Settling accounts

Settling accounts

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From September 2023 to June 2024, Željko Stipić, who has led the school trade union Preporod for two decades, recorded every day what was happening around him and within him. The diary began as notes on the preparations for a union assembly in Lovran. Over time it became a chronicle of one of the most turbulent periods in Croatian trade unionism. It was a time of struggle against the new Salaries Act and the introduction of performance appraisals, of a lonely resistance that grew into an alliance with other unions, a time of protests, petitions and an appeal to the Constitutional Court.

Yet Razduživanje does not dwell solely on everyday union life. Meetings with the political leadership alternate with unofficial information picked up over coffee, election campaigns, reflections on books the author has read and, no less importantly, family. The author writes openly, sometimes anxiously, sometimes euphorically, aware that not all of his views will stand the test of time. The result is an honest insider’s view of how a trade union is run, how one negotiates with the government, and how one manages to remain true to oneself in the process.

***

Razduživanje, the diary of Željko Stipić – a persistent and passionate advocate of trade unionism, a secondary school teacher and long-standing president of Preporod – has been bound. Published. Here it is before us. With its title alone, that single word, it speaks tellingly about its author and about the society he strives to make better through his work. And by covering precisely a nine-month period – from September 2023 to June 2024, the length of one school year – these entries speak about their author in a deliberately symbolic way. Not to mention the other subtle symbolic meanings of the number nine.

Because of Željko Stipić’s inner fire of character, well known to all, which we have seen and felt for more than two decades in his public appearances, union-related and otherwise; because of an understanding of what diary writing is and what it entails; because, in doing union work, he has led and still leads an exceptionally dynamic, rich and exciting public life in which politics is unavoidable; and finally, because of his generous and courageous revelation of what is most personal about himself – the seemingly lifeless paper pages of this valuable social chronicle of the times we live in, the first such book by a Croatian trade unionist, could truly come alive with their content.

Božena Matijević, Večernji list

  • ISBN: 978-953-369-082-7
  • Dimensions: 142x205 mm
  • Number of pages: 428
  • Cover: paperback
  • Year of the edition: 2026