Eugen Pusić


Eugen Pusić was a Croatian jurist, university professor and academician specialized in social affairs and welfare.

Career

Pusić was born in Zagreb, where he studied at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, receiving his doctorate in 1939. From November 1939 to August 1940 he served in the Royal Yugoslav Army.

During the WWII

From April 1941 to May 1945 he served as a captain-judge in the Croatian Home Guard and was rewarded the War Memorial Sign in 1944. As is evident from the state archives documents he worked for the institutions of the Nazi-puppet state, so called Independent State of Croatia. However, according to some unconfirmed statements he also was a mole for resistance movement led by the Yugoslav Partisans throughout the war. His daughter Vesna Pusić also claimed that her father was an associate of Partisans. When the Partisans liberated Zagreb on May 8, 1945 Pusić was arrested with many other NDH officials, who failed to escape the town, on suspicion of collaboration with occupiers. He was later saved from prison by the partisan general Ivan Rukavina who was commander of the First Corps of the Yugoslav Partisans from 1943. The fact that he was saved immediately after the liberation of Zagreb and that after the war he worked on high positions in the SFR Yugoslavia certainly suggest that it has something to do with his collaboration with the partisans during the war.

After the WWII

From 1955 to the mid-1960s, Pusić was a Lecturer and Extraordinary Professor in Zagreb Faculty of Law, as well as actively involved in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, holding posts such as the Director of the Juraj Križanić Cabinet of Legal, Political and Social Sciences as well as Secretary and Member of the Presidency. In addition, Pusić was corresponding member of both, Slovenian and Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Outside Croatia Pusić also lectured at the University of Manchester, University of California at Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and was a Fellow at the Institute of Social Studies and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.
Pusić served as an expert at the United Nations on several occasions, providing advice on social affairs and welfare. Pusić won many awards for his contributions to the disciplines of social policy and organizational behavior.
The Institute of Social Studies in The Hague awarded its honorary doctorate to Eugen Pusić in 1962.
He has daughter Vesna who is a sociologist and politician and son Zoran who is a civil rights and peace activist.

Works

Books
Articles