Publications

An oral history of homosexuality in Croatia

Editor: Zvonimir Dobrović, Gordan Bosanac
Publisher: Domino, Zagreb
Content: 255 pages
ISBN: 978-953-7730-22-2
Year: 2016

Documenting accounts of the private and public activities of sexual and gender minorities before the rise of the LGBT movement in Croatia.

This book is a pioneering attempt at documenting the life circumstances of members of sexual minorities in times before what could be called “the contemporary battle for the recognition and equality of human rights regardless of one’s sexual orientation” (that is, before the emergence of gay pride). In the socialist and recent wartime and post-war years, the conditions were such that the chosen research method of “oral history” might sound oxymoronic, considering that mostly, on all sides, homosexuality was something that was preferably not spoken about.

This project presents a period of a parallel history that has never been researched. The results of this are evident precisely today, because non-heterosexuality is constantly experienced as something strange and recently imported from the West, as if it is not about the long-delayed, slow awakening of a stunted and abandoned identity.

This publication is available at ERSTE Foundation Library.

Florian Bauer

Director Social Finance, Sustainability and Innovation
Since 2023, Florian Bauer has been responsible for social finance, sustainability and social innovation at ERSTE Foundation. Prior to this role, Florian worked in the NGO & Social Entrepreneurship sector for more than 13 years. He led the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), an international multilateral NGO that works to accelerate market-based deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient systems in developing countries, and was Managing Director & COO of the Impact Hub Vienna. From 2020-2023, Florian established strategic alliances with key partners and helped to create innovative semantic technology solutions at Semantic Web Company (SWC), a leading IT company in semantic AI solutions.