Location

• Zagreb Ilica 5, Croatia 10000
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Languages

• Croatian

Name of collection

• Miko Tripalo Personal Papers

Provenance and cultural activities

• The Miko Tripalo Personal Papers are a valuable source for the history of the socialist period in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Together with Savka Dabčević Kučar, Tripalo was a central figure in the Croatian reform movement in the League of Communists known as the Croatian Spring. The movement initially developed as a reaction by Croatian communists and the intelligentsia to the centralist and unitarist positions of the communist authorities after the resignation of the head of the Yugoslav secret police (UDBA), Aleksandar Ranković, in 1966, when conditions arose for the liberalisation of political life in Yugoslavia. The genesis of the Croatian Spring can be traced to the student protests during the second half of the 1960s, the ritual celebration of the Croatian People's Movement in 1966 and the Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language in 1967; these were joined by demands for economic reform and changes in the status of the Yugoslav republics in the direction of decentralization and fairer distribution of state revenues.
  The process of social and national emancipation encompassed all layers of Croatian society. Reform initiatives by the Croatian communists were joined by renowned cultural institutions such as Matica hrvatska, many prominent public intellectuals, scholars and artists, and students with the broadest support of the people (critics called it the mass movement, or "maspok" – from the term masovni pokret). When President Josip Broz Tito, who initially expressed support for the Croatian communists, assessed that the Croatian reform movement undermined the stability of the state and his influence, the movement was “suffocated” at the end of 1971. Many participants were arrested and sentenced to prison. A new wave of political emigration emerged, and the strong-arm policy had returned. Tripalo was not arrested, but he was removed from all posts and banned from public activities. In the ensuing period, Tripalo was constant under police surveillance and intimidation. Despite attempts by the government to marginalise him, Tripalo's name became "a symbol of resistance and his ideas inspired liberally oriented people."
  During his political activities and even after his elimination from public life, Tripalo gathered various materials and numerous manuscripts and notes which composed the basis of his future collection – the Miko Tripalo Personal Papers. These archival materials became an outstanding collection of various documents relevant to recent Croatian and Yugoslav history in which Tripalo himself played a major role. The result is a collection of – mostly – unpublished and unread manuscripts, numerous commentaries and analyses dealing with intriguing themes such as the attitude of the Catholic Church at the time of the Croatian Spring, the phases of Tito’s political activities, etc. Tripalo's archive testifies to the specific aspects of the development of critical political consciousness and dissident activism in Croatian and Yugoslav socialist society.
  After Tripalo's death in 1995, the material was inherited by his wife, Vinka Tomić Tripalo. After the establishment of the Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo in 2003, Mrs. Tripalo donated her husband’s personal archive to the Centre, where it has been held to this day. Within the Centre, a specialised library and a personal archive were established. The foundation of the Miko Tripalo Personal Papers was a ten-meter-long file of folders and portfolios, which were often moved to different locations before the final settlement. A group of experts consisting of four prominent intellectuals (the Archive Council) and three executives (a lexicographer, archivist, and librarian) worked on the materials from 2003 to 2010, resulting in a very well organized archive. The collection was classified and organised into nine thematic units, each document being given an archival signature with a description of the archival units in the inventory list.
  The wider context of the documentation of Miko Tripalo’s life and work is important for understanding the genesis and metamorphosis of Croatian politics as a whole in the period after the Second World War. A key part of the collection refers to valuable testimony about the Croatian Spring. The historical significance of Tripalo's actions – to which his archives bear witness – has been recognised by many analysts of the history of Croatian political culture. Tripalo's activity was an attempt to "govern together with the people and as part of the people, not to rule over the people by force and through the Party" (Josip Kregar). As a national tribune and proponent of open political criticism, he consistently opposed the totalitarian current of the League of Communists, which ultimately prevailed and led to the fall of the Croatian Spring at the end of 1971. Many of the participants in the Croatian Spring, including Tripalo himself, renewed their political activism in the period of democratic transition in the late 1980s and 1990s by relying on the "reserve of legitimacy that stemmed from the role they had played in the Croatian Spring and the repressive measures to which they were subjected." (Nenad Zakošek).
  In this sense, the Miko Tripalo Personal Papers acknowledge the Croatian Spring as the key turning point in contemporary Croatian political history. It is also a component of the political-cultural heritage, which is the basis for the active development of critical consciousness in contemporary Croatian society. The current public work of the Centre for Democracy and Law testifies to this. In his memoirs in 1995, Tripalo wrote: "In the Croatian Spring we wanted a sovereign Croatia, Yugoslavia as an alliance of equal states ... totalitarianism proved stronger than democratic ideas, we were broken ... Today the Croatian state is a reality, but the battle for Croatia is just beginning, for Croatia as a democratic civil state."

Description of content

• The archival materials of the Miko Tripalo Personal Papers are grouped into thematic units, inventory series and subseries. The archival materials are divided into nine basic units: personal documents, documents covering Miko Tripalo’s political activity until 1971, documents covering Miko Tripalo’s political activity after 1990, texts/speeches/interviews by Miko Tripalo, manuscript and marginal notes, photographs, newspaper library, Tripalo after 1995, unconventional materials/ audio records. The Miko Tripalo Personal Fund presents historical documentation that reconstructs the political activity of one of the most famous politicians in Croatia during the socialist period. The Fund is also a valuable source which provides insight into the peculiarities of the political culture of dissent during the Croatian Spring in 1971. Tripalo's activities as a leading reformist politician contributed to the opening of the public space to "diverse political-cultural initiatives, the flourishing of the free press and the appearance of periodicals with new political orientations." A pluralistic atmosphere was created. A whole range of political and cultural actors sought reforms within the national-democratic reform movement: the leading Croatian cultural institution Matica hrvatska, the student movement, different groups of intellectuals, etc.

Content

• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): unknown quantity
• publications (books, newspapers, articles, press clippings): 500-999

Operator(s)

• Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo

Owner(s)

• Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo
• Tomić Tripalo, Vinka
• Tripalo, Ante (Miko)

Stakeholder(s) of the collection

• Mladineo, Vanja

Geographical scope of recent operation

• international

Topics

• human rights movements
• national movements (patriotic opposition)
• party dissidents (outcasts from the party)

Founder(s)

• Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo

Date of founding

• 2003

Place of founding

• Zagreb Ilica 5, Croatia
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Creator(s) of content

• Tripalo, Ante (Miko)

Collector(s)

• Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo
• Tripalo, Ante (Miko)

Important events in the history of the collection

• Acquisition of the Miko Tripalo Personal Papers, 2003
• Event (general): International Conference: Croatian Spring - 40 years later, 2011
• Event (general): Annual meeting Tripalo Days in Sinj

Featured items

• Tripalo, Miko. About the mass movement in Croatia, 1983. Manuscript
• Tripalo, Miko. Notes about Tito, 1978. Manuscript
• Tripalo, Miko. Some of my views on the national question, 1978. Manuscript

Access type

• visits by appointments

Publications

• Gotovac, Viktor, and Vlado Puljiz. Deset godina Centra za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo: 2003.-2013. (Ten years of the Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo). Zagreb: Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo, 2013.
  
  Škalić, Marina. Osobni fond Miko Tripalo - Analitički inventar (Miko Tripalo Personal Papers - The Analytical Inventory). Zagreb, 2011.

Author(s) of this page

• Bing, Albert

References

Bing, Albert. Interview with Mladineo, Vanja (20_6_2017).

Gotovac, Viktor, and Vlado Puljiz. Deset godina Centra za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo: 2003.-2013. (Ten years of the Centre for Democracy and Law Miko Tripalo). Zagreb: Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo, 2013.

Jakovina, Tvrtko (ed.). Hrvatsko proljeće 40 godina poslije (The Croatian spring 40 years later). Zagreb: Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Fakultet političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2012.

Kregar, Josip, Gvozden Flego and Slaven Ravlić (eds.). Hrvatska - kako sada dalje (Croatia – How to go forward now). Zagreb: Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo - Pravni fakultet, 2008.

Kregar, Josip, Vlado Puljiz, Slaven Ravlić (eds.). Hrvatska - kako dalje: zadanosti i mogućnosti (Croatia – How to go forward: Realities and possibilities). Zagreb: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta - Centar za demokraciju i pravo "Miko Tripalo", 2004.

Škalić, Marina. Osobni fond Miko Tripalo - Analitički inventar (The Miko Tripalo Personal Papers - The Analytical Inventory). Zagreb, 2011.

Smerdel, Branko. Primjena federalnog načela i pouke ustavne reforme 1971. (Application of the Federal Principle and the Lessons of Constitutional Reforms in 1971). Zagreb: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta - Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo, 2007.

Šentija, Josip, and Slaven Ravlić. Razgovori s Mikom Tripalom o hrvatskom proljeću (Coversations with Miko Tripalo about the Croatian spring). Zagreb: Profil international, 2005.

Tripalo, Miko. Hrvatska kakvu želim: socijaldemokratska alternativa  (The Croatia I want: A Social democratic alternative) Rijeka: RIM-UTEI, 1995.

Tripalo, Miko. Hrvatsko proljeće (Croatian spring). Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Matice Hrvatske, 2001.

Tripalo, Miko. Otvoreno društvo (The Open society). Zagreb. Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo, 2017.

Tripalo, Miko. Za demokratsku i socijalnu Hrvatsku: fragmenti političkog mišljenja (For democratic and social Croatia: fragments of a political outlook) Zagreb: Centar za demokraciju i pravo Miko Tripalo, 2015.

Mladineo, Vanja, interview by Bing, Albert , June 20, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection