Lucija Bakšić received a Master’s Degree in History (Modern and Contemporary History, 19th- 20th Century, scholarly research) and a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature. After her graduation from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Lucija's main focus is on analysing individual actions (especially revolutionary) and adjustments within broader social structures as a part of intellectual history and history of ideas. Moreover, strongly supporting and emphasizing the interdisciplinary approach, her work also includes examining the complex interaction between various narratives, as well as studying historical theory and methodology in general and its connection to other disciplines such as comparative literature, sociology, psychology etc. In addition to that, she is also a passionate researcher of women’s diaries.

Intellectual Networks and Circulation of Individual Psychology in East-Central and South-East Europe in the First Half of the 20thCentury

The main goal of Lucija’s thesis is to describe and explain transfer and adaptation of ideas which had been developed and were circulating within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its contact zones. These ideas had an immense impact on further policy-making within newly-established states in South-East Europe and were spread on their neighbours. More precisely, Lucija will focus on how Alfred Adler’s individual psychology (as one of the components that shaped the individual position within the social and political structure) and its versions affected practice, not only within communist parties, but also within the whole state systems. Furthermore, Lucija will study mechanisms on how the complex individual identities were shaped by the systems, which usually tried to repress or modify them. For that reason, except many individual actors, Lucija will also study the social structure of certain (leftist) intellectual circles in which they were involved, their appropriation and their “embodiment” of ideas. The research methodology focuses on multi-layered use of various methods from different disciplines, such as comparative literature, sociology, psychology, history of medicine etc. Therefore, the theory of cultural transfer, concepts from gender studies, social networks and capitals are some of the theoretical tools that will be used to analyse many different sources.