Utopia and TerrorUnderstanding Violent

Societies: The Case of the Croatian

Ustasha Regime

Rory Yeomans, Oxford University, 29 January 2013

Presentation summary

• Background to The Utopia of Terror Current state of research What is an interdisciplinary approach? Interdisciplinary methodologies and the Ustasha state

The Ustasha state and the violent society

Where research might go in the future

Background to The Utopia of Terror Ustasha movement still peripheral to study

of Fascism Independent State of Croatia afterthought to

Holocaust Can they be brought into mainstream and how? Start by thinking about reasons for

marginality Resistance to innovation,

interdisciplinarity and comparative approaches

Younger generation of scholars interested in new methodologies

Bridging antagonistic national narratives

Current research about Ustasha regime and Independent State of Croatia

Until 1990s: personality driven, narrative, little cultural/social history

Ustasha regime as “collaborationist”, marginal and emphasis on occupation

Post 1990: some cultural history but apologetic

Distinction between Independent State of Croatia (positive) and Ustasha regime (negative)

Recent work on dynamics of terror, but high politics, apologetic approaches predominate

Absence of comparative, interdisciplinary or “from below” frameworks

What is an interdisciplinary approach?

Seeing a regime, society from the “inside out” Cultural, social history alone is problematic and

needs political context History with the politics left out and vice versa

There is a story in history: how you tell it matters

Economic, scientific, social, anthropological,

literary perspectives Full range of written, oral and visual sources Use of wider context and comparative analysis Evidence-based history writing Reconstructing more complex view of society

What is an interdisciplinary approach?

Are terms “regime” or “state” useful? Who is doing the “what” and why? Is there a relationship between terror and

utopianism? Regimes polycratic, vulnerable to public pressure Avoiding moral relativism, but… Understanding why regimes and their followers see

the world the way they do Exploring what’s going on at all levels of

society “From above” versus “from below” useful, but

simplifies Citizens as active agents of history

“The Revolution of Blood”: Terror and the Ustasha state

350-500,000 Serbs killed, 200,000 deported to Serbia, 200,000 forcibly assimilated

30,000 Jews killed or executed, mostly at concentration camps

30,000 Roma and Sinti killed, mostly en masse at Jasenovac and other camps

50,000 anti-Fascist Croatians, Bosniaks killed

100,000 party members by December 1941 200,000 members of armed forces and militias in May 1945

Leaders of the “Revolution of Blood”: Poglavnik Ante Pavelić and Colonel Jure Francetić

What was the “Second Revolution”?

End of “Revolution of Blood” and launch of “Second Revolution”

Criticism of conduct of youth and male Ustashas, campaign against “renegade” Ustashas

War for “cultured” values among masses, party members by Institute for National Enlightenment

Power struggles, factionalism at centre, grassroots conflicts

Purge of hardliners, technocratic promotion and emergence of “new line” towards Serbs

Debate about party’s role: elite or popular? Internal, external pressure leads to relaunch

of radical programme in late 1944

The Ustasha state and socio-economic policies

Anti-bourgeois ideology: worker and peasant values Social utopian ideas and “war” against illiteracy Socio-economic policies: workers’ rights and

“Croatian socialism” Workers’ radio, sport and health of race Regeneration and modernisation of countryside Social security and workers’ colonies Nationalisation of Serb and Jewish businesses by

State Directorate for Regeneration Show trials against Serb bourgeoisie and

capitalist exploiters Anti-capitalism and race: racial purification

linked to economic regeneration, social justice

Men, women and youth culture in the Ustasha state

“New Ustasha man” as warrior, family head Campaigns against bachelorhood linked to

demographic concerns “New Ustasha woman” as mother, wife, but also

Spartan mother, Ustasha heroine Maternal role contested by young female

activists, but suppressed “Revolution of youth” against “decrepit”

races, ideologies Generational conflict in movement Social mobility and youth membership, but

regime pressures Criticism of ideological deviation, regime

corruption by Ustasha students, youth activists

Ambitious, pragmatic young party chiefs: Sarajevo Ustasha youth leader Luka Puljiz and Zagreb party boss Božidar Kavran

Generational hardliners: student leaders Zdenko Blažeković and Franjo Nevistić

Moral regeneration in the Ustasha state

Peasant values to purify “contaminated” city Death penalty for abortion Imprisonment for drunkenness, prostitution,

gambling, swearing, vagrancy Serbs and Jews morally corrupting society Cult of sacrifice, martyrdom, dying: Ustasha

warrior as saints and missionaries Day of Dead and Day of Croatian Martyrs, but

increasingly criticised Killing, violence as formative experiences

of the Ustasha warrior Death poetry, literature and glorification

of death

Art and cultural politics in the Ustasha state

Incarnation of radical Ustasha literature and art

New generation of radical-right artists, writers and poets

Revolutionary militant expressions, slogans and language “purification”

Anti-urban, but modern values in architecture, theatre, science and advertising

“Second Revolution” means pragmatic “national” approach to art

Sidelining of radical cultural experiments Art, culture for workers and peasants and

competitions for people’s artists Campaign for taste and “cultured” values in

everyday life, behaviour

The Ustasha state as a type of violent society

Terror usually linked to wider programme of national regeneration, social refashioning

Regimes fragile coalitions with policies contested at all levels of state, bureaucracy, party

Can build support, but also vulnerable to popular pressure

Crises of legitimacy expose social, generational, class, intellectual disagreements

Social, cultural politics can reflect ideological anxieties...

or compensate for failed radicalism Aborted projects of violent national purification

frequently contingent, not permanent

Possible future research: what might be needed?

A collaborative supportive scholarly community Interdisciplinary “inside out” research as an

accepted approach Getting away from personality-driven, top-down

politics Ask the big questions: why things happen? …but small scale important too Taking risks, being innovative and

experimentation Willingness to engage with different viewpoints

and approaches “Mosaic” approach to research and analysis Examine own motivations and research methods “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”:

Communist-era history useful

Possible future research: what might it look like?

Comparative research and questions of exceptionalism

Wider audience and readable research Subjectivity, popular support and social mobility Regional and microhistorical approaches Different subcultures: youth, women,

sacralisation Exploring how terror linked to wider cultural and

social processes Imaginative use of archives as well as printed,

visual and oral sources Bringing Ustasha regime into mainstream of

Fascist studies Relevance as case study for contemporary

political processes

Questions and comments