Ustashe
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Template:Lang-hr), members known collectively as Ustaše, but sometimes anglicised as Ustashas or Ustashi) was a far-right, Croatian, ultra-nationalist, fascist, and national socialist<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> movement. It engaged in terrorist activity before World War II and ruled, under protection from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, in a part of Yugoslavia after that country was occupied by the Axis powers. After German forces withdrew from Yugoslavia in 1945, the Ustaše were defeated and expelled by the Yugoslav Partisans.
When it was founded in 1929, the Ustaše was a nationalist organization that sought to create an independent Croatian state. When the Ustaše came to power in the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state established by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during World War II, its military wing became the Ustaše Army (Ustaška Vojnica). Croatian law forbids Ustaše symbols and associated references.
Their name derives from the verb ustati which means "to rise"/"to stand-up", hence ustaša would mean an insurgent, a rebel. This name did not have fascist connotations during their early years in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the term "ustaš" was itself used in Herzegovina to denote the insurgents from the Herzegovinian rebellion of 1875. The full original name of the organization was Ustaša - Hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija or UHRO (Ustaša - Croatian revolutionary organization) while in 1933 it was renamed to Ustaša - Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret (Ustaša - Croatian revolutionary movement) which it kept until the Second World War.
