Nation-building in Franjo Tu？man’s Political Writings

Sa？etak Detecting the gap in the existing literature of Franjo Tu？man’s political thought, this article comprehensively analyzes Tu？man’s nationalist ideology prior to the 1990s. Using a morphological approach to ideology, the article presents three main clusters of concepts regarding Tu？man’s ideology: the narrative on the nature of humankind as teleological struggle to achieve independent national states; the narrative of supranational ideologies – such as liberalism and communism – acting as a pure geopolitical means used by the great nations to subjugate small ones; and finally the narrative of the Croatian thousand-year long struggle to achieve an independent national state. Moreover, the article exposes how Tu？man already by the 1970s created the idea of an all-embracing national movement grounded in the synthesis of abovementioned teleological concept on Croatian history, which would eventually bring about a national reconciliation of Usta？a and the Croatian partisans in a final struggle for the independent state