The Croatian War of Independence in Croatian Academic Journals

Abstract

The Croatian War of Independence is of exceptional importance to Croatian society, but is often the subject of controversial interpretations. Most controversies have been resolved via scientific and professional papers published in Croatian academic journals. Therefore, this work presents a selective overview of the most significant scientific and professional papers on the Croatian War of Independence published in the leading social sciences and humanities journals in Croatia. In addition to the most important historiographical works on the Croatian War of Independence, the authors have analysed works from the fields of political science, sociology, law, and demographics that partially address the War. They have divided this paper into two chronological periods, in which they have analysed the changing of research interests and approaches to the topic of the war in Croatia. During the 1990s, the greatest part of the works on the Croatian War of Independence were published in the journals Politička misao, Društvena istraživanja, and Polemos. Despite objective difficulties, such as the inaccessibility of archival material, the mentioned journals contain quality works that have contributed towards a better understanding of the historical context of the Croatian War of Independence. The 2000s were marked by the process of de-Tuđmanisation, whose main characteristic was the denial of facts regarding the Croatian War of Independence. Although it negatively affected the social and political conditions in Croatia, de-Tuđmanisation resulted in numerous quality works covering the Croatian War of Independence, published in academic journals such as the Journal of Contemporary History, National Security and the Future, and Scrinia Slavonica. In contrast to public media and politics, the authors of these works approached the context of the Croatian War of Independence from outside the frame of daily politics. After the collapse of de-Tuđmanisation, researchers’ access to a significant part of archival material of Croatian provenance has become more difficult, prompting them to turn to archival material created by the activities of the Yugoslav People’s Army and rebel Serb civilian and military institutions, kept at the Croatian Memorial-Documentation Centre for the Homeland War. Despite all difficulties, the Croatian War of Independence is a promising period for academic research, as is attested to by the exceptional interest shown by researchers.