“After Indifference: Non-Elite Engagements with National Politics in the Yugoslav Kingdom, the World War II Ustasha State and Communist Yugoslavia, 1934-1948"
Professional Background
Dr. Filip Erdeljac earned his PhD from New York University in September 2016. He holds an MA in history from Arizona State University. As a Fred and Maria Devinki Memorial Fellow, Dr. Erdeljac will be conducting research for his project entitled “After Indifference: Non-Elite Engagements with National Politics in the Yugoslav Kingdom, the World War II Ustasha State and Communist Yugoslavia, 1934-1948.”
Dr. Erdeljac is fluent in English, Czech, and Serb-Croatian. He has speaking and reading abilities in German, Italian, Spanish, Slovakian, Slovenian, and Macedonian.
Dr. Erdeljac has written chapters in edited volumes, one of which was “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times” in The Utopia of Terror [edited by Rory Yeomans] (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2015). His most recent presentation was “Discovering Non-Elite Interpretations of National Politics and Mass Violence” at The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. Dr. Erdeljac has a journal article currently under review.
Fellowship Research
While in residence at the Mandel Center, Dr. Erdeljac researched the ways in which the peasants and workers in several East European states understood the ideologies of their time, and how that complicated the standard categories in which historians typically placed them. He used the museum’s various collections, including the Esther Gitman Collection.
Mr. Erdeljac was in residence at the Mandel Center until August 31, 2017.