At the beginning of the 1990s two changes of historical importance occurred in Croatia: the social revolution and the achievement of national self-determination. The social revolution was manifested in the changeover from the half-century-long socialist into a capitalist, i.e., market democracy. This overthrow of the system of communist dictatorship occurred in the context of the downfall of world communism. National self-determination was achieved in the creation of Croatia as independent state. The radical nature of the changes was matched by the violence with which they were carried out. In the case of the social revolution, these were fundamental changes in the economy, which led to crucial differentiation within the population in terms of assets and capacity to adjust to the new relations. The sociological phenomenology of these changes can (with the application of multi-disciplinarity) be monitored only concomitant with historiographic knowledge of the process of the elected changes of government and the privatisation process. Hence this kind of research envisaged in the project takes on the nature of fundamental research into the further study of these social processes (sociologists, demographers, economists, lawyers). Studying other great change, political independence, takes us into a study of the most important phenomena during this process, which was not the process of recognition, nor of rapprochement with the EU not one of the by no means insignificant problems that every (provisionally speaking) new state has to go through to become established as a member of the community of sovereign states. Thus, in the process in which the Republic of Croatia attained independence, it was exposed to the aggression of neighbouring Serbia and Montenegro, which through the operations of the former federal systems and the active assistance of the rebels attempted to put into practice the project of Greater Serbia over a half of the territory of Croatia. This aggression had broad support among the majority of members of the Serbian ethnic minority in Croatia, particularly in the rural parts, in which this population had a relative or absolute majority.That the true nature of the conflict known as the Homeland War was that it was a clash brought about by Greater Serbian aggression and the revolt of the Serb national minority against the constitutional system and territorial integrity of the Republic of Croatia is the working hypothesis of this project.
Leading researcher:
- dr. sc Miroslav Akmadža
Researchers:
- Mladen Barać
- Aleksandra Koprivčević
- Šimun Penava
- dr. sc. Ivica Miškulin – visiting researcher (HKS – Zagreb)
- Petar Bašić, dipl. pov. – visiting researcher (Slavonski Brod)
- dr. sc. Ivan Balen – visiting researcher (Opća bolnica “Dr. Josip Benčević”, Slavonski Brod)
