Towards Croatian Modernity: Croatia in the 19th Century

About This Course

The public often questions the leadership of Croatian politicians of the 19th and 20th century, and there remains the question whether certain political decisions, crises and wars were missed opportunities to reach independence. A historian’s duty is not to judge, but to warn about the nature of political decisions which lead to independent Croatia – they were brought on the basis of external and internal factors of that time.

From today’s perspective, we can understand that the Croatian and European 19th and 20th century, the period between the French Revolution in 1789 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, may be qualified as the period of crises. Unfortunately, such were its solutions, as well – critical and temporary. We may also conclude that those were the centuries of nations; nations as the motivational factors in historical events, and the ultimate factor in the reconstruction of the European and Croatian political map of the centuries, followed by both excitement and atrocities. Croatia also participated in such events, and that is something we will explain in this course.

Course Staff

Ivan Bulić, PhD

He was born in Podgradina on 9 April 1969, educated in Sinj. In 1991 he became a history student on the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. Before graduating in 1999, he was honored for volunteering in the Croatian War of Independence. He earned his PhD with a dissertation ˝Ivan Skerlecz Lomnički 1913-1917. The Royal Commissioner and Croatian ban˝ at the mentioned faculty. He has become an assistant professor and a research associate, teaches at the Catholic University of Croatia and at the Centre for Croatian Studies in Zagreb, and is the member of the Senate of the Catholic University of Croatia. The field of his research includes the world and Croatian history of the 19th and 20th century, especially the end of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the union with the Kingdom of Serbia. Ivan Bulić has also participated in several scientific assemblies and has published a number of scientific papers.