evolution and use of the Croatian coat of arms, The

Canadian Slavonic Papers, Sep-Dec 1996 by Stan Granic

The assertion that the government of Croatia adopted a "fascist" and "Ustasa" coat of arms and flag, as many maintain, cannot hold up to critical scrutiny. Had this emblem been a "fascist" symbol one would have to explain how it is that it was also adopted by the People's, later Socialist Republic of Croatia? Given that the People's Liberation Struggle in Croatia boasted 150,000 men under arms (1944), sixty percent of whom were ethnic Croats,56 it seems very unlikely that those who took up arms against the Ustate and Nazis during World War II, would then turn around and accept a facist symbol on their republician coat of arms.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF PLATES

Plate 1

Duban Jelovina, Starohrvasio kulturno blago (Zagreb: Mladost, 1986), p. 38.

Plates 2, 3, 8, 100.

Marija Grakalic, Hrvatskivgrb (grbovi hrvatskib zemalja) (Zagreb: Matica havatska, 1990), between pp. 16/17 snd 48/49.

Plate 5

Radoslav Katicic and Slobodan P. Novak, Two Thousand Years of Writing in Croatia, ed. Vera cicin-Sain, trans. Sonia Biacnic and Sonja Basic (Zagreb: Sveucilisna naklada Liber and Muzejski prostor, 1987), p. 100.

Plate 6

Josip Horvat, Kultura Hrvata kroz 1000 godina (Zagreb: Globus, 1980), II, between pp. 208/209.

Plate 9

C. Michael McAdams, Croatia: Myth and Reality, 2nd ed. (Arcadia, CA: CIS Monographs, 1994), P.83.

Plate 11

A Concise Atlas of the Republic of Croatia, ed. Mladen Klemencic (Zagreb: The Miroslav Krleza Lexicographical Institute, 1993), p.4.

1 Ivo Banac, "The Fearful Asymmetry of War: The Causes and Consequences of Yugoslavia's Demise," Daedalus 121.2 (1992): 142-143.

2 Usta"sa (pronounced Ustasha) refers to a militant independence organization called Ustasa-Hrvatska Revolucionarna Organizacija (Insurgent-Croatian Revolutionary Organization) which was established by Ante Pavelic in 1929. A lawyer and deputy in the Belgrade parliament, Pavelic formed the organization after a member of the Serbian Radical Party assassinated leading Croatian politicians in this parliament and following the establishment of a dictatorship by Serbian King Alexander Karadjordjevic. For his promotion of Croatian independence, Pavelic was sentenced to death in absentia in 1929. The Ustasa movement viewed itself as a revolutionary organization that used terrorism to achieve a political goal. Following the Axis attack on Yugoslavia, the Germans and Italians placed the Ustase in power who formed the Independent State of Croatia. During the ensuing civil war which waged within the framework of a larger world war, the Ustase, like their Nazi, Italian fascist, Serbian Cetnik and Yugoslav Communist counterparts, committed unspeakable crimes. Cf.: James J. Sadkovich, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 1927-1937 (New York: Garland, 1987); Bogdan Krizman, Ante Pavelic i ustase (Zagreb: Globus, 1978).

Banac, "Fearful" 154-157, 161-168; Robert M. Hayden, "Recounting the Dead: The Rediscovery and Redefinition of Wartime Massacres in Late- and Post-Communist Yugoslavia," Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism, ed. Rubie S. Watson (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1994) 173, 178-179.