This story about civil society in Split is based on interviews conducted in 2023 and 2024 with some of the actors on the Split civil scene. It is primarily based on the information obtained through these interviews. The text demonstrates the formative nature of working with refugees in the 1990s for the Split NGO scene.
Although the NGO sector is primarily symptomatic of developed liberal societies and reached its full momentum in Croatia with the fall of communism and the introduction of democratic changes and capitalist economy in the 1990s, civil society in the former Yugoslavia had its precursors in the form of various religious and humanitarian organizations and cultural and artistic organizations, as Suzana Kunac points out in her text Od demokratizacije do neoliberalnih strukturnih reformi (“From Democratization to Neoliberal Structural Reforms”, to apply their existing knowledge to the new situation. Igor Longo, one of the leaders of this scene, who was working as a psychologist at the Center for Juvenile Persons Without Adequate Parental Care at the time of the refugee wave describes his experiences with the refugee wave that hit Split due to the war:Kunac 2013: 116-117). This phenomenon is directly related to the liberalization of the social context from 1974, and consequently, various student, ecological, and similar organizations emerged in Croatia during the 1980s (ibid.). One of the crucial determinants of civil society in Croatia, which notably defined the Zagreb NGO scene, was the fight for democratization and individual freedoms, which began in the 1980s as the struggle for the institution of conscientious objection and civilian service in the Yugoslav Army. The further work of these civil society associations was marked by working with refugees in the early 1990s (ibid.) and the struggle to promote democratic values in a society where the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) party held increasingly important levers of power in the 1990s.
Of course, equating the entire Zagreb NGO scene with progressive associations is unnecessary. Currently, over 12,000 associations are registered in Zagreb, including religious associations, veterans’ associations, sports associations, etc. However, for the purposes of this text, we can take left-liberal provenance associations as a recognizable marker of the Zagreb NGO scene, especially considering that a significant part of today’s city government in Zagreb, led by Mayor Tomislav Tomašević, was recruited from this ecosystem.
In contrast to the Zagreb NGO scene, the Split NGO scene is primarily organized around the efforts of people who, until the 1990s, were professionally and usually within the system, in various ways, involved in helping activities in the community, whether working with children with special needs, socially disadvantaged individuals and families, drug addicts, and similar groups.
Numbers
Many individuals who would become champions of the Split NGO scene, who were already involved in helping work through social care institutions or within the then-few associations in Croatia, such as the DUGA – Youth Action for Help, began working with refugees in the early 1990s. The war in Croatia, which started in 1991, and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began in 1992, led to a vast number of refugees and displaced persons seeking accommodation in Croatia. In December 1992, in Croatia, which had a population of about 4,800,000 in 1991, there were 260,705 registered displaced persons and 402,768 refugees. Most of the actors discussed in this text began working with refugees ad hoc, trying to apply their existing knowledge to the new situation. Igor Longo, one of the leaders of this scene, who was working as a psychologist at the Center for Juvenile Persons Without Adequate Parental Care at the time of the refugee wave, describes his experiences with the refugee wave that hit Split due to the war:
«I had the opportunity to see when forty or fifty mothers with their children came to the institution and tried to integrate into that closed system. The institution’s capacity at that time was about 130 children, and we added about 40 mothers and their children. And we all lived together. The institution was overcrowded then, but we did what could be done. It was a situation where we couldn’t consider some space and equipment standards. It was necessary to provide shelter for people». (Longo 29.6.2023)
To illustrate the logistical pressure that the arrival of refugees and displaced persons represented for Split, it should be noted that in a city with just under 200,000 residents, according to the last census, there were nearly 60,000 registered refugees and displaced persons by the end of 1992.
To Talk or Not to Talk
In addition to logistical challenges, future NGO workers, who were still employed in state and city social care organizations or various educational institutions at the time, faced a lack of skills needed to respond to such a situation but also built skills that would manifest in their future work:
«Many children experienced terrible life traumas: lost parents, were in camps, refugee camps. There were many levels of traumatic experiences, and the knowledge of a psychologist who had worked in a kindergarten or school until then was not adequate. In the 1990s, a new capital of social and professional resources was created that did not exist before» (Đordana Barabarić 29.6.2023.)
A significant part of the activities working with refugees involved attempts to create a sense of normalcy. Activities were conducted to distract from traumatic experiences and reality, children were assisted in overcoming school obligations, and routines were organized where refugees were accommodated in group housing to help them connect and take on constructive roles in the new situation. The emphasis in working with refugees was primarily on meeting basic needs. However, the question arises about what falls under primary needs because refugees often find themselves in a position where their existence is reduced to mere survival. One of our interlocutors claims that someone must satisfy some “needs of the soul” to feel like a human being. For example, she smuggled a hamster for a girl in collective accommodation because the girl longed for contact with animals and a pet. Refugees needed to be occasionally provided with a sense that they had some guaranteed place in the community where they found accommodation, which could be ensured by acts such as restaurant celebrations. In the initial period of caring for refugees, there was an accelerated dissemination of knowledge about dealing with forcibly displaced persons among professionals. However, the beginning of this work was primarily marked by enthusiasm and attempts to apply existing knowledge to the new situation:
«We were learning. It is always good to define some main principles and rules at the start, as the Americans would say, ground rules. In those years, we wanted to do something for people, but in this situation, we are talking about not everything being defined in advance. Because at first, we didn’t know how many people would come. For example, ten women with children would come. And then suddenly, twenty more would come. And so, some things you had defined for yourself and them and maybe changed together with them. There couldn’t be the same number of people in the room. Now, there would be more. Someone would sleep on the floor. There was no other option, and we couldn’t build a new floor. Many things were unknown to us. How do you communicate with people who are going through trauma? Should we avoid talking or engage in conversation? The Society of Psychologists quickly translated brochures. UNICEF played a big role in how to work with children. Experiences from Zambia, for example, were shared. We were learning some things on the go. And there were mistakes. And not all refugee populations are the same» (Longo 29.6.2023)
Another skill activists learned on the go was dealing with stress and the general consequences of such demanding work. As described by Drago Lelas, who was actively involved in helping refugees as a member of the DUGA association as an adolescent and student at the time:
«There was an American psychologist who told me how to proceed… It was tough for us to cope with those stories. Even the Americans who came here to volunteer were not experts, but it just happened that one American woman had some psychology experience. She wasn’t even a certified psychologist but had some therapeutic knowledge… The only supervision we had was a good party on Friday. We would meet on Friday evenings at the space of the Society of Dystrophics. They gave us a space to drink three or four beers to survive more easily» (Lelas 29.6.2023.)
And Now What
With the end of the war in 1995, some people who participated in helping refugees within institutions during the war left their jobs and decided to continue their helping work within NGOs. As they stated, one of the primary reasons for this decision was the reduced opportunity that working within an institution provided in terms of defining problems in the community and the reduced space for creativity in seeking solutions. They found inspiration for their future work in Modena, where they witnessed a developed culture of volunteering. Under the impression of that experience, they founded the association MOST, which to this day promotes the values of volunteer work at the city level:
«Our model emerged from a story where professionals from health and social institutions in Split were in Modena and saw the great volunteer engagement of citizens. The concept of volunteering was unclear to us then, nor was this issue somehow opened in the public space. In socialism, this helping moment was a value that was present but somehow left to individual engagement. In the 1980s, that value somehow got lost. The war period and post-war period here reopened the dimension of solidarity because we had a huge number of refugees in Split» (Đordana Barbarić 29.6.2024)
Instead of a Conclusion
One of the symptoms of the social transition from socialism to capitalism and from a one-party form of government to electoral democracy is the establishment of civil society associations whose activities are closely linked to the culture of volunteer work. The development of the Split NGO scene during the 1990s was marked by the adaptation of skills of professionals from various social care fields to the new situation, as well as by the enthusiasm and volunteer work of the members of associations and humanitarian organizations. In this situation, specific know-how was formed through work with refugees, children with special needs, and other socially vulnerable groups, which would be further disseminated to newly established civil society associations with the growth of the Split civil scene in the 2000s. Unlike the Zagreb civil scene, which was strongly characterized by issues of personal freedom and the struggle for democratic values, the Split civil scene focused on social issues. Working with refugees and vulnerable groups shaped the skills and resources needed for effective assistance. At the same time, inspiration from international models of volunteerism enabled the establishment of associations that will mark the Split volunteer scene in the coming time.
Petar Bagarić is a researcher and employee at the Institute for Ethnology and Folkloristics in Zagreb. His areas of interest have included dervish practices, forced migrations, the anthropology of labour, the anthropology of the senses, the anthropology of organization, and phenomenological anthropology.
