In a diary entry written in prison on his sixtieth birthday (14 May 1982), Tuđman ponders his life and actions. He looks back on the six decades of his life, remembering his arduous childhood, his participation in the Partisan war between 1941 and 1945, his military and academic career after the war, as well as the prison time he endured due to his struggle for a different interpretation of recent Croatian national history and a better status for the Croatian people in the Yugoslav federation. He asks himself how many years of his life remained and expressed a desire to live until his eightieth birthday, because he would have "seen much from our national destiny, from the world ... And then I would know what will happen to my grandchildren ...". In his reminiscences, he encouraged himself by saying that, despite the troubles he had endured, every unselfish sacrifice “pro patria” was never in vain. He stated that he could go abroad "as a professor, writer, analyst at some institute," but that he did not want to do that because he knew that "the destiny of this nation was to be resolved in the homeland" and that he was prepared to suffer for his beliefs. He points out that he followed an uncertain path in seeking for historical truth and writing about its purpose. Tuđman wrote that he "realised that in political life, and even in life in general, we should have the moral courage to oppose blind currents and muddy torrents, but also sober prudence." He wrote that everything he did was to shed light on the obscured Croatian past to "treat the huge wounds of the past" and “prevent them from deepening.” He believed that he was not alone in this endeavour, mentioning a circle of Croatian intellectuals and politicians (such as the writer Miroslav Krleža, or the former mayor of Zagreb, Većeslav Holjevac, and others cited in pseudonyms). In this diary, he also wrote a sentence which shows that he then became aware of the need to politically fight for freedom: "If you really want freedom – either individual or national – it is worth fighting for it with your own efforts."

This document is available for download in a scanned (pdf) format at the website (prior registration required). It is ten pages long. This diary record is also available in published form in Tuđman 2011b, pp. 261-263.

Tuđman’s diary is handwritten, mostly with a fountain pen, on thin memo-size sheets of paper, on 10,180 pages. Tuđman began writing his diary on the day of his first arrest on 11 January 1972, in prison in Zagreb, and that part of the diary which covered his first imprisonment in 1972 was published in 2003 (Tuđman 2003). The rest of it, which covers the period from the beginning of 1973 until the end of 1989, was published in three volumes in 2011. The first volume covers the period from 1973 to 1978 (Tuđman 2011a), the second from 1979 to 1983 (Tuđman 2011b) and the third from 1984 to the end of 1989 (Tuđman 2011c). Tuđman's widow, Ankica Tuđman, edited these three volumes.

Franjo Tuđman's diary has a turbulent history. It was created in under difficult political conditions because, for the Yugoslav communist regime, even reading the foreign press or writing your own private diary could be deemed sufficient evidence of "hostile activities," for which some individuals (potential adversaries) were prosecuted and sanctioned in political trials. Due to the danger that the diary would fall into the hands of the police, Tuđman did not always fully express his political views, and some persons in the diary were mentioned only by their initials or under pseudonyms. Although the author himself wrote why and under what conditions he wrote the diary, it has not yet been publicly revealed who "smuggled" the diary from prison, how and where it was hidden, stored and kept for many years.

Tuđman's daily notes testify to his personal life, intellectual and moral dilemmas, motives, ambitions and goals. The diary testifies to his understanding of the philosophy of history that contrasted from the reigning Marxist doctrine of "the withering away of the nation" and the postmodern philosophy of "the end of history." Tuđman believed that historical scholarship was inseparable from the achievement of the ideals of human freedom. He felt that the increasing globalisation and integration of the world led to the broader individualisation of nations. For this reason, the primary goal of his activity was a free and sovereign Croatian nation in a community of European states and peoples, with full recognition of human rights. That is why he set forth from the universal values of individual and national freedom as the principles upon which a future Europe could be built.

Besides information on Tuđman's private life, the diary is full of information on events in the last two decades of communist Yugoslavia, and on developments on the global political scene. Particularly interesting is his interpretation of the events around the Croatian Spring as well as the relationships among its participants. After serving his prison sentences, he began to privately associate with other intellectuals who had also suffered consequences after the quelling of the Croatian Spring, primarily with members of Matica hrvatska and the leaders of the defeated liberal wing of the League of Communists of Croatia – Miko Tripalo and Savka Dabčević Kučar. As they usually met on Fridays, in his diary Tuđman referred to these meetings as "Friday banquets." However, according to Tuđman, most of them, primarily Savka Dabčević Kučar and Miko Tripalo, were not prepared for some more decisive action. In response to an offer to Croatian dissidents from an American publisher to write essays on historical, political and economic circumstances and the condition of Croatia, only Tuđman agreed to collaborate. Tuđman wrote in his diary that he "begged" them to accept the offer to write, and, disappointed by their refusal, asked himself "where will this self-satisfaction with the role of the royal opposition lead?" (Tuđman 2011a, 1 October 1975).