COURAGE

connecting collections

The State Archives in Osijek (SAO) conducts the organised protection of archival materials and supervision of in the field emerging archival materials in the area of Osijek-Baranja County. It consists of eight departments, has a reading room with eight seats, a small lecture hall with 30 seats, and the storage space full of archival materials. Today, the SAO holds more than 7,300 linear meters of archival records, arranged into more than 1,720 archival funds and collections. The earliest preserved archival record dates from the end of the 17^th century. The documents written before 1848 are mostly in Latin, which was the official language, but there is a considerable amount of material in German, written in the cursive Gothic style. Since 1848, the records were mostly written in Croatian, less in German, and very little in Hungarian and Serbian (Cyrillic).
After World War II, a new approach to dealing with archival records as cultural heritage was adopted. An archival storage facility (sub-station) of the State Archives Office in Zagreb was established in Osijek in 1947. From then on, we can speak of the systematic and organised protection and supervision of archival records in this institution. In 1956, the Archives became an independent organisation – the Archives in Osijek. In 1957, the Communist Party Archives were established as a part of the Archives. It collected, processed and published historical sources regarding the history of the Workers' Movement, the Communist Party and the Partisan struggle during World War II. This archive was integrated into the then Historical Archives of Osijek in 1962.
Until 1971, the Archives were located in Kuhačeva street no. 27. Due to the increasing need for archival storage, the Archives were moved (1972-1975) to the present location in Kamila Firingera street no. 1. The building has 2,000 square meters of space, broken down into 1,500 square meters of storage space, a workshop of 100 square meters, with the rest divided among offices and workrooms. The Archives Building was severely damaged in the Homeland War in 1991/1992. It was entirely reconstructed in 1996. It is a first-class cultural monument in the Osijek fortress, and it is protected as an urban heritage site.
In 1993, all of the regional archives (including the SAO), had to change their names into the Historical Archives. The newest name change came in April 1998, and since then the Archives carry the current name: State Archives in Osijek. Its territorial jurisdiction included the areas of three counties - Osijek-Baranja, Vukovar-Srijem and Virovitica-Podravina - but since 1 May 2009, it has been limited to Osijek-Baranja County.

The State Archives in Vukovar were established by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia on 11 January 2007 (as published in Narodne novine 7/2007) with its address in Vukovar, Županijska street no. 66. It began to operate in the following year. When the autonomous archival institution was founded, the conditions were created for the performance of archival services independently in the whole territory of Vukovar-Srijem County. Until then, such archival services were rendered by the Archival Collection Centre in Vinkovci, a department of the State Archives in Osijek, Vojarska 1. Pursuant to the aforementioned Regulation, the State Archives in Vukovar concluded an agreement stipulating a delimitation with the State Archives in Osijek, which became effective on 1 January 2009. Under this agreement, the assets, archival records and staff of the Archival Collecting Centre in Vinkovci moved from the State Archives in Osijek to the jurisdiction of the State Archives in Vukovar. The Archives contain archival records from the socialist period, which may be used to research the system of regime control. It shows the regime's surveillance practices in various public and party institutions which were applied during the socialist era in the territory of Vukovar-Srijem County. 

Archiving has a long tradition in the city of Zadar, dating back to medieval times, when Zadar was a part of the Republic of Venice. In 1390, the word "archives" was mentioned for the first time on Croatian soil, in a document written by a Zadar notary (archivium communis Jadre - archives of the municipality of Zadar). In 1624, the archives of the General Administrator in Zadar were established, and this was the beginning of systematic and organised storage of documents. Such archiving practices continued after the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, both under French and Austrian rule. In the post-war period, the archives became the state archives for the most of Dalmatia, including the islands of Pag and Rab. It was counted among four largest regional archives in Croatia. Later, with the establishment of the archives in Šibenik and Split, its jurisdiction shrank to Zadar County and parts of Lika-Senj County.

The organisation of the security-intelligence system of the future communist Yugoslavia began in 1941 within the framework of Partisan movement. The formal date for the establishment of an intelligence service has been set 13 May 1944, when the People’s Protection Department (Odjeljenje za zaštitu naroda – OZNA) was formed. After promulgation of the 1946 Yugoslav Constitution on January 31, it was reorganised by its division into civilian and military services. A part of the OZNA, Section II, which was engaged in security and counterintelligence activities, was renamed the State Security Administration (Uprava državne bezbjednosti – UDBA), and on 13 March 1946 it was moved from the National Security Ministry of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) and placed under the authority of the Internal Affairs Ministry of the FPRY (Radelić 2015, p. 96). After the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, held on in Brijuni on 1 July 1966 (the Brijuni Plenum), the UDBA in Croatia was renamed the State Security Service of the Republic Internal Affairs Secretariat of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (Služba državne sigurnosti Republičkog sekretarijata za unutrašnje poslove SRH – SDS RSUP SRH), and was indirectly subordinated to the Federal Internal Affairs Secretariat (Savezni sekretarijat unutarnjih poslova – SSUP). Until then, it was under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal authorities. According to the Amendment to the Internal Affairs Act passed on 18 April 1991, the activities of the State Security Service were assumed by the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order, which – as noted on the website of the Security and Intelligence Agency of the Republic of Croatia – “developed into a modern service which did not target citizens of opposing political views, either legally or in practice, but rather protected the constitutional order in the entire territory of the Republic of Croatia against unconstitutional and illegal acts.”

The security-intelligence system in communist Yugoslavia/Croatia was primarily under the control of the Communist Party (Radelić 2015, p. 80), so the Party’s organs played the key role in the organisation of the intelligence and counterintelligence services. According to Radelić, besides establishing more effective security against enemies and gathering military intelligence, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was the security-intelligence system of the Partisan movement, having fostered from the very outset the unification of Party and state authority in line with its revolutionary objectives (Radelić 2015, p. 104). Full control over the security-intelligence services was a key precondition of the CPY's successful confrontation with members of hostile armies and movements, rival parties and individuals in its struggle to take over the government, restore Yugoslavia and reorganise it in accordance with the Marxist ideology of a classless society (Radelić 2015, 74-75).

This was also the conclusion of G. Akrap, who observed that the Yugoslav security-intelligence system was fully in the service of achieving goals and tasks which complied with the “Party line” and commissioned by the political and military leadership. It was a stringently centralized system controlled by top Party officials. It had executive and repressive authority (expulsion, displacement, resettlement, filing charges, arrests, imprisonment, torture, liquidation), as well as organisational units in charge of the organised elimination of all political opponents. This was accompanied by a hiring policy according to which the service was staffed by persons most loyal to the Communist Party (Akrap 2016, pp. 59-63). In Party documents from the initial post-war period, the UDBA was characterized as an authority charged with the protection of legality, belying the inhumane features of its activities.

As described by D. Mikšić, the key transmission point in the structure and jurisdiction of the Service was already mentioned during the Brijuni Plenum held in 1966, when irregularities were detected, followed by a reorganisation of the Service. The newly established republican centres and SDS centres were modelled after the federal SDS organisation. It developed an organisational network via the republican internal affairs secretariats, and they in turn set up their own through SDS centres and territorial branches. The SDS centre for Croatia was in Zagreb, and there were also 10 regional centres: Bjelovar, Gospić, Karlovac, Osijek, Pula, Rijeka, Sisak, Split, Varaždin and Zagreb, as well as branch offices in Dubrovnik, Slavonski Brod, Šibenik, Vinkovci and Zadar. The operational level within the SDS was covered by a network of intelligence operatives and their sources: informants and associates. The SDS had several directorates, i.e., departments. Four main directorates dealt with domestic enemies, enemy émigrés, foreign intelligence agencies and surveillance and wiretapping techniques (Emigration. A guide through the funds and collections of the Croatian State Archives, p. 406).

The internal by-laws of the State Security Service of 30 January 1967 stipulate that its core activities are the collection, documentation, recording and analysis of data to detect and prevent covert and organised enemy activities by foreign intelligence agencies, Yugoslav émigrés, individuals, groups and organisations at home and abroad aimed at undermining and disrupting the constitutional order (Leljak 2016, 377-378).