The Emigration Museum in Zagreb (1933–1940)

Abstract

The Emigration Museum in Zagreb (1933–1940) was a unique museum of its kind on the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the period between the two world wars. Since the majority of the emigrants originated from the regions nowadays belonging to Croatia, the Museum was situated in Zagreb, same as most of the other emigration institutions of that time, but its jurisdiction covered the territory of the whole state. It also had a branch office in Split, opened in 1937 (managed by Ivan Lupis-Vukić) and, together with the Emigration Archives in Copenhagen, was one of the two institutions in the world specialising in collecting records or other documents related exclusively to the emigration from their territories. The reorganization of the state and the beginning of World War II, which took place in 1939, had a dramatic influence on the functioning of the Yugoslav emigration service, and it gradually collapsed by 1940. It also included the work of the Emigration Museum in Zagreb. Although the jurisdiction of the Museum covered the whole territory of the Kingdom, materials related to the Croatian emigration took the greatest part of its holdings, since the Croats had a predominance amongst the emigration, not only since the period of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), but as early as the days of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In the political sense, the Museum was oriented towards the presentation of the emigrants engaged in the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia, in which Croats had a prominent role, especially through their activities in the organizations of the Yugoslav National Defence (Jugoslavenska narodna obrana) in South America and the Yugoslav National Committee (Jugoslavensko narodno vijeće) in the USA. Besides that, the Museum collected materials related to other aspects of emigrant life, covering a spectrum from the economy to science, education and culture, preserving and presenting the emigration’s contribution to life in its new communities. The Museum created a rich documentation and held collections of various objects. At the end of its work, the Museum’s collections contained almost 150,000 items. A large part were newspapers, journals, books, and other printed materials (brochures, posters, ads, etc.), but it also possessed a respectable quantity of photographs, correspondence, personal documents, and other items. A part of them is preserved in the archival fonds of the Emigration Museum kept in the Croatian State Archives. The rest are preserved in other archival fonds of the Croatian State Archives or in the in-house archives of still active institutions. Above all, that is the case with the rich collection of photographs, which is part of the fonds of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (1965–1987) in the Croatian State Archives, but also with the collection of publications which is kept in the Library of the still active Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (1987–) as well as in other libraries.The Museum was not only a place of collecting, researching, or pre-senting documents, in whose processing Milostislav Bartulica (director of the Museum) took the most important role, but was also the place of gathering and of communication and debates related to the issues of emigration. Bartulica succeeded in opening the Museum to the broader public. The Museum participated in two big exhibitions at home and abroad: the Adriatic Exhibition in Zagreb in 1938 and the World Exhibition in New York in 1939. Its exhibits drew a lot of public attention in both cases. Possessing rich collections, presenting them at permanent exhibitions, and participating with them at other exhibitions, the Museum had an important impact on the public perception of the Yugoslav, but also of the Croatian emigration, of its scale and importance, not only for other cultures, but also domestically. Although the Museum did not operate for a long period of time, the richness of its collected materials and the variety of its activities are fascinating, most of all thanks to the enthusiasm and efforts of its founders and managers, Fedor Aranicki and Milostislav Bartulica. At a time when issues of emigration are drawing increasing interest, the profound attitude of Aranicki and Bartulica, their enthusiasm and variety of activities, might and should be inspiring for the initiatives related to the foundation of a new Emigration Museum (or several of them), in the new context and with new technological means.