Volume 39 of the Journal of Croatian Studies

The Croatian Academy of America issued volume 39 of its annual interdisciplinary review, the Journal of Croatian Studies.

The 176-page issue contains scholarly articles and reviews in English on a wide range of topics and includes contributions from Croatia.

In the opening piece “Representations of the Other: The Ustaše and the Demonization of the Croats,” Stan Granic examines the portrayal of Croats as Ustaše and its connection to the manipulation of the magnitude of Ustaše crimes.  Following a discussion of representational practice and negative perceptions of Croats in many Western media publications and even scholarly literature, he details the confusion surrounding the scope of Ustaša crimes and the manipulations of the number of victims.  The most reliable statistical studies of demographic and real losses, including those by Serbian scholars, reveal that approximately one million people (all nationalities and including those killed in fighting) died in all of Yugoslavia during World War II.  The consequences of the exaggeration of the number of victims of Ustaša terror and the association of Ustašism to Croatianism are explored.

Zvonimir Jakobović’s “Books Published by Matica Hrvatska in the Fields of Natural Sciences and Technology” offers a documentary overview of the publishing successes in natural sciences and technology by Croatia’s leading cultural institution, established in 1839.  A considerable number of these books were published from 1860 to 1930.  The article highlights Croatia’s tradition in publishing popular technical literature and shows that it is on a par with works in languages of larger nations and more developed milieus.

Juraj Padjen contributes “The Special Position of Istra,” a paper presented at the 1998 American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies conference in Florida. The author analyzes Istra’s “spatial entity” which is at the same time distinct in terms of  social, economic, ethnic and cultural characteristics, resulting from its geographical location and the conditions under which it lived for centuries.

In “Character Representation for Slavic Digital Libraries: The Case of Croatian,” Marta Meštrović Deyrup and Delphine Khana describe how to create Croatian language Web sites in a U.S. environment.  The article is geared towards university faculty who have minimal experience with digital libraries.  It provides step-by-step information on how to take a project from conception to finish.  Character set issues, software compatibility, and hosting a Web site are some of the topics addressed.

In her article “Prvislav Grisogono and His Apocryphal Letter to Archbishop Stepinac,” Vivian Grisogono presents the text of a letter her grandfather, a politician and former diplomat, sent to Stepinac in January 1942.  In his authentic letter, Grisogono states that he has nothing to do with a typewritten letter, circulated in Belgrade, bearing his signature.  The forged letter implied that the Catholic Church was aiding the Ustaša regime in perpetrating crimes against the Serb community.  “This letter, which is completely apocryphical, has been in circulation for almost sixty years,” stated the author.

Richard L. Major’s piece “The Memoirs of Gjuro A. Skrivanić, Editor and Publisher of  Napredak, American’s First Croatian Newspaper” contains selected segments, translated from Croatian, of Skrivanić’s hand-written manuscript on the history of American Croats, which is preserved in Washington University, Seattle.  Several parts of this significant contribution to the history of American Croats were previously published in Zajedničar, a weekly publication of the Croatian Fraternal Union.

Well known author of two recent history books on Bosnia and Kosovo, and political columnist with The Daily Telegraph, Noel Malcolm provides an important and highly critical review article on Sir Michael Rose’s book: Fighting for Peace in Bosnia.

Several book reviews are featured including: James J. Sadkovich’s The U.S. Media and Yugoslavia by Brad K. Blitz; Meho Visočak and Bejdo Sovica’s Jasenovac: War Victims According to the Data of Yugoslavia’s Bureau of Statistics, Branko Franolić’s Books on Croatia and Croatians Recorded in the British Library General Catalogue and Polemos: Journal of Interdisciplinary Research on War and Peace all by Norman Cigar; Benedikta Zelić-Bučan’s Language and Script of the Croats and Marko Japundžić’s The Croatian Glagolitic Heritage by Stan Granic; Branko Franolić’s Works of Croatian Latinists Recorded in the British Library General Catalogue by Brian Cardell; and Rusmir Mahmutćehajić’s Wrong Politics: A Reading of History and Faith in Bosnia by Branimir Anzulović.

The issue also includes reports on the General Assembly and other activities.

The Journal of Croatian Studies is the only English language scholarly periodical dedicated entirely to Croatian history and culture.

The Croatian Academy of America was established in 1953 and has published the Journal of Croatian Studies since 1960.

Single issues of the Journal may be ordered at a price of US $20 for individuals and US $30 for institutions.

To order a copy of the Journal contact:

                        The Croatian Academy of America, Inc.

P.O. Box 1767, Grand Central Station

New York, NY 10163-1767

U.S.A.

Fax (516) 935-0019; e-mail croatacad@aol.com

Web site: http://www.croatianacademy.org/

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