Since 2003 Klasić is a professor at the at the Department of History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb where he teaches courses in European and world history sine 1945, Politics and propaganda in 20th century, Man and Sport, Croatia and the World in 20th century-comparativist topics, 1968- Causes and Consequences.
Public engagement
Hrvoje Klasić is a prominent critic of attempts at rehabilitation of the World War II fascist Ustasa movement in the country which made him a target of nationalist threats. Klasić welcomed decision by Austrian authorities to ban and sanction the public display of the WWII Ustasa movement’s symbols. Klasić is also critical of unbalanced and negative interpretation of Yugoslavism underlining that the idea have a long history among Croat intellectual elites including the Roman Catholic clergy starting with 15th century Vinko Pribojević, and subsequently Josip Juraj Strossmayer and Franjo Rački. His interpretation of the Croatian War of Independence as a "war of aggression with the elements of civil war" was criticized by many in Croatia. He underlined that the war in Croatia started before the international recognition and that republic's Serb citizens from Petrinja, Vukovar, Glina or Knin fought with Croat citizens which are all elements of a civil war. He underlined that other civil conflicts such as Lebanese Civil War and Spanish Civil War included significant foreign interference which still does not make them exclusively wars of aggression. In February 2020, together with Vesna Teršelič, Dražen Lalić, Žarko Puhovski and other members of the Antifascist League of Croatia he condemned attack on Nataša Kandić by the group allegedly instructed by Vojislav Šešelj, ICTY convicted war criminal and president of nationalist Serbian Radical Party. In relation to right-wing bias of the Croatian Wikipedia Hrvoje Klasić stated that “there is a large difference” between English-language and Croatian Wikipedia. He stated that occasionally he tells his students to look something up on English-language Wikipedia if the article has plenty of academic and scientific references. Contrary he stated that “I would never give Croatian Wikipedia to my students if they want to learn something about the Croatian history. I myself saw that a number of articles and topics are done in a completely revisionist manner, with highly emphasised nationalist and, I would dare to say, pro-Ustasa sentiment,”.
