In the case of Croatia, sport has proved to be a highly politicized form of national expression, functioning as a salient social field in which its “national habitus codes” are most intensively articulated, debated, and contested. An incident emblematizing this argument occurred on 19 November 2013, when the Croatian national football team secured their qualification for the 2014 Football World Cup in Brazil. In front of the 25,000 people at Zagreb's Maksimir stadium, the national team player, Josip Simunić, grabbed the microphone and “greeted” all four stands with a loud chanting of Za dom (For the home(land)), to which the stands thunderously responded spremni (ready), the official salute of the Independent State of Croatia, a fascist WWII quisling-state. This paper argues that the issue extends beyond politically radicalized football hooligans and has to be understood from the standpoint of “social memory.” By focusing on football, the article scrutinizes debates in the Croatian public sphere dealing with the salute Za dom – spremni. Providing an insight into its complex and multi-layered nature, this paper illustrates that Croatian football has to be understood as a field in which social memory is prominently constructed, heatedly articulated, and powerfully disseminated.

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In post-socialist Croatia, sport can be described as a unique source of social knowledge contributing greatly to the formation, establishment and conservation of the emerging national identity after the country's secession from socialist Yugoslavia in 1990-1991. Throughout the 1990s, sport, including interpretation, images, metaphors and actual events, proved to be a highly politicized form of national expression in which narratives of nation, identity and culture were intensely articulated. After all, the country's first president, Franjo Tudjman, proclaimed that 'football victories shape a nation's identity as much as wars do', showing a remarkable awareness of the galvanizing effect sport can have in times of crisis. This paper examines narratives expressed within the field, pointing out how ideological contents were transmitted through sport events, media reports and fan culture in order to show what functions and social roles sport had taken during the first 10 years of Croatian independence.

This article provides an overview on some of the key issues related to the Bleiburg commemoration and more broadly the cultural memory of Partisan crimes at the end of the Second World War. Drawing upon four years of fieldwork, media analysis, and recent historiographical debates, the authors take a transnational approach in examining why Bleiburg remains one of the most controversial commemorations not just in Croatia but in the region. The article focuses on historical narratives in the commemorative speeches, the role of space in shaping memory politics, symbols and monuments present at Bleiburg Field, and the broader context of how Austrian politics affects the commemoration and its public perception.

This conceptual introduction seeks to frame and provide a context for the following special issue on "Football from below in SouthEastern Europe". The special issue focus on fan activism and protest aims to understand, theorize and interpret the efforts of football fans both visible as (sub-)political actors in public space and/or as collectives engaged in experiments with new forms of club ownership and direct/participatory democracy. This introduction first details various features of the SouthEastern European context, before exploring how the texts relate to each other in terms of fan, activist and academic positionalities. Following this, one dimension to the concept of protest 'from below'-namely that of a strict 'people/politics' (narod/politika) opposition-is explained and critiqued. Finally, thematic gaps within the special issue are identified and possible areas for future research are discussed.