Filip Erdeljac

By moving beyond the conventional account of the Croatian Ustashas as a fanatically violent, illegitimate movement with limited prewar origins and postwar legacies, this dissertation explores the Ustashas’ rise, rule and demise during the 1930s and 1940s and the role of this movement in Croatian national integration. It focuses on the popularization of extreme nationalism in Croatia, the dynamics of nation-building during war and occupation, the impact the Ustasha movement had on the course and outcome of World War II in Yugoslavia, the appropriation of nationalism by the communist Partisan movement and the persistence of exclusionary nationalisms into the postwar Yugoslav state.