Nikica Torbica
1991
Nikica is a teacher of history and Croatian language by profession, a social activist and volunteer. He coauthored the history textbook for 4th grade of grammar school, entitled “Why Is History Important? 4,” which the Ministry of Science and Education abruptly excluded from the curriculum in the middle of the school year and two years after it had been approved, following the pressure by right-wing groups and the public.
In a way, I’ve always avoided war topics since I thought nobody would take me seriously or objectively as a Serb in Croatia. They’d always mockingly say: “He’s Serbian, you know.” And it is exactly for my negative experience while growing up that I became a cosmopolite. I’m interested in the history of peace movements and civic activism, how individuals opposed human rights violations, whether activists collaborated in the countries of former Yugoslavia, how it influenced their everyday life, how they were perceived by the public. These are some of the topics I’m quite interested in.
The controversial history textbook for the 4th grade of grammar school, entitled “Why Is History Important? 4” and approved in 2022. It was published by Profil Klett and authored by Miljenko Hajdarović, Vedran Ristić, and Nikica Torbica. The textbook was excluded from the curriculum in December of 2023. The Ministry of Science and Education adopted the decision to erase it from the Catalogue of Approved Textbooks following a negative review from the Education and Teacher Training Agency, which found that this textbook “represents a serious threat to the education of youth, since the information contained in it may influence the formation of distorted historical perspectives.”