COURAGE

savienojot kolekcijas

The collection testifies to the thirty-six-year activity of Croatian journalist and writer Jakša Kušan (1931), who propagated the idea of a democratic, pluralistic and free Croatia in exile from 1955 to 1990. By editing and publishing the non-partisan magazine Nova Hrvatska, he tried to inform the Croatian and global public about the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in socialist Croatia and Yugoslavia.

The collection is important proof of the activities of a left-thinking historian, a "spiritual father" and co-founder of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS), a co-publisher of unofficial periodic Dialogy, who was imprisoned several times and forced to go to exile, where he collaborated with dissidents from other socialist countries.  

The Jazz Section (JS) Collection was founded thanks to Karel Mašita, a former member of the section, and was supplemented by materials collected in exile by the historian Vilém Prečan. The collection contains documents which had been created since 1968: e.g. the correspondence regarding the foundation of JS and the first years of its operation, plans for activities, correspondence with authorities, documents regarding supervision and screenings, complaints concerning the attempts by the authorities to dissolve JS, the liquidation of the Union of Musicians and the reaction of the international press to the trials of members of JS.

The Collection of Croatian-American historian Jere Jareb (PhD) contains over 4,500 books, magazines and various brochures in Croatian, English, German, Italian and Slovenian. Dr Jareb, who began compiling the collection in the 1950s, donated it to the Croatian Institute of History in 1997. A particularly intriguing part of the collection are the numerous editions of books, magazines and brochures published by Croatian emigrants in the USA who were critical of the communist regime in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Some of these editions are not available anywhere else in Croatia.