Lovro Kralj

By combining microhistorical and regional approaches with theoretical findings from fascism, Holocaust, and genocide studies, this chapter examines the interaction between the Nazi, Ustaša and Arrow Cross movements in the city of Osijek. By analyzing the ideologies and praxis of the three fascist movements, this paper demonstrates that the future they wanted to build remained vague, contested, and contradictory despite many shared goals and enemies. Instead of bringing the three fascist movements together, antisemitism became a tool of competitive nation-building which contributed to the failure to create a genuinely transnational fascist front in a single city. Determining the pace of genocidal destruction became an instrument in the competitive fascist-elite-building. By relying on the concept of "genocidal consolidation", this chapter argues that the Holocaust in Osijek became one of the primary means in the attempted consolidation of power by one fascist group at the expense of the other. Attempts to neutralize rival fascist elites in the struggle for political dominance on the regional level brought unintended consequences of significantly delaying the deportations of Jews of Osijek compared to the cities in the Independent State of Croatia.

This article examines the defeat of the Ustasha movement and its impact on the way the members of the Croatian fascist movement represented themselves through memoirs and testimonies after the Second World War. The current historiography dealing with the Ustasha movement remains
largely detached from the contemporary approaches derived from memory studies, which has resulted in existing research gaps related to questions of how, and why, the Ustashe remember their wartime activities. This paper is based on the analysis of 23 Ustasha memory sources; 11 testimonies and 12 memoirs. It examines differences between Ustasha testimonies given in Yugoslav detention, and memoirs which were written by the Ustashe who managed to emigrate to other countries. Significant discrepancy in the narratives and structure presented in the source material is attributed to the different circumstances in which they were written, the expected audience and the variegated experiences of defeat the Ustasha members went through.

Article problematises the uses and abuses of the Hitler-Pavelić meeting photograph taken at Berghof in June 1941. In a polemical tone, within the framework of a roundtable discussion on perpetrator photography, the article argues that in its current popular usage, the Hitler-Pavelić image hides more historical facts than the ones it reveals.

Summary of a dissertation project titled "Paving the Road to Death: Antisemitism in the Ustasha Movement 1929-1945." published in Frank Bajohr, Dieter Pohl, eds. Right-Wing Politics and the Rise of Antisemitism in Europe 1935-1941 (Wallstein Verlag, 2019): 233-239.

This essay reviews recent developments in the historiography of the Ustasha movement through the prism of two recently published studies: Bergholz, Max: Violence as a Generative Force. Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community. Ithaka: Cornell University Press 2016. ISBN: 978-1-5017-0492-5; 464 p. and Goldstein, Ivo; Goldstein, Slavko: The Holo- caust in Croatia. Pittsburgh: University of Pitts- burgh Press 2016. ISBN: 9780822944515; VII, 728 p.

Nevenko BARTULIN, The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia: Origins and Theory, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014., 244. str. Suvremena transnacionalna historiografija uglavnom tretira fašizam, rasizam i holokaust kao isprepletenu povijest. Taj pristup bazira se na stavu da povijest jednog od ovih fenomena nije u potpunosti moguće objasniti bez uzimanja u obzir paralelnog razvoja druga dva. Hrvatska je historiografija uvelike ostala distancirana od ovih diskusija na međunarodnoj razini, a tome svjedoči nerazmjerno mali broj publikacije radova na engleskom jeziku o povijesti ustaškog pokreta i holokausta u Hrvatskoj, u odnosu na količinu literature objavljene na hrvatskom jeziku. Upravo je zbog toga važna nova knjiga Nevenka Bartulina pod naslovom The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia: Origins and Theory, koja je objavljena u izdanju prestižne međunarodne nakladničke kuće Brill, 2014. godine. Ova publikacija je svojevrsna prerađena, ali i nadograđena verzija, Bartulinovog doktorata The Ideology of Nation and Race: The Croatian Ustasha Regime and its Policies Toward Minorities in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945. kojeg je obranio na University of New South Wales, 2006. godine. Bartulin pripada novoj generaciji mlađih povjesničara poput Rorya Yeomansa i Alexandra Korba, koji se bave poviješću ustaškog pokreta pokušavajući primijeniti u svojem istraživanju suvremene interpretacijske i metodološke pristupe. Motivirani nedostatkom literature o ustaškom pokretu na međunarodnoj razini, spomenuti autori pretežito pišu na engleskom jeziku pokušavajući uvesti temu ustaškog pokreta u širu historiografsku debatu o fašizmu, masovnom nasilju, holokaustu, itd.

Syllabus for an introductory, five-day-intensive, course on fascism and right-wing populism which was created for the students of international relations at the University of Pannonia (Koszeg Campus).

The aim of this course is to critically examine the conceptual history of fascism and right-wing populism. After attending the course students will be able to 1) identify, analyze and critically assess theories and debates within the fields of fascism and (right-wing) populism studies, 2) differentiate between the concepts of fascism, totalitarianism, populism, far-right, extreme right, radical right, conservatism, authoritarianism, etc. When it comes to fascism specifically, students will be able to 3) explain the difference between historical fascism and generic fascism, and differentiate Fascism (with a capital “F”) from fascism (with a lowercase “f”), they will be able to 4) compare and contrast different influential definitions of fascism. Moreover, students will be able to clarify the difference between “epochal” and “eternalist” approach to the periodization of fascism, they will also be able 5) to explain the importance of different methodological approaches to the analysis of ideologies, movements and regimes. When it comes to right-wing populism students will be able to 6) define populism and 7) explain the main similarities and differences between right-wing and left-wing populist ideologies, movements and regimes. They will also be able to 8) identify different approaches to studies of populism and define what is an ideational, strategic and socio-cultural approaches to populism. Students will also be able to 9) compare and contrast different fascist and right-wing populist ideologies, movements and regimes both in terms of geography and chronology. Ultimately, students will be able to 10) identify crucial entanglements and divergences between fascist and right wing populist ideologies, movements and regimes.