Gregor Kranjc, Visiting Fellowship 2023/24

Biography

Gregor Kranjc (PhD University of Toronto, 2006) is an Associate Professor of History at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. The geographic focus of his research lies in Slovenia and the broader East Central European and Balkan region, with thematic interests in war and society, the intersection between historical trauma and memory, and the history of the region’s ethnic and religious minorities. In addition to surveys of modern European and global history, Kranjc teaches courses on the history of terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide, nationalism, and the history of military occupations. Before joining the history department at Brock University, Kranjc was a Senior Historian (Balkan Specialist) in the Crimes against Humanity & War Crimes Section of the Canadian Department of Justice (2007-2009) and taught at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (2009-2011) and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (2011-2012). He is the author of To Walk with the Devil: Slovene Collaboration and Axis Occupation, 1941-1945 (2013) and the co-author of The Historical Dictionary of Slovenia (2018). He is currently researching and writing his next book entitled “In the Land of Ghosts: War, Memory and Reconciliation in Kočevje, Slovenia (1941-present)”.

Visiting fellowship July 2024

Motivation

It is while conducting initial research for my next book project at the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia a few years ago, that I came across a research avenue which I hope to explore further as an INZ Visiting Fellow, namely, the ecological and societal role that hunting played in post-World War II Slovene society and especially its function within the elite politics of the Slovene and Yugoslav communist parties. My project seeks to answer two questions. First, how did game hunting as practised by the communist elite of Slovenia and Yugoslavia impact the wild landscapes of Slovenia (and other parts of Yugoslavia) and the management of its natural resources? Did it, for example, foster the “rewilding” of certain regions? Secondly, how did game hunting reflect political hierarchies within the communist elite, and did game hunting play an informal (or formal) role in the political decision-making process of the elite? Game hunting was by its very nature a “comradely” pursuit, as the hunters were required to travel together through at times difficult terrain and cooperate in its success. The hunting parties also stayed in relatively confined quarters, with ample time for informal socializing. Relatively little research exists on the intersection between game hunting and communist elite politics, but what does exist suggests that game hunting was also a favourite pastime of the communist elites of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany and other Soviet bloc states. I will use my INZ fellowship to study archival and published sources on the topic at the national archives, the National Library and the INZ’s library.

Recent Publications

Kranjc, Gregor. “‘Hemingway was here’: The Use and Abuse of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms in Slovenia’s National Imagination” (forthcoming in the Fall 2025 issue of Hemingway Review)

Kranjc, Gregor. “‘Deberíamos Desenterrar sus Raíces y Quemarlas’: La Limpieza de la Yugoslavia Postbélica,” [“‘We Shall Dig Up Its Roots and Burn Them’: Cleansing in Post-Civil War Yugoslavia”] in Posguerras Civiles Europeas, 1939-50: Una Historia Comparada [Post-European Civil War, 1939-50: A Comparative History], Javier Rodrigo (Autonomous University of Barcelona), ed. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2023: 245-282.

Kranjc, Gregor. “Slovene Clerical Politics, Cooperatives and the Language Question to 1914” in Routledge Handbook of Balkan and Southeast European History, John R. Lampe and Ulf Brunnbauer, eds. Abingdon-on-Thames & New York: Routledge, 2021: 104-112.

Kranjc, Gregor. “We Had to Leave Our Really Good Dog: American Gottscheers and the Memories of World War II in Slovenia” in German-Balkan Entangled Histories in the Twentieth Century, Mirna Zakić and Christopher Molnar, eds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020: 158-179.

Kranjc, Gregor. “Sloweniens verspätete Aufarbeitung des Holocaust [Slovenia’s Delayed Reckoning with the Holocaust]” Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West [Religion and Society in East and West] 48 (September 2020): 23-25.

Kranjc, Gregor. “Talking Past Each Other: Language and Post-War Killings in Slovenia” in The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe, Ljiljana Radonić, ed. London: Routledge, 2019.