COK – Our History and our Plans

COK - 01/23/2025 - Robin Harris

The Centre for the Renewal of Culture (COK) was founded in 2009. It is based in Zagreb, Croatia. As the name suggests, the assumption behind its activity is that it is a country’s culture, not just the parties and politicians who run public affairs, that ultimately matters.
This culture needs to be renewed for and by each generation. Our culture must be founded upon the principles of Western civilization, which, themselves, have been shaped by Christianity.

Educating the rising generation of leaders in Croatia

Our first public event, in 2009, was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Among leading speakers were Lech Walesa and Mart Laar.

Much of our work has concentrated on educating the rising generation of leaders in Croatia who must face the national and international challenges of the future. To this end, over the years, we have held summer schools addressed by distinguished speakers in Korčula, Zadar
and Split.

After the slow-down imposed by COVID, we returned to full working mode with three Free Market Road Show conferences – in collaboration with the Austrian Economic Centre and Hayek Centre from Vienna; a Young Leadership Academy – in collaboration with the Brussels-based conservative think tank New Direction; and hosting a Swedish professor lecturing on the threat to Christian values in Europe. In Washington DC, we visited CPAC 2020, established cooperation with the Leadership Institute, and held discussions with our old friends at the Heritage Foundation (the world’s biggest conservative think tank).

In November 2022, in Warsaw, our then President Stephen Bartulica – now a member of the European Parliament – delivered a lecture on the rule of law at the invitation of the chairman of the Polish Constitutional Court. Also that November, we launched an initiative to expose, in cooperation with likeminded individuals and organisations in Slovenia, the full, detailed facts about the crimes committed by Yugoslav Communists – about which too many people remain silent.

Croatia must regain its consciousness of being part of Central Europe

In July 2023 – in cooperation with New Direction – we organised a Summer University in Zagreb. As well as discussions of the nature of freedom, we held two panels on the Crimes of Communism and a key note address by Jože Dežman on the mass graves of the victims of
Communism in Slovenia. We also held a panel on the demographic crisis which we face in Europe and especially in Croatia.

We have promoted the publication of important texts in Croatian – such as books by Christopher Dawson, Russell Kirk, Ryszard Legutko and Marcello Pera. In recent years, we have organised in our premises in central Zagreb a regular Academy open to young people – students and young professionals – with courses on history, philosophy, politics, and economics.

We believe that Croatia must regain its consciousness of being part of Central Europe – which in the era before Yugoslavia it always was. We, therefore, participate in activities organised by like-minded organisations in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. We have recently made a special effort to grow closer to those who think as we do in Slovenia.

Energy, trade, and demography among other major themes

In 2025 we plan to highlight the crimes committed by the Partisans in 1945, when they took control after the Second World War, and more broadly to discuss the argument about whether what happened eighty years ago represented liberation (as it is still called), or enslavement to a different totalitarian system. We shall systematically address, over the coming years, other themes relating to the history of Croatia. Among contemporary topics, we plan to discuss the significance of the election of US President Donald Trump, and the policies which his Administration may pursue, focusing on Europe and on our own and adjoining regions.

Energy, trade, and demography are other major themes with which we intend to engage. COK is a registered non-profit NGO that can be found on www.cok.hr/en and reached on [email protected].

COK - 01/23/2025 - Robin Harris

The Center for the Renewal of Culture promotes conservative values, liberty and the free market.

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