Žarko Puhovski
Encyclopedia
Žarko Puhovski is a Croatian
professor, political analyst, philosopher and intellectual, former president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee
.
committee of the Alliance of Socialist Youth a directive arrived to revitalise the political work with more vivacious subjects. Having discovered an article on contraception
in the magazine Der Spiegel
bought by his grandma, Puhovski found it a suitably "vivacious" subject and has on the school youth conference in 1964, in front of 400 students and all the teachers read an essay titled Love, sex and contraception. Before the essay was read to the end, all the professors left the solemnly decked hall. After everything was over, Puhovski was expelled from the League of Communists of Croatia
. Miko Tripalo
, the newly elected secretary of the City Committee of the League of Communists called for him, and told him: "I also had adventures here and there, but I was never punished by the Party, not even by a reprimand! What have you, for god's sake, in this age managed to achieve that you're being expelled from the Party because of sex?". After Tripalo realised what happened, he did his best to whitewash the halo of martyr of Puhovski and the punishment has been canceled.
After studying physics
for two years he heads for Germany
, but returns in 1968 enrolling to the Faculty of Political Sciences. In December 1969 he was appointed as the editor-in-chief of the Omladinski tjednik ("Youth weekly"), taking only 4 months to be discharged. The newspapers he edited were forbidden as for insulting the President of the Republic. It was in March 1970 that he published on the third page of the newspaper a critical introductory on the 10th assembly of the Central Committee of the Communists of Croatia, and on the last page he reprinted a text of the Ljubljana
's periodical Delo
. In the cinema shows schedule Delo has behind the title Filmske novosti - Tito
u Tanzaniji ("Film news - Tito in Tanzania") brought a summary of film's plot, bu without the film's title. The summary went: Veliki boss sakupio je svoj tim - stručnjake za oružje, drogu i prostituciju - i krenuo u osvajanje svijeta. ("The great boss has gathered his team - experts for weapons, drug and the prostitution - and went to conquer the world"). Puhovski translated, magnified and published that text.
In 1971 he was a witness on the trial of Croatian student leaders (Dražen Budiša
, Ivan Zvonimir Čičak). Twenty years later, in a charged nationalist atmosphere, Puhovski has been for this trial depicted as an "anti-Croat" and "traitor" of his colleagues. However, Budiša stated some time later that there was nothing contentious in the testimony of Puhovski, and according to the words of Duško Čizmić Marović: Puhovski told nothing that was not already known to the court before, he didn't charge us with some fabricated facts. He simply provided a lengthy account of his own, already known viewpoints... But I was shocked by this gesture of him: when he, in one moment, started to quote me by his memory, I interrupted him with words "I didn't say that!". In that moment Puhovski turned towards me - me who was on trial! - raised his hand asking me "Wanna bet?".
From 1973 Puhovski works as an assistant in the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Zagreb
, and since 1975 he teaches political philosophy
at the Faculty of Philosophy
. As a professor he held guest lectures at the Universities of Berlin
, Frankfurt, London
, Brighton
, Klagenfurt
and Valencia. He is a member of The Ethikon Institute in Los Angeles
. He is the scientific director of the European University Center for Peace Studies
in Stadtschlaining
.
He served as an editor in various periodicals: Ideje (1970–1973); Kulturni radnik (1971–1982); Praxis (1973–1975); Teka (1975); Filozofska istraživanja (1980–1986). He translated numerous books and studies from German
and English
, published about two hundred works in political philosophy, ethics
, philosophy of culture
, jurisprudence
and social sciences
. He is the co-founder of the first alternative Yugoslav political organisation UJDI (Udruženje za Jugoslavensku demokratsku inicijativu, "Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative
") in 1988, and the Croatian Helsinki Committee
(HHO) in 1993, of which he is president in the period 2000-2007. He was awarded with European Club of Rectors Extraordinary Award for Peace and against Xenophobia 1993.
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
professor, political analyst, philosopher and intellectual, former president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee
Croatian Helsinki Committee
Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is the leading organisation for protection and promotion of human rights in Croatia...
.
Biography
Puhovski became well-known public figure at a very early age, for almost a trivial reason: When he became the president of his gymnasiumGymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
committee of the Alliance of Socialist Youth a directive arrived to revitalise the political work with more vivacious subjects. Having discovered an article on contraception
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
in the magazine Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
bought by his grandma, Puhovski found it a suitably "vivacious" subject and has on the school youth conference in 1964, in front of 400 students and all the teachers read an essay titled Love, sex and contraception. Before the essay was read to the end, all the professors left the solemnly decked hall. After everything was over, Puhovski was expelled from the League of Communists of Croatia
League of Communists of Croatia
League of Communists of Croatia was the Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia . Until 1952, it was known as Communist Party of Croatia .- History :...
. Miko Tripalo
Miko Tripalo
Miko Tripalo was a Croatian and Yugoslav politician.A son of well-to-do farmers' family near Sinj, he joined Tito's Partisans as a teenager...
, the newly elected secretary of the City Committee of the League of Communists called for him, and told him: "I also had adventures here and there, but I was never punished by the Party, not even by a reprimand! What have you, for god's sake, in this age managed to achieve that you're being expelled from the Party because of sex?". After Tripalo realised what happened, he did his best to whitewash the halo of martyr of Puhovski and the punishment has been canceled.
After studying physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
for two years he heads for Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, but returns in 1968 enrolling to the Faculty of Political Sciences. In December 1969 he was appointed as the editor-in-chief of the Omladinski tjednik ("Youth weekly"), taking only 4 months to be discharged. The newspapers he edited were forbidden as for insulting the President of the Republic. It was in March 1970 that he published on the third page of the newspaper a critical introductory on the 10th assembly of the Central Committee of the Communists of Croatia, and on the last page he reprinted a text of the Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
's periodical Delo
Delo
Delo is the largest national daily newspaper in Slovenia. It was established on May 1st, 1959, when two newspapers Ljudska pravica and Slovenski poročevalec merged. Nowadays, it is the most influential and credible daily newspaper in Slovenia...
. In the cinema shows schedule Delo has behind the title Filmske novosti - Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
u Tanzaniji ("Film news - Tito in Tanzania") brought a summary of film's plot, bu without the film's title. The summary went: Veliki boss sakupio je svoj tim - stručnjake za oružje, drogu i prostituciju - i krenuo u osvajanje svijeta. ("The great boss has gathered his team - experts for weapons, drug and the prostitution - and went to conquer the world"). Puhovski translated, magnified and published that text.
In 1971 he was a witness on the trial of Croatian student leaders (Dražen Budiša
Dražen Budiša
Dražen Budiša is a Croatian politician who used to be leading opposition figure in the 1990s and a two-time presidential candidate.-During Yugoslavia:...
, Ivan Zvonimir Čičak). Twenty years later, in a charged nationalist atmosphere, Puhovski has been for this trial depicted as an "anti-Croat" and "traitor" of his colleagues. However, Budiša stated some time later that there was nothing contentious in the testimony of Puhovski, and according to the words of Duško Čizmić Marović: Puhovski told nothing that was not already known to the court before, he didn't charge us with some fabricated facts. He simply provided a lengthy account of his own, already known viewpoints... But I was shocked by this gesture of him: when he, in one moment, started to quote me by his memory, I interrupted him with words "I didn't say that!". In that moment Puhovski turned towards me - me who was on trial! - raised his hand asking me "Wanna bet?".
From 1973 Puhovski works as an assistant in the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Zagreb
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...
, and since 1975 he teaches political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
at the Faculty of Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences or the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb is one of the top faculties of the University of Zagreb.-History:...
. As a professor he held guest lectures at the Universities of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
, Frankfurt, London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, Brighton
University of Brighton
The University of Brighton is an English university of the United Kingdom, with a community of over 23,000 students and 2,600 staff based on campuses in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. It has one of the best teaching quality ratings in the UK and a strong research record, factors which...
, Klagenfurt
University of Klagenfurt
The University of Klagenfurt was founded in 1960 in Klagenfurt, Austria. It began as a College of Educational Studies . Since October 2004 the official German name is Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt in order to stress the intercultural connections between the Alpine regions and the Adriatic Sea...
and Valencia. He is a member of The Ethikon Institute in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. He is the scientific director of the European University Center for Peace Studies
European University Center for Peace Studies
European Peace University is a private university in Stadtschlaining, Austria.The institution was founded in 1988 as European University Center for Peace Studies by Gerald Mader in his capacity as president of the ASPR, with the support of European UNESCO commissions, and is affiliated to the...
in Stadtschlaining
Stadtschlaining
Stadtschlaining is a town in the district of Oberwart in Burgenland in Austria. The European University Center for Peace Studies is in Stadtschlaining....
.
He served as an editor in various periodicals: Ideje (1970–1973); Kulturni radnik (1971–1982); Praxis (1973–1975); Teka (1975); Filozofska istraživanja (1980–1986). He translated numerous books and studies from German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, published about two hundred works in political philosophy, ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, philosophy of culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
and social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
. He is the co-founder of the first alternative Yugoslav political organisation UJDI (Udruženje za Jugoslavensku demokratsku inicijativu, "Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative
Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative
The Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative was a political party in SFR Yugoslavia. It ran in elections in SR Serbia.It was founded in Zagreb in 1988 by a group of left-leaning intellectuals, notably its first president was Branko Horvat, the second president was Nebojša Popov, its...
") in 1988, and the Croatian Helsinki Committee
Croatian Helsinki Committee
Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is the leading organisation for protection and promotion of human rights in Croatia...
(HHO) in 1993, of which he is president in the period 2000-2007. He was awarded with European Club of Rectors Extraordinary Award for Peace and against Xenophobia 1993.
Works
Some of his major works include:- Interes i zajednica (1975)
- Kontekst kulture (1979)
- Povijest i revolucija (1980)
- Um i društvenost (1989)
- Socijalistička konstrukcija zbilje (1990)
- Leksikon temeljnih pojmova politike (1990)
- Politics and Economics of Transition (1993)