Being a general museum, the Croatian History Museum’s holdings include the Collection of Photographs, films and Negatives which deals with photographs as museum objects relating to the historical period from the beginning of the century to the Patriotic War. The primary concerns of the Collection are not photographic techniques and production or the artistic intentions and quality, but rather the historical figures in the photographs and the events in recent history. The present holdings of the Collection were gathered systematically- through materials being deposited for safekeeping, donations, acquisitions, bequests, exchange with other institutions and collectors, as well as through inheriting material from the War Museum and Archive of the Independent State of Croatia and the holdings of the Museum of the Revolution of the Peoples of Croatia. The War Museum and Archive was founded on the basis of Decree number CXXVI-268-Z-p. From 1941, signed by the Head of the State Dr Ante Pavelic on May 26 1941. The Decree lists the aims of the Museum and Archive, namely ‘to keep and collect all written and printed documents and items relating to the history of the Croats from the earliest times to the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia’. In line with the provisions of the law, a Statute was drawn up for the Museum, its administrator and associates named, and an Advisory council was elected. It was the first institute dealing with military science within the Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia; the Museum was administered by the Ministry of the Croatian Home Guard. The cornerstone of the Museum’s holdings was the collection of ancient weapons belonging to the collector Colonel Milan Praunsperger. The holdings of the Museum and Archive grew by gathering material throughout the Independent State of Croatia, and a part of the new acquisitions were photographs and various items which Croatian legionaries brought from the Eastern Front, as well as items brought home by officers returning from military academies in Austria and Italy. Initially the Museum had a collection of ancient weapons (335 items), flags (20 items), medals, decorations and plaques (727 items), war albums and photographs from the front (570 items), and the holdings grew over the years. The Museum had four departments: The Department of Military History, with Milan Grospic at its head; The Art Department, with Josip Uhlik at its head; The War Archive, with Ljudevit Hanaman at its head; and The War Museum, with Karlo Ribar at its head (and the head of this department was at the same time deputy administrator). The propaganda photographic services of the Independent State of Croatia’s allies sent their photo-reports from the battlefields of Italy, Finland and Africa to the War Museum and Archive in Zagreb. The photographers employed at the Museum made their own photographs and arranged them in albums intended for use within the Museum or as gifts to prominent political and military figures in the Independent State of Croatia. The Museum and Archive also had a large library. According to information in one of the albums, we can safely conclude that the Museum had several locations: in the Old Town in the building of the Administrative Headquarters of the Armed forces Ministry, 4 Jesuit Square, where it had only two rooms. A part of the Museum was located in the Home Guard Ministry Headquarters building at Kresimir Square, while the former leather factory in 2 Medvedgrad Street served as the archives and storeroom. Because of a lack of proper facilities, the war and the general military situation, the Museum was closed to the general public. After the Yugoslav Army left Zagreb, the Collection took charge of some 10.000 negatives and photographs dealing with the activities of the ‘Yugoslav People’s Army’ from the fifties to 1989. From 1968 photographic materials were collected in the Contemporary Collection – the former Socialist Development Collection – and these materials were addend to the Collection of Photographs with a total of 14.465 negatives, positives, and photograph albums.

The Collection is an archive for the study of the antifascist struggle, the Ustashe movement, the rise and the fall of the Independent State of Croatia, the post-war conditions in Croatia, as well as the most recent armed conflict and aggression aimed against Croatia. The photographic material has been systematically treated on two levels. The first level deals with the global division into originals and prints in order to enable their analysis, allows their entry in the inventory and archives; the originals and reproductions are entered into special inventory books and are filed separately in the Museum’s storeroom. The second level deals with the time, content and event; the photographs are grouped into defined sets determined by the historical period and subject matter.

The division of the Collection’s holdings according to type of material is as follows: photographs – the positives of original negatives and prints; films – 8 mm, 16 mm, 35 mm; slides – black-and-white and colour; negatives – on glass, on nitro-cellulose in formats ranging between 24 mm x 36 mm and 6 cm x 9 cm, as well as negatives on non-combustible film; and photograph albums. The most numerous type in the Collection are black-and-white negatives. A valuable part of the holdings are 37 war documentary films on 8 mm, 16 mm and 35 mm film, mostly nitro-cellulose, from the period between 1940 and 1946. An especially rare item in the Collection are 81 colour slides from the Photographs Department at the Bureau of the State and Propaganda of the Presidency of the Government of the Independent State of Croatia.

With respect to subject matter, the holdings are divided into material from the Home Guard, the Ustashe, fascists, Nazis and Chetniks; photographic material from the labour movement and the antifascist struggle, photographs from the contemporary collection an the most recent collection from the Patriotic War in Croatia from 1990 to 1995.

Th Croatian History Museum studies photographs as historical facts, significant with respect to historical events, historical figures or an individual historical period. It represents an important tool in museum research and is not limited exclusively to themes relating to war. The photographic holdings of the History Museum before its integration with the Museum of the Revolution of the Peoples of Croatia were not collected and processed in a separate collection, but served as documentation in individual collections. The Museum of the Revolution of the Peoples of Croatia was a specialised institution dealing with recent history, namely World War I and World War II, with emphasis placed on revolutionary developments and the history of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the League of Communism of Yugoslavia. The main focus of interest was placed on individuals, party membership and the period of the war between 1941 and 1945 in the Republic of Croatia. Over the years its focus expanded to include themes of post-war development and contemporary events.

The Collection includes 33.948 items in inventory books, 50.783 items not entered in inventories, as well as 484 items deposited with the Museum, giving a total of 85.215 original items. In 1991 the gathering of the photographic documentation of the patriotic War in Croatia began, and to date we have registered 7.553 photographs. Together with prints, the Collection of Photographs, film and Negatives contains some 120.000 items.