Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/ypn4ocd6v9
Post-war anti-communist resistance: the activities of the Mirko Kapulica’s “gang” of Tomislavgrad in the area of the Cetina Region
Blanka Matković
; Zagreb, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
Although the research of anti-communist resistance is made possible by establishment of multi-party and independent Croatian state in the first post-war years, there is still a modest number of papers dealing with this historiographical topic. The negligible number of preserved documents represents a significant obstacle, although it is possible to at least partially present this still largely secret part of contemporary Croatian history thanks to the available files of individual members of such groups, especially their associates (concealers). A special challenge represents the reconstruction of activities of certain crusader groups, especially those that closely cooperated with crusaders in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among them was the crusader group of Mirko Kapulica from Duvno, whose resistance was overcome only with the arrest of Kapulica in 1950. Although his group worked closely with the crusaders from Imotski gathered around Nedjeljko Piplica, this paper focuses on the activities of crusaders of Kapulica in the Cetinska Krajina Region. Namely, Kapulica has developed a wide network of supposedly 120 concealers. Considering the frequent stay of his crusading group on Kamešnica, a mountain on the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, between Sinj and Livno, part of Kapulica’s network of concealers operated precisely in the area of Cetinska Krajina. Intensive crusading activity was recorded in that area already during 1945 and from where concealers supported the crusaders who sought shelter in the crags of Kamešnica. Unfortunately, the number of available documents on activities of Kapulica’s group in the Sinj area is extremely scarce, and the reconstruction attempt is based on the statement of Kapulica himself and the preserved files of his “concealers “ as well as UDBA files that are kept in the fund of the Secretariat for Internal Affairs in the State Archives in Split. Therefore, this paper is based precisely on these sources, and it attempts to analyse the activities of the crusaders in the mentioned area for the first time in Croatian historiography.
Keywords
Second World War; repression; anti-communist resistance; the Cetinska Krajina Region; Herzegovina; crusaders; Mirko Kapulica
Hrčak ID:
312811
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2023.
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