The Utopia of Terror ─ Life and Death in Wartime Croatia

The essays in The Utopia of Terror provide new perspectives on the relationship between the politics of construction and destruction in the wartime Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) ruled by the fascist Ustasha movement. Bringing together established historians of the Ustasha regime and an emerging generation of younger historians, The Utopia of Terror explores various aspects of everyday life and death in the Ustasha state that until now have received peripheral attention from historians. The contributors argue for a more complex consideration of the relationship of mass terror and utopianism in which the two are seen as part of the same process rather than as discrete phenomena. They aim to bring new perspectives, generate original thinking, and provide enhanced understanding of both the Ustasha regime's attempts to remake Croatian society and its campaign to destroy unwanted populations. Rory Yeomans is an advanced academia fellow in modern European history at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Sofia, Bulgaria.