Based on the Rector's act from 2012 the research activities in the Centre are performed by the employees who are also the initiators of the Centre, and those activties are part of the employees' regular academic work. Since November 2012 two volunteers were helping in the Centre, since March 2013 two assistants became members of the staff, while since September 2013 there was an assistant and a volunteer assistant. From April 2014 there were four employees and two associates. Since December 2014 for two years there was also a post-doctoral fellow thanks to the NEWFELPRO - Marie Curie programme. Since October 2017 Centre gathers four employed researchers and four associates. Thanks to the research project Microsocialism, since April 2019 a doctoral (four years) and a postdoctoral researcher (six months) were employed, since April 2021 another postdoctoral researcher (six months). Currently, the Centre gathers four employees and several external associates. From time to time there are students and PhD students who participate in traineeship programmes.

Head of the Centre coordinates the activities and changes every year. In the period from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, as well as from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025 the Head of CKPIS is Professor Igor Duda, PhD.

Igor Duda

He is a full professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. He graduated in History and Croatian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (2000). He earned his MSc (2004) and PhD (2009) degrees in History from the same university. He is focusing on history of everyday life and social history of socialist Yugoslavia, particularly on history of leisure, tourism, consumer culture, standard of living, childhood, making of a socialist citizen and citizens’ participation in social self-management. He is the author of four volumes (in Croatian): In Pursuit of Well-Being. On History of Leisure and Consumer Society in Croatia in the 1950s and 1960s (2005), Well-Being Found. Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in Croatia in the 1970s and 1980s (2010), Today when I Become a Pioneer. Childhood and the Ideology of Yugoslav Socialism (2015), and Socialism on the Doorstep. Local Community and the Everyday Life of Social Self-management in Yugoslavia (2023). He has edited or co-edited several volumes. He was the principal investigator of the research projects financed by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ): Making of the Socialist Man. Croatian Society and the Ideology of Yugoslav Socialism (2014-2017) and Microstructures of Yugoslav Socialism: Croatia 1970-1990 (2018-2023). He was the first Head of the Centre in 2012/13 (again in 2016/17, 2020/21, 2023/24, 2024/25), as well as the Head of the Department of History at the Faculty of Humanities 2013-2017; since 2023/24 he is the head of the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History. | Personal page | Full CV

Lada Duraković

She is a full professor at the Academy of Music, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. She graduated in Musicology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana (1992), and earned MSc (2003) and PhD degree (2007) in History from the Faculty of Humanities and Socials Sciences, University of Zagreb. Her field of research is interaction between ideology and music in the 20th century. She has published three volumes (in Croatian): Music Life in Pula/Pola during the Period of the Fascist Dictatorship 1926–1943 (2003), Ideology and the Musical Life: Pula 1945–1966 (2011) and Music as the Educational Mean in the Forming of the "Socialist Man": Music Education in Primary Schools in Croatia (1945-1965). She is a member of the Croatian Musicological Society and the Croatian Journalists' Association. Head of the Centre in the years 2014/15, 2018/19 and 2022/23. | Personal page

Boris Koroman

He is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. He graduated in Ethnology and Croatian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (2001), and earned PhD degree after completing the Postgraduate Doctoral Studies in Literature, Performing Arts, Film and Culture at the same faculty (2014). His field of research is the interaction between literature, arts and culture, and political-ideological paradigms. He is the author of the volume Croatian Fiction and Political Transition (2018, in Croatian). Head of the Centre in the years2015/16 and 2019/20. | Personal page

Andrea Matošević

He is a full professor at the Department of Teacher Education and Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. He graduated in Ethno-anthropology and Italian Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Padua (2003), earned his MA degree in Intercultural Studies from the same faculty (2005) and his PhD in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (2010). His fields of research are ethno-anthropology, history of ethnology/anthropology, oral history, industrial anthropology, popular culture, theories of multiculturalism and philosophy. He is the author of the volumes (in Croatian): Underground. Anthropology of Mining in Labin Area in 20th Century (2011) and Socialism with a Shock-work Face. Ethnography of Working Zeal (2015), as well as  the co-author of the book (in Croatian) Bastards of Long Duration. Balkanist Discourses (with Tea Škokić, 2014). He is a member of the Croatian Ethnological Society and the European Association of Social Anthropologists. Head of the Centre in the years 2013/14, 2017/18 and 2021/22. | Personal page

E X T E R N A L   A S S O C I A T E S

Chiara Bonfiglioli

She is currently an external associate of CKPIS and a lecturer at University College Cork. She was a Newfelpro post-doctoral fellow at the Centre 2014-2017. She holds a BA in Political Sciences from the University of Bologna, and an MA and PhD from the Research Institute for History and Culture, Graduate Gender Programme, University of Utrecht. From 2012 to 2014, she has been research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, within the framework of the CITSEE project. Her doctoral dissertation dealt with women’s political and social activism in Italy and Yugoslavia (1945-1957). She has published extensively on women’s and feminist history in the European context. In the last two years, she has been researching the impact of post-socialist transition and deindustrialisation on gender relations in the former Yugoslavia, with a specific focus on women working in the textile industry. | Personal page

Anita Buhin

She is an external assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities in Pula, an associate of CKPIS and a former postdoctoral researcher at the project Microsocialism. She earned a BA (2008) and MA degree (2011) in History and Croatian Language and Literature from the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, an MA degree in Central European History from the Central European University in Budapest (2012) and a PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute in Florence (2019) with the dissertation Yugoslav Socialism “Flavoured with Sea, Flavoured with Salt”: Mediterranization of Yugoslav Popular Culture in the 1950s and 1960s under Italian Influence (published as a book in 2022). She is interested in cultural and social history of the 20th century with a focus on popular culture and football within socialism. In 2019 she was employed in the Centre within the Microsocialism project. Since 2022 holds a postdoc at the Nova University Lisbon. | Personal page

Tina Filipović

She is an associate, 2019-2023 assistant and doctoral researcher at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, and at CKPIS within the project Microsocialism thanks to the Young Researcher's Career Development Project (Croatian Science Foundation). She earned a BA (2011) and MA degree (2015) in History from the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. In 2018, she started Postgraduate Doctoral Studies of Modern and Contemporary Croatian History in a European and World Context at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. At the People's Museum of Labin she completed a one-year traineeship programme and earned the title of curator. In CKPIS she cooperated in the projects Changing Representations of Socialist Yugoslavia and Microsocialism, in which she researched the partisan veteran organisation SUBNOR. | Personal page

Saša Vejzagić

He has been an associate of the Centre since 2016, and a postdoctoral researcher at the project Microsocialism, fully employed in 2021. He earned a BA (2008) and MA degree (2011) in History from the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, an MA degree in Central European History from the Central European University in Budapest (2013) and and a PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute in Florence (2021) with the dissertation The Rise of a Business Class – Managerial Elites in Yugoslavia, 1963-1978. He is interested in economic, business, political, labor and social history of the 20th century with a focus on Yugoslav socialism. | Personal page

Igor Stanić

He is a former associate teaching assistant at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula and an associate at the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism. He earned a BA (2009) and MA degree (2012) in History from the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. In 2012, he started Postgraduate Doctoral Studies of Modern and Contemporary Croatian History in a European and World Context at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. His field of research is the social history of the second half of the 20th century with a focus on labor in socialism. He is a member of the Istrian Historical Society and Croatian National Committee of Historical Sciences. | Personal page

Sara Žerić

A volunteer assistant in the Centre since September 2020, and a doctoral student at IOS Regensburg since 2021. She earned her BA (2017) and MA (2020) degrees in history from the Faculty of Humanities, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. As a student, she was active in the International Students of History Association (ISHA). In 2018-2019 she was an associate of the Croatian-German project (cooperation CKPIS-IOS) Remembering and Forgetting Industrial Labour in the Adriatic: The Case of Istria, thanks to which she was on a research stay in Regensburg. In 2019 as a member of the project Bedrohliche Wende nach ideologischer Erstarrung: das jugoslawische 1989 “revisited” (DAAD), she participated at a master workshop in Sarajevo. She is a memeber of the Organizing Committee of the Doctoral Workshop in Pula. Her research focus is on social history of socialist Yugoslavia, especially on the process of modernisation.

Tin Celner

A volunteer assistant in the Centre since October 2024, but until then involved in the activities through student internship and a project. He completed his BA (2020) and MA studies in history (thesis Petrova Gora and the National Liberation Struggle: from History to the Use of History, 2024) at the Faculty of Humanities, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. He was extremely active in student associations and in creating the student show Radio x-ica on HRT Radio Pula, while for the overall success in his studies in the academic year 2021/22, he won the Rector's Award. In 2023, through CKPIS, he was involved in the project In Search of Lost Time – Yugoslavia and European Integration (DAAD, Humboldt University of Berlin). In 2018, he started Postgraduate Doctoral Studies of Modern and Contemporary Croatian History in a European and World Context at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. He is a member of the Organizing Committee of the Doctoral Workshop in Pula.

S T U D E N T S  A N D  D O C T O R A L  S T U D E N T S

Students cooperating within the projects:
Tina Filipović (2015), Sara Žerić and David Žufić (2018-2019), Tin Celner (2023)

Student practice:
Mateo Dragičević, Ana Rebić, David Žufić (2016/17), Tin Celner (2022/23)

Erasmus+ Traineeship:
Iva Jelušić (CEU) (2018/19)
Nemanja Stanimirović (CEU) (2020/21)
Klemen Knez (University of Ljubljana) (2022/23)

Erasmus:
Marta Harasimowicz (Charles University, Prague, 2023/24)

V I S I T I N G  F E L L O W S  F R O M  2 0 2 5  ( C A L L )

Marta Harasimowicz (Charles University, Prague, April 2025)