Igor Duda (Juraj Dobrila University of Pula)
Abstract
Under Habsburg rule in the 1840s, the East Adriatic coast saw the emergence of organised tourism. Among the upper classes at the time, seawater and air were considered essential for wellness during winter holidays at seaside health resorts. A century later, in socialist Yugoslavia, the rising working class became domestic tourists, with summer holidays at the beach, predominantly in Croatia, viewed as a pathway to well-being and a higher standard of living. By the 1960s, post-war social tourism was complemented with a booming commercial tourism industry, attracting millions of foreign visitors. This mass tourism reshaped local seaside communities, influenced the needs and expectations of Yugoslavia’s growing travel and consumer culture, and helped to create an open and welcoming international image for the country. The history of Adriatic tourism mirrors Croatia’s history within Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia and later, including the economic, social and cultural changes from the 19th century to the present.
Bio
Igor Duda is a full professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, and at the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. 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 was the principal investigator of the research projects Making of the Socialist Man. Croatian Society and the Ideology of Yugoslav Socialism and Microstructures of Yugoslav Socialism: Croatia 1970-1990. At the University of Pula he teaches courses in contemporary history. He also teaches at the PhD programme in modern and contemporary history at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. He is the initiator and head of the annual summer Doctoral Workshop in Pula (since 2015), co-organiser of the biennial conference series Socialism on the Bench (since 2013), as well as the co-editor-in-chief of the journal History in Flux (since 2019). He is co-founder of the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism and the head of the Chair of Late Modern and Contemporary History.