vlastná spisovateľská tvorba začala radikálne umenšovať, až sa napokon po etablovaní ľudáckeho režimu po 6. októbri 1938 vytratila takmer úplne. V našom príspevku sa chceme zamerať na poslednú etapu Gašparovej politickej publicistiky, ktorú tvorilo obdobie existencie Slovenskej republiky v rokoch 1939 – 1945 a v rámci nej sa venovať jej dominante, ktorú predstavovala ideologická konštrukcia slovenského národného socializmu. Gašpar bol totiž prívržencom pokračovania tzv. slovenskej revolúcie v národno-socialistickom duchu a v tomto smere sa zaraďoval do radikálneho krídla Hlinkovej slovenskej ľudovej strany (HSĽS) pod vedením Vojtecha Tuku a Alexandra Macha. V tejto súvislosti je zaujímavou skutočnosť, že do aktívnej politiky Gašpar nevstúpil v období demokratickej 1. ČSR, ale až v podmienkach ľudáckeho režimu. Svoj vstup do politiky Gašpar aspoň retrospektívne vnímal ako nevyhnutný kvôli potrebe „slú- žiť národu“: „Pudila nás láska k národu. Boli sme ľuďmi ťažkej dejinnej chvíle. Chceli sme národ zachovať!“1 Jednou z motivácií Gašparovho vstupu do aktívnej politiky teda bolo podľa jeho vyjadrenia úsilie „zachovať národ“ vo vtedajších neistých podmienkach, keď geopolitická situácia nevyznievala pre ČSR pozitívne.

Четници и Црвена армија у Србији 1944. године

Author(s): Žarko Jovanović / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

WWII was aproaching its end in fall 1944. Italy, member of the Axis had already capitualted. German armed forces suffered grave defeats both on Western and Eastern fronts. They were also forced to start withdrawing from Greece through the vallies of the Vardar and the Morava. The Chetnik movement of Dragoljub Draža Mihalović was also in bad shape at that time. After a number of admonitions to start military actions against the occupying forces, the Western Allies withdrew their military missions from the Staff of Supreme Command as well as from other Chetnik staffs. Furthermore, they withheld military and every other kind of aid. Under the pressure of the British government, the King and the Yugoslav exile government have given them up too. The increasingly difficult military and political situation of the movement of Dragoljub Draža Mihalović spurred the gathering of the Central Nationa Committee whose permanent session started in the village of Milićevci near Čačak on September 8, 1944. Apart from making combinations about the make-up of the „Chetnik government“, the possibility of the Russian crossing of the Danube into Serbia and Yugoslavia was discussed at the meeting. Having crossed the Yugoslav-Romanian border at Turnu Severin on September 6, 1944, the units of 3rd Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, together with the units of the People’s Liberation Army dispersed the German, Chetnik, Nedić and Ljotić forces and prepared to take starting positions for the begining of the Belgrade operation. On hearing that the Red Army units were crossing into Serbia and in order to butter up to the command of the Soviet troops, the commander of the Rasina-Toplica corps group colonel Dragutin Keserović immediately undertook sabotage actions, obstructing German transports and he started attacking German forces. He ordered that German lines of communication be severed between Vrnjačka Banja and Kraljevo. Part of the Toplica Corps was saddled with the task to do the same between the village of Stopanje and Trstenik. The third part of his forces had the task to cut off the communication between Kruševac and Stalać. Chetnik forces of over 10.000 soldiers were used for these actions. At the intervention of the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, the attempt at cooperation between the Chetniks of Draža Mihalović and the Red Army units turned out to be a total failure since it was known that some Chetnik commanders continued colaborating with Germans. For the leadership of the Red Army the Chetniks became the enemy force in Serbia which was to be destroyed together with occupying and other Quisling forces. Part of the members of Chetnik units was disarmed and set free, whereas many joined the units of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia and took part in the fight against occupiers and their collaborators. The Chetnik forces which managed to avoid being disarmed, withdrew together with their commanders and the Supreme Command simultaneously with the occupying forces in the previously determined direction of Bosnia and further to the West where they met with tragic fate. Smaller Chetnik groups which remained in some parts of Serbia organized terrorist activities for some time after the end of WWII until they were completely destroyed.

Употреба квислинга у данашњој Србији

Author(s): Todor Kuljić / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

In the postsocialist regimes the rehabilitation of the quislings is a part of the useful new past. The article deals with the Serbian conservative attempts to rehabilitate serbian quislings in WW 2. The paper presents some forms of actually anti-antifascism. The former prescribed communist antifascism is replaced by anticommunist anti-antifascism. It was supposed the connection between economic privatization and a strong shift to the right awareness of the past. Quislings should be rehabilitated not only for normalizing nationalism but also because of the suppression of the Left, which should deprive her important moralpolitical capital – antifascism.

Case Study: Finland. Competing Narratives of War

Author(s): Kati Mari Johanna Parppei / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Compared to many other East European countries, the issue of history – or the history politics – in relation to Russia has never been such a central or openly disputed one in Finland. This is the case for obvious historical reasons. Russians have not openly accused Finnish historians for falsifying history, either; however, this does not mean that Russian attempts to control or use the past have not been a concern in Finland. Rather, such attempts have been quite subtle, playing with strong mental images favourable to Russia and offering competing narratives, or ‘alternative truths’, to the Russian audience, which has been their main target (presumably including the Russian minority in Finland). In this article, two recent or on-going cases of such falsifications of history, having taking place between 2016 and 2019, are briefly examined and contextualised. Both are connected to the Second World War and the hostilities between Russia and Finland. The first is the case of the shelling of Mainila. In this context, we are referring to the Russian attempts to challenge the established view of the Soviet Union having started the war against Finland on 30 November 1939, and arguing that, instead, it was a Finnish provocation, influenced and encouraged by Germany.

Case Study: Poland. Soviet Invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939

Author(s): Ieva Pałasz,Małgorzata Zawadzka / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

For the Russian Federation, the most important current issue in the scope of history is the strengthening of belief in the great victory of the USSR over Nazism and, as Jolanta Darczewska writes, a rehabilitation of the special services, as well as a change in the assessment of the deeds of Stalin. The issue of cooperation between the USSR and Hitler before 1941, which, in Russian historiography, is the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, has become quite a problematic question in this context. In this regard, we can observe a number of activities in Russia, the purpose of which is to relativise such events as the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the Katyń Massacre (the murder of Polish officers, non-commissioned officers and other individuals in 1940); ethnic genocide as a part of the ‘Polish Operation of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs’, i.e. NKVD (1937-38); the joint Soviet-German parade in Brest; and the NKVD–Gestapo methodological conferences (1939-1940). The same applies to 17 September 1939 – i.e. the aggression of the USSR against Poland. This text will be devoted to the methods of falsifying this event by the Russian Federation.

Il fascismo e l’italianizzazione forzata di nomi e toponimi al “confine orientale"

Author(s): Chiara Nencioni / Language(s): Italian Publication Year: 0

The essay deals with the violent denationalization process of the Slavic minorities in the territories of Venezia Giulia annexed to Italy after the First World War. Liberal Italy already adopted policy that tend to assimilate the Slavic populations; but fascism adds a strong charge of violence feeling an evident sense of ethnic superiority. The fire of the Narodni Dom is the announcement of the forced denationalization policy implemented by the so-called border fascism. The fascist state implemented the forced Italianization of names and toponyms and imposed the Italian language in every aspect of public life: courts, schools, churches. The essay aims to analyze the role that the authoritarian change of names, surnames and toponyms had in the process of forced assimilation into the Italian state of the eastern territories acquired after World War I. We use information from essays, literature, testimonies and legal texts.

Георги Федотов и Pax Atlantica: идеологическото конструиране на Студената война

Author(s): Darina Grigorova / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

The article focuses on the main Cold War ideologemes constructed in the Russian émigré press of the 1930s, before, during and immediately after World War II. The main source is the journalism of Georgy Fedotov in a comparative analysis with that of Nikolai Berdyaev. The article traces the construction of Fedotov's concept of Pax Atlantica as an ideological ideal and counterpoint to the Soviet Union. Fedotov's main ideologem is the alignment of fascism and national socialism with Stalinism in a hybrid "communofascism" in order to blur the boundaries between defeated and victorious after the war and leave the only victor, the Atlanticist world.