Croatian symbolic identity

Croatian symbolic identity

  • Understanding the national symbols from the perspective of Croatian citizens
  • Tijana Trako Poljak
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TIM press is publishing a new book, Croatian symbolic identity. Understanding the national symbols from the perspective of Croatian citizens by Tijana Trako Poljak, Ph. D., an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. The book is a valuable contribution to the crucial sociological research that deals with the national symbolism, as well as a deeper understanding of the points of agreement, disagreement and conflict over the meaning the symbolic dimension of contemporary Croatian national identity.

Croatian symbolic identity elaborates key concepts and problems that appear in the scientific literature when dealing with the subject, and brings the results of a qualitative empirical study carried out in 2013, in which Croatian citizens talk about the meanings of contemporary Croatian national symbols through in-depth semi-structured interviews.

The aim of the book is to determine the meaning of the symbolic threads that make up the modern Croatian national identity in order to obtain a fuller picture of its nature, places of agreement on its basic meaning and the reasons for the persistent controversy about certain national symbols in the Croatian society.


  • ISBN: 978-953-8075-06-3
  • Year of the edition: 2016
  • Number of pages: 316
  • Cover: paperback
  • Dimensions: 155x235 mm

"Due to the methodological and theoretical foundations, this book is an important guideline for the future similar studies, but it also serves as a link between two disciplines (sociology and historiography) which, in their own way, deal with these issues. The work will certainly attract the attention of experts and the general public as it opens up a number of new aspects of the construction of the Croatian national identity. "

Neven Budak, Ph. D.


"The findings of this study represent an extremely detailed description of the symbols and their semantic stratification, while its main theoretical grounds come from an updated global literature on sociology and a related disciplines (political science, historiography, ethnography...). Putting together such a number of different types of symbols, from historical figures to the style of economic policy in a single (national) symbolic entity is not an easy task, especially given the different contexts which these symbols arose or are still arising from. (...) It is a scientifically valuable and innovative sociological study, whose theme, because of its appeal and topicality, transcends the boundaries of sociology as well as interests of the experts.

Vjeran Katunarić, Ph. D.