Franjo
Tuđman usually has been portrayed as a Croatian nationalist and an
authoritarian leader who conspired with Slobodan Milošević to destroy
Yugoslavia in 1991, but Sadkovich describes a complex and ambitious individual
who began life in a small town in the Croatian Zagorje, discovered Marxism as a
student in Zagreb, fled to the mountains to join the artisans, then moved to
the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, where he began to write history and became
the youngest general in the Yugoslav army before returning to Zagreb in in 1961
as a historian to direct the newly created Institute for the History of the
Workers’ Movement in Croatia. It was as a historian that he challenged the
regime’s version of history and broke with the League of Communists and joined
the movement for reform known as the Croatian Spring. By 1973, he had become a
dissident, by 1984, a nationalist imprisoned for his writings, by 1989, of the
Croatian Democratic Union, and by 1990, president of Croatia.
In the first eight chapters, Sadkovich discusses Tuđman’s intellectual and
political evolution through 1989 and the role played by his interest in
history, which reinforced his identity as a Croatian intellectual and provided
him with the “objective realities” and “historical truths” he needed to
challenge those who supported the Party’s version of Yugoslavia’s history. The
final chapter offers “tentative answers” to questions regarding Tuđman’s tenure
as president of Croatia during the Yugoslav wars of succession. He was often
misunderstood because he spoke like a historian when he should have acted the
statesman, and his defense of Croatia’s people, culture, and reputation seemed
to many to be aggressively nationalist. But Sadkovich argues that rather than
an authoritarian nationalist intent on creating a “greater Croatia,” Tuđman was
a patriot who believed that, as a “small nation,” Croatia needed to be
independent to preserve its identity, and that, if it was to survive, it had to
join and support organizations like the European Union and the United Nations.
Author: James J. Sadkovich
Pages: 355
Biding:
softcover
Color:
black and white
Dimensions:
23 x 28 cm
Year of
publication: 2023.