Original scientific paper
Historian – diplomat: Ferdo Šišić at the Paris peace conference (1919 – 1920)
Veronika Novoselac
; Catholic University of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
*
Vlatko Smiljanić
; Faculty of Croatian Studies of the University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The paper analyses the activities of Ferdo Šišić as a member of the Ethnographic-Historical Section of the Yugoslav delegation at the Paris Peace Conference. Based on the material from his legacy (HAZU Archive), three fields of activity are reconstructed: (1) memoranda on the restitution of archival materials; (2) historical-legal elaborations on contested territorial issues; (3) publication of documentary editions. Within the framework of the “historian-diplomat” model (Nielsen), it was attempted to show that Šišić worked at the intersection of archival methodology and political pragmatics, turning knowledge of sources into an instrument of state legitimation. The study concludes that Šišić’s case illustrates a post-war pattern in which historiographical expertise becomes an operational infrastructure of frontier-making and reveals the limitations of scholarly authority in the context of realpolitik of the great powers.
Keywords
Ferdo Šišić; Paris Peace Conference; restitution of archival materials; historiographical expertise; historian-diplomat
Hrčak ID:
347291
URI
Publication date:
10.5.2026.
Visits: 379 *