Sadkovich James: Tuđman, prva politička biografija

James J. Sadkovich: Tuđman, the first political biography

After 11 years since his death, we got the first objective biography of the first Croatian president, Franjo Tuđman. It is about the book "Tuđman. The first political biography" written by the American historian of Croatian roots James J. Sadkovich. We finally got a historical study that is the first to objectively judge Tuđman, in which the author writes "cold-headed", tries to be objective. As he says, he does not shape his conclusions to serve moral ends, meet the demands of research scholarship, appease anonymous readers, please his colleagues, or appease his friends. He simply wants to understand his subject and tries to remain objective. Or, as Sadkovich says, he had a modest goal, to understand Tuđman as much as he could. The book is divided into nine chapters, in which Sadkovich deals with Tuđman through all his life changes, and the last chapter, which is also a kind of epilogue, refers to the period of Croatian independence and the modern Croatian state. Through long-term research of Tuđman's biography, Sadkovich tried to explain his intellectual and political development before 1990, while trying to correct many prejudices and wrong opinions about Tuđman that have become established to this day. The extent of his research is sufficiently shown by the list of sources and literature that Sadkovich studied and read. Hardly anyone has read as much about Tuđman as he has. However, this book is not only Tuđman's biography. The spirit of the time in which Tuđman grew up and matured, in which he was formed and in which he acted, also emerges from it. After reading the book, many will learn a lot not only about Tuđman, but also about our modern history, about relations in the old Yugoslavia, about the Second World War and the aftermath, and most of all about the numerous processes in communist Yugoslavia, both in politics and in historiography. And something else. An additional value of the book is that it includes a comprehensive review of the writings of some Western historians and other experts on Yugoslavia and its disintegration, whose pro-Yugoslav views largely determined the perception that Tuđman enjoys in the world today, as the destroyer of that same Yugoslavia. However, what is most important, many who read this book will realize that they did not really know enough about Tuđman or that they were bombarded with all kinds of propaganda that gave birth to many prejudices. The reviewers of the book are Ph.D. Mario Jareb and Dr. sc. Nikica Barić from the Croatian Institute of History. The book has 436 pages, large format, hardcover.