Like the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, after the Second World War, Croatia came under the rule of the Communist regime. It constituted a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in which the shift towards the Soviet model was happening faster than in the majority of countries in the region. After 1948, the Tito-Stalin split and the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Eastern Bloc the situation gradually moved towards partial liberalization, though some remnants of the Soviet model were still present, and the government’s policies towards the intellectual elite of the country continued to be marked by imposing ideology and attempts to establish control of the Communist Party. Under such conditions, the processes which occurred at the university, in the Academy of Arts and Sciences and in cultural institutions did not differ much from those found in the other countries under Communist rule, and the attitudes of individuals varied from wholehearted support for the regime, through adjustment to the situation and cooperation with the authorities, to resistance. The main scholarly institutions in Croatia at that time were the University of Zagreb and the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. In the first period after WWII, the Yugoslav Communist regime tried to introduce the Soviet model in the field of sciences, meaning the transformation of universities into teaching institutions and concentrating the whole research processes in the institutes of the academies of sciences. This changed to some extent after the Tito-Stalin conflict, but some traces of this remained in later periods. The control of the Communist Party also remained in the form of the so-called self-management systems. Still, the Communist regime was never completely satisfied with the level of its influence on the intellectual elites and the main institution in the country. and Chorvatsko se po druhé světové válce dostalo pod kontrolu komunistického režimu stejně jako větší část střední a východní Evropy. Bylo součástí Socialistické federativní republiky Jugoslávie a tempo změn směřujících k sovětskému modelu bylo v této zemi větší než v okolních státech v regionu. Po roce 1948, kdy došlo k rozkolu mezi Titem a Stalinem, a Jugoslávie se tak ocitla v rozporu se zbytkem Východního bloku, se poměry začaly pozvolna liberalizovat, ačkoliv mnohé prvky sovětského modelu zůstávaly zachovány a vládní politika vůči intelektuálním elitám země byla nadále vedena v duchu ideové kontroly a nastolení komunistické svrchovanosti. Za těchto podmínek se prostředí univerzity, Akademie věd a umění jakož i ostatních kulturních institucí příliš nelišilo od poměrů v jiných komunisty ovládaných zemích. Postoje jednotlivců sahaly od upřímné spolupráce s režimem přes víceméně oportunní přizpůsobení se poměrům a kooperaci s vládními orgány, až po odpor. Hlavní akademické instituce Chorvatska té doby představují Záhřebská univerzita a Jugoslávská akademie věd a umění. V prvním období bezprostředně po druhé světové válce se jugoslávský komunistický režim snažil po sovětském vzoru organizovat vědu tak, že univerzity měly být transformovány na pracoviště čistě pedagogická a veškerý výzkum měl být soustředěn a veden pod záštitou ústavů Akademie věd. Tento přístup se po rozkolu Tita a Stalina poněkud změnil, avšak některé jeho prvky přetrvaly do následujících období. Komunistická strana se rovněž pokoušela o kontrolu prostřednictvím tzv. samosprávného systému, Nebyla však s rozsahem svého vlivu na inteligenci státu, jakož i na na hlavní vědecké instituce, nikdy zcela spokojena.
Both collective publications (Prefab houses 1: Fifty prefab housing schemes in the Czech Lands. A critical catalogue of the “Prefab house story” series of exhibitions and Prefab houses 2: History of housing schemes in the Czech Lands 1945–1989. A critical catalogue of the “Residence – prefab housing scheme: Planning, realization, housing 1945–1989” exhibition) are products of a broadly conceived interdisciplinary research project the deliverables of which included, inter alia, exhibitions in Prague and all regional capitals of the Czech Republic and which were awarded the prestigious Magnesia Litera prize in 2018 as an extraordinary feat in the fi eld of professional and educational literature. In the reviewer’s opinion, they bring the fi rstever systematic attempt to periodize the prefab-based building projects in the Czech part of the former Czechoslovakia between the mid-1940s and the end of the 1980s, at the same time providing a multifaceted characterization based on a representative sample of fifty prefab housing schemes in Bohemia and Moravia. and Each of them was subjected to a thorough artistic-historical analysis outlining the development of the housing scheme’s concept, providing brief information about its authors, describes its urbanistic concept, prefab technology used, and artefacts and decorations. Added to the above is a set of interdepartmental studies analyzing different aspects of the historical development of prefab housing schemes. The compact collective of authoresses and authors has succeeded in presenting the prefab housing schemes, no matter how similar they may seem, as a varied and dynamically developing phenomenon, which fact is underlined by excellent work with archival photographs and the generally outstanding graphic layout of the publications. The only critical comment the reviewer has is that the authors were so absorbed by the architectural aspect of the matter that they tended to overlook substantial changes of the socialist urbanism in Czechoslovakia.