Zlatko Balokovic (1924-1965) Papers,

ca. 1924-1965

Immigration History Research Center
University of Minnesota

| Provenance/Processing | Biographical Sketch | Scope and Content | Preliminary Container List

IHRC #146
Papers, 1924-1965
1.25 linear feet
Inventory

Provenance/Processing

The Zlatko Balokovic Papers were given to the Immigration History Research Center Collection by Mary Borden Bok in 1972. There are no restrictions on their use. The inventory to this collection was compiled by Todd. M. Michney in 1997, and prepared for the Internet by Student Assistants Paul Bowman and Andrew Svendsen, and Assistant Curator Daniel Necas.

Return to top.

Biographical Sketch

Zlatko Balokovic was born on March 21, 1895, in Zagreb, Croatia (at the time part of Austria-Hungary). He began violin lessons at age ten, and made such astounding progress in the next three years that he was sent to Prague to continue his studies at the "Meisterschule" there under Professor Otkar Sevcik. In 1913 Zlatko was invited to play with the Moscow Philharmonic, and he also won the annual Austrian "Staatspreis" that year. Soon afterwards he made tours to Berlin, Vienna, Genoa, and trieste. He remained in Trieste during the First World War.

After living in Great Britain from 1920 to 1923 and learning English, Zlatko accepted an offer of an American tour. On January 1, 1924, he sailed for New York. Remaining in the United States, on May 11, 1926, he married Joyce Borden, heiress to the Borden family fortune. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the couple toured the Eurpean continent repeatedly, performing before most of that continent's royalty.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Zlatko and Joyce settled with their adopted children at Hillside Farm in Camden, Maine. The couple became involved in many wartime political efforts. Zlatko served as chair of six particular orginizations: the Yugoslav Division of the U.S. Treasury War Bond Drives; the russian War Relief's Nationalities Division, the United Committee of South Slavic Americans; the American Slav Congress of Greater New York; the American Croatian Congress, and the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief (which had Eleanor Roosevelt as its honorary president). Zlatko was an untiring advocate for Tito's Yugoslav Partisans; in November 1944, with the help of adlai Stevenson (nephew by marriage) he went to Washington demanding the shipment of medical supplies to the Partisan forces. In one day's time he saw President Roosevelt, Vice President Wallace, Secretary of State Stettinius, Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, and and Admiral Land. The medical supplies reached their destination.

In 1946 the Balokovics returned to Yugoslavia as official representatives of the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief and were showered with that nation's gratitude. Zlatko gave 36 concerts and hundreds of speeches, while travelling the entire country in a private railroad car. The couple came to know personally many high-ranking figures in the Yugoslav government, including Marshall Tito, plus Georgi Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Enver Hoxa of Albania.

Upon their return to the United States, the couple went on a coast-to-coast speaking tour in 1947 to advocate for the People's Republican of Yugoslavia and to relate their experiences there. As a result of their ties to the Yugoslav government and their membership in those wartime organizations which had come to be considered "subversive," the Balkovics were labelled as "fellow travellers" by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1949. After quite an ordeal (and legal action), the Balokovics cleared their names.

In 1954, Zlatko and Joyce made a second "jubilee tour" of Yugoslavia. Tito presented Zlatko with the Grand Cross of the Yugoslav Flag "in recognition of his artisitic and humanitarian achievements and his contribution to closer relations and better understanding between the peoples of Ygoslavia and the United States of America."

through the late 1950s and 1960s, Zlatko continued giving concerts around the world. On March 29, 1965, en route to his 70th birthday celebration in Zagreb, Zlatko passed away in Venice. He was taken to Zagreb where a state funeral and burial took place on April 3.

(Adapted from a statement submitted by Mary Borden Bok.)

Return to top.

Scope and Content

the Zlatko Balokovic collection consists of personal papers regarding Zlatko and Joyce Borden Balokovic's participation in various civic and political organizations, Zlatko's musical career, and the couple's advocacy on behalf of the People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The bulk of the collection documents the 1940s, when the Balkovics were most politically active. The folders contain such materials as correspondence, corporate minutes, reports, resolutions, diary entries, clippings, articles, drafts, notes, event programs, handbills, leaflets, financial materials, and photographs. The Balokovic collection is organized in the following series:

                                                                                Series I - Personal Papers
                                                                                Series II - Political Organizations
                                                                                Series III - Miscellany
                                                                                Series IV - Photographs

I. Personal Papers

This series consists of biographical materials on Zlatko Balokovic, documenting his career as a violinist; the official correspondence of both Zlatko and Joyce, which is primarily political in nature; and other materials such as Zlatko's speeches and writings and documentation on the couple's various trips to Yugoslavia.

II. Political Origanizations

This series consists of organizational records for several of the political organizations in which the Balokovics were most active in the 1940s. Records for the American committee for Yugoslav Relief are the most extensive, the documentation on the other organizations represented being quite incomplete.

III. Miscellany

This series contains materials relating mainly to the Yugoslav partisans' acitivities during World War II, the People's Republic of Yugoslavia, and the various nationalities of that country, as well as the legal documentation for a libel suit that was brought against the couple by a former U.S. diplomat to the Yugoslav republic.

IV. Photographs

This series contains photographs documenting Zlatko's musical career, Zlatko and Joyce's political activities, and various happenings in Yugoslavia.

Return to top.

Container List


Box #	Folder #	Folder Description	Year(s)
		SERIES I
		Personal Papers
1	1	Biographical materials, including "Autobiographical Sketch" (1954), "In Memoriam" (1965), and clippings.	1953-1965
	2	Personal correspondence. Relates to wartime Yugoslavia, FDR's reelection, protests against the use of atom bombs, reactionary postwar legislation, and loyalty investigations of the Balokovics.	1942-1960
	3	Louis adamic, correspondence and miscellaneous materials. Includes much on Yugoslavia.	1944-1945
	4	Letters of resignation and responses for both Zlatko and Joyce Borden Balokovic. Organizations: American Committee for the protection of the Foreign Born, Progressive Party, Congress of American Women, International Workers Order, and Spanish Refugee Appeal of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.	1949-1951
	5	Miscellaneous personal materials, including copies of correspondence not addressed to the Balokovics, pamphlet on Zlatko by Svetozar Ritig; Telegraphic Agence of Yugoslavia; Attorney General's list of subversive organizations, and essay draft (undated).	1946-1953
	6	Joyce Borden Balokovic materials, including speech drafts, 1944; chronology of events in her life, 1942-1944; correspondence, 1947-1948; and a position paper regarding Tito and the Cominform, 1948.	1942-1948
	7	Balokovics' 1946 trip to Paris and Yugoslavia materials, including correspondence, press excerpts, notes, Joyce's diary entries, rough draft of a 1947 article on Yugoslavia written by Joyce, report (January 1947), and clippings; Balokovics' 1959 trip to Yugoslavia, clippings.	1946-1959
	8	Zlatko Balokovic's miscellaneous writings and speeches (typed and handwritten drafts), as well as related correspondence , event programs, and clippings, 1943-1949 and undated.	1943-1949
		Musical Career
	9	Correspondence, 1939-1940, 1955, and undated. Includes a 1939 contract.	1939-1940, 55
	10	Handbills and publicity, 1924-1957.	1924-1957
		SERIES II
		Political Oganizations
		American Committee for Yugoslav Relief
	11	Minutes: Board of Directors, 1946-1949; Administrative Committee, 1946-1948; Working Committee, 1947-1949; miscellaneous committees and conferences, 1946-1949.	1946-1949
	12	Correspondence and memoranda, bulletins, and miscellaneous materials, 1944-1945.	1944-1945
	13	Correspondence and memoranda, bulletins, and miscellaneous materials, 1946-1947	1946-1947
2	1	Correspondence and memoranda, bulletins, and miscellaneous materials, 1948-1950	1948-1950
	2	Reports and resolutions, 1946-1947, 1949, and undated; miscellaneous organizational materials, including: bylaws; lists of officers, committee members, boards of directors, and sponsors, undated	1946-1947, 1949, undated
	3	Financial materials: accounts, including accounts payable, trial balances, bank reconciliations, income, and disbursements, 1945-1948; miscellaneous financial materials, including financial statements and records of shipments to Yugoslavia, 1946-1948	1945-1948
	4	Financial materials: auditors' reports and correspondence, 1945-1949	1945-1949
	5	Clippings	1946-1948
		American Slav Congress
	6	Records, including correspondence, Balokovic's speeches and addresses, conference materials, leaflets, and clippings	1942-1950
		National Council of Americans of Croatian Descent
	7	Records, including correspondence and declaration of purpose	1943-1948
		United Council of South Slavic Americans
	8	Records, including correspondence, news releases, speeches, reports, and clippings	1943-1949
		SERIES III
		Miscellany
		Yugoslavia
3	1	StoyanPribichevich (American war correspondent), correspondence, reports/cables	1944
	2	Archbishop Stepinac (Croatian fascist), typescript regarding (in Croatian)	undated
	3	Francis R. Preveden, History of the Croatian People, mimeographed typescript	1949
	4	Miscellaneous materials, including speeches, reports, press releases, and articles	1943-1957, undated
		Other
	5	Eric Pridonoff libel suit against the Balokovics, correpondence and legal materials	1946-1951
	6	Miscellaneous materials	1943-1956, undated
		SERIES IV
		Photographs
	7	Regarding Zlatko's muscial career, 1926-1939 and undated; various, 1930-1954; regarding Yugoslav relief efforts, 1944-1946 and undated; regarding Archbishop Stepinac, ca. 1942-1945; regarding Yugoslav Partisans, 1942-1946 and undated; regarding the Balokovics' trips to Yugoslavia, 1946 and 1955	1926-1955

The following titles have been removed to the IHRC monographs and serials collection:

Books and pamphlets

Adamic, Louis. 1944... Crucial Year. The Need of Dynamic Unity in the Immigrant Groups. Two Addresses. New York: United Committee of South-Slavic
Americans

American Slav Congress. The American Slav Congress: What It Is, How It Came Into Being, Its Aims and Purposes. New York: ASC, [1942].

. Slav Unity---Hitlerism's Doom. Detroit: Michigan State Committee, ASC, [1942].

Balokovic, Zlatko. Our Great Test: A Report. New York: UCSSA, [1945?].

Churchill, Winston, Walter Bernstein, Frank Gervasi, Stoyan Pribichevichc, and Louis Adamic. Marshall Tito and His Gallant Bands. New York: UCSSA,
[1944?].

Embassy of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The Case of Archbishop Stepinac. Washington, 1947.

Martin, Ralph G., Stoyan Pribichevich, John Talbot, and Edd Johnson. The Yugoslav Struggle through American Eyes. New York: UCSSA, May 1944.

Sulzberger, C. L. Tito's Yugoslav Partisan Movement. Reprinted from the New York Times. New York: UCSSA, [1943?].

Taylor, A. J. P. Trieste. New York: UCSSA, [1945?].

Tito, Josip Broz. The Yugoslav Peoples Fight to Live. Reprinted from Free World Magazine. New York: UCSSA, 1944.

. Yugoslavia's Foreign Policy. New York: UCSSA, [1946].

Tito, Josip Broz, Dr. Josip Smodlaka, and Fran Barbalich. Yugoslavia and Italy. Edited, with a foreword by Louis Adamic. New York: UCSSA, [1944].

Trivanovitch, Vaso. The Case of Drazha Mikhailovich: Highlights of the Evidence against the Chetnik Leader. New York: UCSSA, [1946?].

United Committee of South-Slavic Americans. The Re-Creation of Yugoslavia. New York: UCSSA, Mid-March 1944.

. Report on New Yugoslavia. New York: UCSSA, [1945?].

. Yugoslavia's New Constitution: A Study in 20th Century Democracy. New York: UCSSA, [1946?].

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities. Report on the American Slav Congress and Associated Organizations. June 26, 1949. Washington, DC: [GPO?], [1949?].

Serials

The Bulletin of the United Committee of South-Slavic Americans. New York, NY. Issues:

1:1 (September 7, 1943)
1:2 (October 1, 1943)
1:3 (October 20, 1943)
2:2 (January 15, 1944)
2:3 (March 10, 1944)
2:4 (March 17, 1944)
2:5 (May 10, 1944)
2:6 (June 20, 1944) 2:7 (July 20, 1944)
2:8 (August 22, 1944)
2:9 (September 15, 1944)
3:1 (January-February 1945)
3:3 (September 1945)
4:2 (May 1946)
4:3 (September 1946)
4:4 (December 1946)

In Re: Two-Way Passage: A Bulletin Issued by Louis Adamic. Milford, NJ. Issue: 2:2-3 (February - March 1943).

News Bulletin of the United Yugoslav Relief Fund of America. New York, NY. Issues: 3:3 (April 1944); 5:1 (January - February 1946); and 5:2
(March-December 1946).

Today and Tomorrow: A Paper of Information and Opinion [published privately by Louis Adamic]. Milford, NJ. Issue: 1:1 (January - February 1945).

Return to IHRC Guide to Croatian American Collection.
Return to top.
Last Updated: March 31, 2003
Webpage maintained by IHRC Assistant Curator Daniel Necas