Balkan pact 1953 and Yugoslavia

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GEOPOLITICAL MAGAZINE

ISSN 1820-0869_____________________

Number 1/2013_____________________

Scientifi c Editorial Offi ce:Ivo GOLDSTEIN, Erick GORDI, Egidio IVETIC, Dušan JANJIĆ, Predrag MATVEJEVIĆ, Anđelka

MIHAJLOV, Aleksandar MIRKOVIĆ, Vuk OGNJANOVIĆ, Margerita

PAULINI, Darko TANASKOVIĆ, Predrag SIMIĆ, Aleksandra STUPAR,

Josip VRANDEČIĆ

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For PublisherZorica STABLOVIĆ BULAJIĆ

Editor-in-chiefNikola SAMARDŽIĆ

Executive Editorial Offi ce:Milica CICMIL, Haris DAJČ,

Mijat LAKIĆEVIĆ,Zorica STABLOVIĆ BULAJIĆ, Maja VASILJEVIĆ (secretary), Alenka ZDEŠAR ĆIRILOVIĆ

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AUTHORS:

Kirsi AHONEN – University of Tampere, Th e School of Social Sciences and Humanities

Haris DAJČ – University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy

Audron JANUŽYTĖ – Mykolas Römeris University, Vilnius, Department of Political Science

Sampsa KATAAJA – University Alto and University of Tampere

Alexander MIRKOVIC – Northern Michigan University

Goran MUSIĆ – European University Institute, Florence

Mirjana ROTER BLAGOJEVIĆ – University of Belgrade, Faculty of Architecture

Nikola SAMARDŽIĆ – University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy

Aleksandra STUPAR – University of Belgrade, Faculty of Architecture

Anna Lujza SZÁSZ – Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest

Maja VASILJEVIĆ – University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy

Marta VUKOTIĆ LAZAR – Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade


Content no. 1/20135 Nikola SAMARDŽIĆ: Introduction

Part I – Technology of Confi cts

9 Maja VASILJEVIĆ: View to Cold War through Pericentric Lenses: Tito’s Yugoslavia & Kekkonen’s Finland*

29 Sampsa KATAJAA: Approaching Cold War technology transfer via oral history: A case of Finnish–Estonian computing cooperation

41 Audronė JANUŽYTĖ: Students and Professors’ Resistance against the Soviet Regime in Lithuania in 1944–1990

57 Anna LUJZA SZÁSZ: Interpreting the so-called taboo of the Shoah under the Kádár regime in Hungary

Part II – Geopolitical Realignments

73 Nikola SAMARDŽIĆ: Cold War Belgrade: Parallel realities and Illusion of Polarization

85 Kirsi AHONEN: Town Twinning in the Cold War World

91 Alexander MIRKOVIC: Florovsky at the Crossroads: Imagining Russian Renaissance from Morningside Heights

Part III – Art of the Survival

111 Ha ris DAJČ: Balkan Pact 1953 and Yugoslavia

123 Mirjana ROTER BLAGOJEVIĆ, Marta VUKOTIĆ LAZAR: Between East and West – Infl uences on Belgrade Urban and Architectural Development from the early 19th century to the 1970s

137 Goran MUSIĆ: Th e City in Self-Management: Th e Rise and Fall of New Belgrade’s Alternative Modernity

153 Aleksandra STUPAR: Belgrade International: Tracing the Channels of Architectural Exchange and Promotion

EDITORIAL

5

INTRODUCTION

The Second World War began with the attacks of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on Poland in 1939 and ended in Europe in 1945, with the Allies victory, on whose side lined up none other than the Soviet Union. A totalitarian force gained an important place among the winners. Democracy has not defeated totalitarianism. During the last decades, the prominent members of the intellectual elite, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, tended to relativize liability, crimes, and the political and economic victims destiny of Soviet and other similar totalitarian regimes – as fascism and Nazism were defeated defi nitively, at least in the twentieth century.

Stéphane Courtois in the Black Book of Communism stated that communist regimes have killed, deliberately or through their socio-economic collectivist experi-ments “approximately 100 million people in contrast to the approximately 25 million victims of Nazis”, and “turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”. Rudolf Höss organized the death camp in Auschwitz on the model of the Soviet Gulag. Stalin had its share of Europe occupied by Soviet troops, considering his domain on the principle of cuius regio eius religio. In particular, the separation fr om Germany had to be clearly defi ned, although it was obvious that this issue will be very chal-lenging. From Finland to Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union was facing a fr agile reality of relatively recent states that in the interwar period were Soviet enemies, although in many cases the Soviet troops were welcomed a liberators, not just new occupation forces appearing aft er the Nazis and the Axis allies. Sometimes, as in Yugoslavia, the communists were becoming popular as winners, and as being rooted in social masses. Th eir exact position was defi ned, in the postwar years, only in France and Italy, were the fr ee elections were held. During the following decades, developed and historically responsible Western cultures cherished the beliefs that were denying the other side of the Iron Curtain realities, including collectivist crimes in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. In the famous song Nathalie French singer Gilbert Bécaud compared romantic scenes of Red Square with Parisian milieu, where hot chocolate “chez Pouchkine” was enjoyed as on the Champs-Élysées.

Similarly, the contemporary Cold War studies are facing the dominant cultural models in Serbia and former Yugoslavia. Yugoslav communism was also the subject of nostalgia for the era that was better organized, and probably happier in comparison to what occurred aft er the fall of the Berlin Wall. In contemporary Serbian, perhaps post-Yugoslav cultures, such a vision of recent past was transposed to the whole Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Would it be possible to talk about a crypto-nostalgia that developed during the post-Cold War transition in the decade of brutal

EDITORIAL

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military and paramilitary aggression, and profound social and moral disorder? Dom-inant Yugoslav nationalisms otherwise originated fr om the system. Rarely and only extraordinary, Yugoslavia was revealing compassion to the rest of Eastern Europe, and the new members of the lower middle class sometimes expressed disdain of the isolated and miserable real communism. Furthermore, the separation of Belgrade and Moscow in 1948. contributed to the repression of those who carried out repression against the defeated remnants of the civil society and quislings (though the war in Yugoslavia at times was fought as war of everyone against everyone). Th e confr ontation of commu-nism with itself left the Yugoslav, and particularly Serbian and Montenegrin societies dangerously traumatized, feeding the old, pre-modern Russian myth. Yugoslavia was later reproaching Moscow in each occasion when the leaderships were facing challenges of openness and democratization.

Th is Limes Plus issue emerged fr om the international conference Challenging the Shadow of the Iron Curtain with a general thought that such comparative Cold War studies dedicated to urban culture and the everyday life should contribute to a sharper insight into the character of our post-communist and post-confl ict societies. Especially in this particular case, as the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav disintegrating forces, still tend to keep out of the current European and regional integration process, while being still vital and resilient. And it’s a rarely mentioned assumption that ap-proaching the Southeast modern European civilization implies convergence with the Eastern Europe, primarily comprehending its Cold-war realities.

Nikola Samardžić


Part ITechnology of Confl icts

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UDK: 327.54(100)”195/199”; 327(497.1:480)”1950/1980”; 316.72:316.75(100)”195/199”

VIEW TO COLD WAR THROUGH PERICENTRIC LENSES: TITO’S YUGOSLAVIA & KEKKONEN’S FINLAND*

Abstract: From a sociological and historical perspective, by looking through “pericentric glasses”,1 with awareness that during the Cold War, in addition to East and West, North and South existed too, the author explores the connections of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and the Republic of Finland. Complex geopolitics of the Cold War infl uenced the establishment of the position of the countries mentioned in this paper in the international community but it also allowed them to be relatively autonomous in their actions. It also provided them the potential to be catalysts and even mediators of certain ideas that will result in changes at the global level. Th is paper will highlight key points of gathering between the two countries, which are political and cultural cooperation, which were complementary to each other. Th e cooperation between the two countries will be presented as a result of a related political approach, namely, the principle of pacifi sm which both countries had supported, opposing at the same time the “arms race” and nuclear experiments. Th e conclusions are illustrated with tangible political projects of the two countries, especially their close cooperation in signifi cant political bodies: the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Inspired by common policy objectives of the two authoritarian presidents, Urho Kekkonen and Josip Broz Tito, cultural ideologues of SFRY Education Ministry Secretariat for

1 “Pericentric” or “hypercentric” lenses allow you to “see” objects simultaneously from all sides, which the author of this article uses in her approach to the study of the Cold War phenomenon. At the same time, the metaphor of 'pericentric lenses "is the product of a short digression on the" view through pericentric lenses" of the Croatian historian Tvrtko Jakovina who was recently dealing with NAM ( Jakovina 2011b). Moreover, Pericentric Lenses are special optical design of Opto Engineeering, which provides a 3D view of the peripheral objects.

Original scientifi c paper

Maja VASILJEVIĆFaculty of Philosophy

University of [email protected]

* Th is article was developed as part of the project “Modernization of the Western Balkans” (No. 177 009) fi nanced by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia.

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Foreign Aff airs and of Finish Education Ministry’s International Cooperation Department have focused on the bilateral dialogue mainly in the fi eld of visual and fi ne arts, and also in literature and music.

Key Words: Cold War, cultural cooperation, geopolitics, SFR Yugoslavia, Finland, Josip Broz Tito, Urho Kekkonen, neutrality, Non-aligned movement, sociology, history

Discourses of the Cold War: ’Pericentric Lenses’ view approach

Complex geopolitical constellation created by multilayered phenomenon, concept or process, developed in humanities and social sciences discourses under the term Cold War, led to a series of conse-quences, changes, confl icts, but also to establishing of relations between countries. Eff ects of the infl uence of the Cold War complex geopolitics is obvious when we take a look at positioning of the countries we explore in this paper, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Finland, in the international community. According to a completely innovative proposal of Tony Smith (2000) then approached in studies of Croatian historian Tvrtko Jakovina: “Th e Cold War may be viewed through pericentric glasses: peripheral, small and less developed countries are oft en catalysts and initiators of the Cold War confl icts. Th erefore, by analyzing relations between North and South, rather than East and West, we can better understand the Cold War. Small states have oft en played an important role in international relations, and their whims and behavior forced the superpowers to make moves they would otherwise not have done.” ( Jakovina 2011b, 24)

Th e phenomenon of the Cold War has been discursively constructed from the 1990s, aft er the fall of the Berlin Wall enabled opening of many inaccessible archives, necessary for academic research of this “transnational”, “global” and “mul-tilingual” problem (compare Jakovina 2011b, 23−24). Th e time of its historical end, was the beginning of creation of diff erent narratives in and over the Cold War. Th ese narratives were later incorporated in national histories, or, in the spirit of contemporary social theory, became diff erent types of relationships with the past or some kind of direct sources about actors of this specifi c times. However, besides the mass of sources in diff erent languages, presence of the countries outside of the East-West confl ict and their relative autonomy were rarely a subject of studies of scholars so far.

VIEW TO COLD WAR THROUGH PERICENTRIC LENSES: TITO’S YUGOSLAVIA & KEKKONEN’S FINLAND

11

Researches in our region focused extensively on SFRY and the Cold War problem, mainly as a part of historical discourse. However, they oft en lacked criti-cal distance, and were led by a desire to reveal from the rich international experi-ence of the former state, or by examining the diff erent types of sources, the deeper layers of meaning which would comprehend ideological position of actors of the given events. Th e policies of small countries in Europe are commonly envisaged in the Cold War discourse through infl uence of the major powers. In case of the countries that we examine in this paper, their relatively autonomous foreign policy led development of many quite innovative ideas and bold solutions. We bear in mind that these were “small” European countries heavily infl uenced by Cold War geopolitics, as much as they tried to resist it.

Th erefore, besides the obvious fear of nuclear weapons and complex view of the world strongly infl uenced by major powers, the Cold War can be exam-ined also as a form of existence/coexistence of states and their citizens, cultural workers based behind the so-called “iron curtain”. For exploring the possibilities of fi nding a place symbolically viewed outside or behind the “iron curtain”, we have chosen, apparently very diff erent states: Yugoslavia and Finland. However, we will present here their indisputable similarities. However, despite a number of foreign policies of Josip Broz Tito`s (1892–1980) “non-aligned” Yugoslavia and Urho Kaleva Kekkonen`s (1900–1986) “neutral” Finland, the diff erence between the countries revealed fruitfulness of given period, of transition from the modern to the postmodern era. Mixture of various spheres of human activity, international communications complexity development, technological progress, are only some of the elements of wealth of the given period whose “acceleration” in all fi elds was necessarily passed on arena of political theory and ideology, the philosophy of society ... and therefore, on culture.

Regardless of methodology and position of us as researchers, the discourse of the Cold War necessarily absorbs many characteristics of a “time of presidents”. It follows in one of its side interpretative fl ows the views of important political leaders. Th is is one of the important elements that we found as a sign of making a history on the Cold War, which testifi es about the infl uence of universal accel-eration and international communication in foreign policy discourse and related specialized discourses, that later transferred in the discourses in humanities on the Cold War topic. Before we turn to a meeting point of the two countries, let`s point out the main conceptual and methodological approaches, which are the basis of this paper and the author`s opinion.

First, putting emphasis on Yugoslavia`s “non-alignment” and Finland`s “neu-trality” in this paper refers primarily to the tendency to distinguish key concepts in the process of construction of the international (and interior, local) reputation

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of these countries in the history/histories2 of a given period. Current readers could consider as irony that Yugoslavia as a European country, a communist and social-ist is pointed out as “non-aligned”, grouped with African and Asian countries. In addition, we have “neutral” Finland, rather unenviable positioned geographically at the crossroads between East and West. Finland also had a prominent role in peace negotiations so far, namely, by its continued activity in resolutions of social confl icts. Th is ambiguity of what we call the key concepts in the foreign policies of Finland and Yugoslavia during the Cold War reveals the complexity of strategies of their positioning in the international context of the reference period. Although we will discuss the issues of “non-alignment” and “neutrality” debate later in this paper, by pointing to specifi c issues, events, politics and ideology, we will leave to readers enough freedom for their diff erent conclusions on these questions. In particular, if viewed in light of the recent events concerning Serbia as one of the successor countries of the former Yugoslavia, and the Republic of Finland, the country where the Helsinki Final Act was signed in August 1975 and is considered a country of origin of numerous peace-makers, such as Martti Ahtisaari.

Second, there is no doubt that diff erent chronologies are enduring in the Cold War discourse, depending on scholars’ approach. Th erefore, we should not forget the series of “end of history” visions, from Francis Fukuyama`s end in attain-ment of liberal capitalism and political democracy during the Cold War to absence or end of grand narratives characteristic for one of the most important thinkers of postmodernism, Jean-François Lyotard etc.3

Besides our attempt to approach the subject of the Cold War with respect of other “views” to which we relate with the title of this article, and referring to the existence of small countries of the North and South, or general relations which are outside the scope of the East-West relations, we agree with Finnish historians, Pauli Kettunen and Juhana Aunesluoma. According to them, the Cold War as a particular confl ict4 can be seen in three levels (Aunesluoma and Kettunen 2008,

2 As expected, during the complex period or process of the Cold War, diff erent versions of history existed, especially important for totalitarian regimes that maintained and encouraged desired collective conscience of its citizens by constructing a distinctive, oft en heroic past of its country. Th e Cold War was, inter alia, the most dynamic period of construction of diff erent national histories. Th ese constructions were depending on the place of a certain country in the geopolitical constellation, which infl uenced view on/construction of the history of other countries.

3 Apart from authors who, in their imagination, complete a certain course or period of history tied to the end of the Cold War, we should bear in mind the strong current “realists” who believe(d) that the Cold War is not a separate phenomenon, but only one phase in the longue durée in the international politics and social confl icts of the great powers (Kettunen and Aunesluoma 2008, 11).

4 Th e existence of “a kind of ‘cold war’ where there is no shooting but bleeding” pointed out in 1893 German socialist Eduard Bernstein when describing the battle between Germany and its


13

11–13), which could call levels of the scientifi c abstractions. From the fi rst level of observation, “established during post-1990 perspective the Cold War was char-acterized by the political-military confr ontation between East and West blocs, domi-nated by the United States and the Soviet Union” (11). Th e second level involves view of the Cold War as a confl ict between socioeconomic systems – socialism and capitalism (12). Finally, the third level of discourse on the Cold War includes con-fl icts of political regimes, including democracy, citizenship and human rights, that is, the rivalry between diff erent visions of human actions and relations between individuals, the state and society (14).

Cultural cooperation is also a special form of scientifi c abstraction in the discourse of the Cold War. In this regard, the cultural cooperation as an integral part of the state`s foreign policy usually was the most commonly addressed topic which connected Culture and the Cold War. While studying culture in the context of the Cold War, the authors usually focus on all types of communication between diff erent countries, citizens, nations, and their delegates (artists, scholars, perform-ers in the case of music and theater) who had connections with global political events. Since from the theoretical perspective, it is rather unrewarding to draw conclusions about alleged connections between culture and the Cold War, we will focus on actual material on relations between the countries, viewed through the channel of state institutions.

It is important to point out that cultural cooperation could not function in-dependently from political events, that is, without the geo-strategic realignments. Cultural cooperation as a form of a “soft power” (compare Schneider 2004, 2) marled the phenomenon, the concept and the process of the Cold War. Aft er the re-establishment of order and the institutional network in 1950-ies, Europe has been actively establishing cultural cooperation as an important part of foreign pol-icy and communication between the countries during the Cold War. Th e strategy of developing connections through cultural cooperation has become particularly important since almost all countries were in a position to fi ght for its place in the distribution of resources, transport of various products of human achievements and pursuit of economic gain. At the same time, there is no doubt that cultural cooperation was in particular important to small European countries. In fact, com-munication through culture was much more easier even below the so-called “Iron Curtain“.

From the historical perspective, defi nitions, mechanisms that were used for cultural cooperation purposes, and fi nally, its relevance to a particular nation, we

neighbours, and the “cold war” is also used in the narrow sense of the arms battle, the fear of atomic bomb, etc. In this respect, we remember also that George Orwell wrote in 1945 about “peace which is not peace” where the Soviet Union and the United States both remain “undefeated in the permanent state of Cold war with one another.” (Williamson 2002)

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noticed that a model of cultural cooperation through high art was mainly used in Europe, in the given period. It is important to distinguish between these models, due to the need to point out that European countries use a completely diff er-ent approach to this fi eld than the United States. However, in the whole Europe, the cultural cooperation was taking place primarily in the area of high artistic practice, which can presumably be interpreted as a relic or connections with the tradition of the early twentieth century. It is even more interesting to conclude that the great powers of the Cold War were the most successful in using music for cultural cooperation. Th e Soviet Union`s ambassadors were from the fi eld of clas-sical music, especially pianists or violinists, while the most representative product of the USSR and the most prominent ambassador of this state was ballet.. Con-cerning the United States, bypassing state institutions, a Hollywood movie, called already in the post-war period “Golden era of Hollywood”, triumphed in the Euro-pean market. Th e undoubted infl uence of American movies to the lifestyle, dress, behavior, and even to values advocated by young generation of Europeans, has overwhelmed every form of cultural cooperation in the Cold War. In addition, many authors analyzed the massive infl uence of rock music worldwide and its remarkable impact, unique in the history. So rock and roll with its distinctive val-ues, which has spread the plurality of musical solutions, and the American fi lms were the most important factors of the so-called collapse “Iron Curtain” achieved through non-institutional channels. On the other hand, the United States insti-tutionally used jazz music in their cultural cooperation. Th e US as a country bur-dened by slavery and colonial past, issues of democracy and freedom, could not compete with European achievements in high artistic practices, but was superb in its off er of products for consumer society that could not be matched, as well as of products of exceptional technological and economic progress, philosophy of individualism, etc. Th erefore, US use popular culture in promotion of positive American values.5

By recognizing the importance of political and cultural cooperation during the Cold War, our aim is to reveal the general phenomena of those countries that were neither East nor West, and which oft en functioned within interregnum ef-fects of diff erent countries and their complex confl icts of interest. We believe that

5 Radio programme VOA (Voice of America), and its popular host Willis Conover, has not only caused great interest of citizens across Europe, but has expanded their undoubted infl uence even when it has proven in practice to have issues with their own democracy, civil liberties, equal opportunities, etc.. Th en, the State Department's project “Jazz Ambassadors” which included Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and other jazz musicians. In the midst of its aggressive policy, the United States successfully expanded their image of democratic free Americans. For this purpose, they used African-American musicians who played free jazz, and “free” improvisation. More on the scope of American cultural diplomacy please fi nd in: (Cummings, 2003; Eschen, 2004; Schneider 2003, 2007)


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the geopolitical constellation in the period between the mid-1950s to mid-1980s undoubtedly gave birth and marked political and cultural cooperation between Finland and Yugoslavia, as well as in many other countries. However, there were opposite processes too. Successful and ambitious diplomacies of these countries were oft en “forcing superpowers to make moves that they alone would not have done” ( Jakovina 2011b, 24). From sociologist approach, these examples of politi-cal and cultural cooperation are indicators of relative autonomy and unexpected breakthroughs of “small countries” in the context of the Cold War.

Cold War policy of ”Neutrality” and ”Non-alignment”

In the context of the Cold War, Finland and Yugoslavia’s position in the international scene was based mainly on the policy of “neutrality”. In case of Yu-goslavia, the policy of “neutrality” was associated with a policy of “non-alignment”. Th ese tendencies of foreign relations policies of Finland and Yugoslavia were di-rectly linked to the countries’ relationship with the great powers. At the same time, their relations with the Soviet Union are certainly a controversial issue of their politics, the issue that signifi cantly determined their “place” in a given geopolitical situation.

In fact, relations between European countries and the Soviet Union for a long time represented maintaining of good neighborly relations “at any price”. Th is was permanently a case in Finland. In 1948 Finland signed the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union, which was in force until the 1970 when it was extended for another twenty years. With this document, Finland made particular connections with the USSR. Outside Fin-land there were some suspicions over this country`s policy of “neutrality” because of the aforementioned links with the USSR (Borodin 1977, 25). Former Finnish President Urho Kekkonen insisted that the Agreement and the Finnish “neutral-ity” were strongly linked. However, a kind of refrain of Finish “neutral” foreign policy could be illustrated with a fragment of an interview of the President Kek-konen with the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter: “We strive to keep Finland out of the confl ict of the great powers and blocks in times of peace and to preserve neutrality in occasions an armed confl ict between them” (22). Today it is obvious that Finland was undoubtedly an active participant in a number of events during the Cold War, albeit its “neutrality”. In addition, one cannot deny Kekkonen’s suc-cess to achieve an excellent balance between East and West. Still, the best way for understanding the position of Finland is to look through the fact that the export was the most important component of its economy. Th at’s why it was necessary to

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fi nd a common language with both East and West (compare Eloranta and Ojala 2005; Jensen-Eriksen 2006; Laitinen 1977).6

When we focus on the position of Yugoslavia, we have to emphasize that in the discourse of the Cold War, the country’s shift from communism as known in the Soviet Union, was already recognized. In this regard, we observe two lines of the Yugoslav Sonderweg − socialist self-management and activity within the Non-aligned Movement (for more details: Jakovina 2011b; Marković 1995; Lazić, 2003; Petranović 1988) mutually in strong connection, as some authors consider that “non-alignment” is actually the “other side of the coin” of self-managed socialism.

Th erefore, Yugoslavia had two signifi cant confl icts with the Soviet Union. Th e fi rst refers to the famous Tito–Stalin split in the 1948 known in the discourse as “historical No”. It opens the fi rst line of the Yugoslav diff erentiation, i.e., estab-lishing self-managed socialism.7 Aft er this event “in the fall of 1949 Yugoslavia present confl ict with the Soviets at the UN parliament, which meant practically involved in the Cold War on the side of West” (Marković 1995, 20).8 Another confl ict with the Soviets refers to the period from 1958 to 1962 and recognition of the Democratic Republic of Germany.

As expected, there were also confl icts between Yugoslavia and the United States. For example, on the occasion of the negative attitude of Yugoslavia about US military policy and colonialism (Krstić 2011). Disagreement with the policy of the United States is the most obvious in ideology of the NAM. Yugoslavia passed postulates that she advocated as a member of the NAM and transferred to all levels of its policies. Hidajet Bišćević notices that: „In that period, non-alignment was the most commonly been understood, even promoted to incredible proportions, as the outer layer of internal Yugoslav idea, as it has been created for Tito’s achiev-ing of balance of diff erent and disparate national interests…“ (Bišćević 2011, 11). Shortly aft er the fi rst Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade in 1961, Yugoslavia began

6 Th e European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was established in 1959, and with them Finland even closer ties with its most important export market, Great Britain (Laitinen, 1977, 145). Already in 1961, a free-trade fi eld FINNEFTA was created and USSR necessarily have to reduce the price of customs according to members of EFTA (146). Although Finland is primarily engaged in exports to Western markets, during the Cold War, she extensively exported also in the Soviet Union. At the same time, during the 1950s and 1960s, although a small country, Finland has been the most important trade partner of the USSR ( Jensen-Eriksen, 2006, 2). In 1953 Finnish exports to the USSR represented 47.7% of the total Western European exports in a given country, and ten years later was over 24% (2–3), but this is the time when conditions have changed signifi cantly. More details about the economic issues of Finland and other East-European countries during the Cold War see: (Eloranta and Ojala 2005).

7 Unfortunately, self-managed socialism remained theoretically insuffi cient, and in practice, it was quite inconsistent and lost in the numerous elaborations of the party members.

8 Th e same author notes that “the peak of the Yugoslav approaching the West”, in terms of policy, was “creating of the Balkan Alliance" (Marković 1995, 20).


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to “play” a special diplomatic game to connect with the “non-aligned” and “neu-tral” countries in search for almost “utopian” vision of the so-called association of weak countries against major powers. Ambitious aims and objectives of NAM summarized by its oft en criticized member, Fidel Castro in a speech on the occa-sion of Havana Declaration in 1979: “To ensure the national independence, sover-eignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, including Zionism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against bloc politics.”

Without ambition to reassess or to close the old debate on arguments pro et contra Yugoslav inclination towards East or West aft er the World War II, we will re-main on the position that Yugoslavia, until early 1990s, played a double game in re-lations with the great powers (compare Lazić 2003; Lampe 2000; Marković 1995; Petranović 1988) . Th e complexity of international relations policy of Yugoslavia refl ects in the variable and sometimes contradictory behavior of the party’s leaders towards a given problem. Th e former Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia Josip Vrhovec elaborates the delicate position of Tito’s regime aft er the “historical No!”: “With-out the slightest desire and ability to really move towards the West, while going back towards the East was not possible nor a desire.” (Bišćević 2011, 10)

On the other hand, Historian Branko Petranović argues that “Yugoslavia didn’t deepened ties with the West due to its communist orientation and loyalty to the Soviet Union, as well as due to incidents with the United States” (Petranović 1988, 139, 163).9 Finally, it is more intriguing in the context of the tense fi ght for its own interests, which Yugoslavia led during the given period, that “maintaining distance from the Soviets during the 1950s and economic stability would be pos-sible only in the case of support of the West” (Lazić 2003, 203). It is even more important to understand that in the fi nal analysis, the West supported the SFRY in order to weaken the Eastern bloc.

Aft er the confrontation with Cominform, Yugoslavia connects with Euro- Atlantic Pact states − France, Britain and the United States (Kula 2012, 43) from which it already in 1951 received signifi cant loans and economic benefi ts.10 As expected, with its complex position, SFRY necessarily had to invest in the sector of foreign policy led by Edvard Kardelj (1948−1953), and then his successor Koča Popović. We would like to mention that just that aft er a confl ict with Stalin, in order to establish economic cooperation and presenting a peculiar Yugoslav social-ism to the rest of the world, the number of embassies almost doubled in Belgrade, from 53 embassies present in 1948 to 91 in 1958 (44).

9 Th e author recalls a crisis or confl ict with the United States about the division of free territory of Trieste between Yugoslavia and Italy (Petranović 1988, 163).

10 Further details of US assistance to Yugoslavia see: ( Jakovina 2002).

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Points of encounter between Finland and Yugoslavia during the Cold War process

Yugoslavia and Finland were not the member states of the Warsaw Treaty. Both countries strived to become catalysts or mediators of geostrategic changes through promotion of policies of peace. At the same time, they promoted dip-lomatic resolution of confl icts between the great powers. In 1960ies Yugoslavia led the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), while Finland managed the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in the 1970-ies.11 Th e history of the Non-Aligned Movement, from its fi rst (1961) until its ninth summit (1989), held in Belgrade, is complementary to the history of te Cold War. In addition, in relation to these two major international political bodies the two countries were in close cooperation. For example, Finland and Yugoslavia have cooperated in all stages of the preparation of CSCE and NAM summits.12 In addition, the most signifi cant achievements of Finland and Yugoslavia in the context of the Cold War were in the foreign policy area and diplomacy, and their biggest successes were NAM and CSCE.13

Although, in a sense, activities of Yugoslavia`s NAM shift ed its interest to-wards Africa and Asia, “For his concept of non-alignment, Europe was impor-tant to Tito” ( Jakovina 2011a). According to Jakovina: “States in Africa and Asia gathered. Later, Cubans insisted that countries of Latin America are represented, and, just as Indonesia and at one time represented the concept of „new forces that are born’, to gather only those who experienced colonialism, non-White na-tions. Th is was a concept that pushed Yugoslavia out of the Movement, of which Tito was afraid, and to which Yugoslav diplomats constantly opposed. Th at is why membership of as many European countries, from the Vatican to the neutral Eu-ropean countries, was insisted on. It was necessary to show universal character of the Movement“ ( Jakovina 2011a). However, one should not forget that Yugoslavia passed the concepts of NAM to its entire policies. Th erefore, our of the neces-sity to keep European countries in NAM, the cooperation between the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Finland started. However, it

11 Th is is an institution which led to OSCE and in the Cold War discourse it is assessed as a problem of bilateral rivalry between the great powers (compare Kullaa 2012, 39).

12 For example, Finland participated as an observer in Cairo, and in Lusaka and Algerie as an invited guest.

13 Th e journal Jugoslovenski pregled (Yugoslav Survey) published in 1966 the results of relations of Yugoslavia and Finland based on the documentation of the State Secretariat for Foreign Aff airs of the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Trade, the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav National Tourist Offi ce. In 1975, the relationships between these countries are reported in the Documents of the Secretariat of Foreign Aff airs. See the list of references.


19

turned out that there were many points of encounter between the two countries. As the most important, we would like to point out that Helsinki process directly lead towards Belgrade follow-up conference and establishment of CSCE. In ad-dition, in-depth understanding of the Cold War is revealed in a special way by monitoring events between conferences in Helsinki in 1973 and Belgrade meet-ings 1977–1978 (compare Kullaa 2012, 39–58). In addition, Kekkonnen started to support the idea of non-alignment aft er his meeting with Tito in 1963, when Tito explained to him that it was a “it is incorrect to understand the Belgrade Conference in 1961 as an attempt to create a third bloc” (46).

As president of a country at the crossroads of East and West, Urho Kek-konen has easily noticed many similarities of the ideas with the former Yugoslav president Tito, particularly in terms of the so-called non-bloc management policy. Th ey agreed as opponents of nuclear experiments and the arms race, and fi nally in “policy of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence” (Jugoslovenski pregled Decem-ber 1966, 483). Both authoritarian leaders and ruler in not only political arena, but also whose personal tastes artists and cultural activists have followed, Tito and Kekkonen are still controversial personalities in the fi eld of research between the East and the West in the given period in history.

During mutual visits, 1963 in Yugoslavia and 1964 in Finland, announced as events of high importance, the two leaders agreed on joint act in the fi eld of

Right: Tito and Kekkonen at the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Palace Finlandia in Helsinki

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industry in the non-aligned countries. In addition, they signed a number of agree-ments in the fi elds of economics, international transport, health and other areas.14 However, economic relations were not established. We learn from the journal Ju-goslovenski pregled for the period 1966–1975 that “in spite of very good political relations and mutual interests for development of industrial, technical and scientif-ic cooperation and joint presence on third markets, actual economic cooperation is not carried out accord to abilities and needs of the two countries` economies, although the signifi cant progress was made.“ (Jugoslovenski pregled 1975, 127).15 Nevertheless, the two countries had successfully diplomatic cooperation in the fi elds of politics and culture for decades.

In 1973, Finland and Yugoslavia fi nally signed an Agreement on bilateral cooperation in the fi elds of culture, science and education. In line with that, before the formal agreements, we fi nd in archives and periodicals the data that a non-in-stitutional dialogue started already in 1960 started in the fi eld of culture. Cultural exchange was initiated in the fi eld of literature followed by visual arts, fi lm, music, theater and science. Th en, in 1966, the two countries signed their fi rst formal plan for cooperation in areas of culture and science, renewed in 1973. Th is cooperation was in eff ect until 1980es.16

In accordance with the agreed, from the 1960s until mid-1980ies an active cultural exchange was present. One of the fi rst steps in cooperation was the trans-lation of leading literature works. During 1960, Finland translates Ivo Andrić’s (1892–1975) novel: Th e Bridge over the Drina, even before he was awarded by No-bel Prize. Th e following year, two other novels from Bosnian trilogy that originated in 1945 were translated − Th e Women fr om Sarajevo (Gospođica) and Th e Bosnian Chronicle (Travnička hronika). Also in 1963, more popular novels of Yugoslav au-thors such as Th e Red Rooster Flies to Heavenwards (Crveni petao leti u nebo, 1959) by Miodrag Bulatović (1930–1991) and war novel Far away is the Sun (Daleko je sunce, 1951) by Dobrica Ćosić (1921). As aft er the WWII a number of works of

14 For example, an Agreement on the exchange of goods and payment from 1962 and the Agreement on the mutual abolition of visas was signed on 6 May in 1964. A regular fl ight from Helsinki to Dubrovnik was established too.

15 Since the 1960ies Yugoslavia’s trade with Finland was in constant defi cit as a result of major purchases of paper and cardboard from Finland, particularly strong in 1963 in time of large acquisitions of prefabricated houses for reconstruction of Skopje (Jugoslovenski pregled 1966, 483)

16 Due to the limited space here, it is not possible to more closely tackle the structure of Belgrade's Archives of Yugoslavia and documentary departments of Radio Belgrade consulted for this study and in relation to the cooperation of Yugoslavia and Finland. See: Fund 534 Federal Commissions for Cooperation (1953–1978); Fund 559, the Federal Commission for Cultural Co-operation (1953–1971), Radio Belgrade, Documentation Department of Radio Belgrade, Yugoslavia and Finland Fund.


21

Finnish writers were translated, they were reissued in light of intensifi ed coopera-tion between the two countries. We will mention the following novels: Th e People in the Summer Night (Ihmiset suviyössä, 1934) by Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964), winner of the Nobel Prize in 1939, Th e Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon so-tilas, 1954) by Vaino Linna (1920–1992), Th e Adventurer (Mikael Karvajalka, 1948), Th e Wanderer (Mikael Hakim, 1949) and Th e Etruscan (Turms kuolematon, 1955) by Mika Waltari (1908–1978) Seven brothers (Seitsemän veljestä, 1870) by Aleksis Kiwi (1834–1872) and documentary novel Raft of Despair (1954) by Ensi Tiira (1929–1981).

Among the most common guests in Yugoslavia were painters, graphic design-ers and architects from Helsinki, Tampere, Jahta and Kuopio. Guests in Finland from Yugoslavia were numerous musicians, writers and directors. Th e First guest-musicians in Finland from the former Yugoslavia were opera singer, bass Miro-slav Čangalović (1921–1999), internationally recognized for his performance of Russian music, and Živojin Zdravković (1914–2001), conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1963, the most prominent Croatian chamber string orchestra “Zagreb Soloists” with its conductor and founder Antonio Janigro (1918–1989) performed in Helsinki. Besides the abovementioned, as a result of cultural cooperation, a Zagreb quartet, distinguished chamber contemporary mu-sic ensemble, members of the Belgrade and Zagreb Opera were also gave a concert in Finnish capital. During the 1980ies Serbian violinist Maja Jokanović (1953) performed the most prominent Finnish composer Jan Sibelius’ ( Jean Sibelius, 1865−1957) Violin Concerto at the Sibelius Music Academy in Helsinki.

We will point out signifi cant performances of Finnish classical musicians in Belgrade. Cellist Arto Noras (1942), one of the most distiguished classical musi-cians from Finland performed a number of times in Belgrade. In 1979, he was play-ing at Belgrade Kolarac Great Hall with our prominent pianist and pedagogue, now 101-year old, Andreja Preger (1912). At the same time, in line with the idea of cultural exchange, pianist Lisa Pahjola (Liisa Pahjola, 1936) played in 1966 in Belgrade Kolarac Hall music of Finn-ish composers. Also, Belgrade guest were famous Finnish opera singer bass Kim Borg (1919−2000) and conduc-tor Paavo Rautio. At the same time, Jubilee largest Finnish composer Jan Sibelius marked by a series of events in Yugoslavia 1965 year.

In addition to literature and classical music, Finish cultural work-ers showed interest for Yugoslav fi lm,

President Kekkonen and president Tito with their wives, 1965

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especially for so-called “Black wave“ in Yugoslav author cinematography. Films Happy Gypsies (1967) by Aleksandar Petrović (1929–1994) and Love Aff air or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967) by Dušan Makavejev (1932), in addition to the prestigious Academy Awards nominations, received prizes for fi lm from the Republic of Finland.

Aft er all, we will conclude our view on cooperation between the two coun-tries by pointing out the most signifi cant fi eld of mutual collaboration. Th e co-operation in the fi elds of visual and applied arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, design, was quite successful from Finland to Yugoslavia. Finnish visual artists’ ex-hibitions have marked the whole period of our interest, and at the same time they were a continuation of building of ties in foreign policy and diplomacy sector, and in literature and music throughout the 1960s. Consequently, in the next decades they will represent the core of cultural cooperation between the two countries.

In conclusion, the eff orts of diplomats of the Secretariat for Foreign Aff airs of the SFRJ Ministry of Education and the Department for international relations of the Education Ministry of Finland, led to successfully implemented cultural exchange in the fi elds of classical music, literature and visual arts. Looking at the current off ers of musical events, cooperation with Finland in the classical music fi led is maintained. However, during the period covered by this work, based on periodicals, we can conclude that Finnish architecture, applied and than visual arts achievements were especially appreciated in Yugoslavia.

Although we did not have access to detailed reception of performances of Yugoslav artists in Finland, we found out that Yugoslavia, besides its politics, was attractive to Finland for its more liberal position towards the culture and civil liberties during the 1960s. In that times, in line with the undisputable corpus of cultural fragments of the National liberation struggle, embodied in the Yugoslav war saga and other war fi lm genre works, high arts and popular art practices were developed. Not only that rock and roll, jazz, folk music, and other genres were popular, but a Yugoslav “hybrid genre” product – zabavna muzika (popular music) emerged, promoted in summer festivals, inspired by popular San Remo music fes-tival.17 In Yugoslavia, fi lm, music, and especially miscellaneous festivals bloomed. We will point out prominent events such as the International Film Festival in Pula and Dubrovnik Summer Festival which Hollywood movie stars Sophia Loren, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Yul Brynner, and a number of prominent direc-tors attended. As of the same year 1961, Zagreb Music Biennale became the new

17 Hybrid genres, illustrated best with Yugoslav zabavna muzika are indisputable indicators of pervasion, meetings between East and West in the construction of the Yugoslav cultural identity. Many artists took the opportunity to create under obvious Western infl uence of chanson, canzone or pop songs, within the genre called zabavna muzika, originally considered as a product of Yugoslavia.


23

European center of modern music. Reputation that Yugoslavia created with having these events was only one of the totalitarian manouvers which Tito regime skillfuly used. Th e other side of this strategy for construction of Yugoslavia`s image in the international community was a rapid development of popular culture infl uenced by western culture, which refl ects in fi lm, music, fashion and complete cultural consumption. By presenting internal civil liberties to the international community as a success of self-management socialism, in a quite innovative manner, Yugoslavia leadership constructed a practice for its citizens, about their alleged presence in global events, and, more importantly, about them being a part of an internation-ally recognized state. With this construct, foreign policy moved into domain of everyday life in Yugoslavia. Tito’s Yugoslavia was promoted by attractive summer festivals where Tito appeared as the sponsor and the host of world stars.18 As suc-cessful balance between East and West was performed at these festivals, similar was done in the area of international politics.

In line with that, a particularly emphasize on the problem of existence of Finland and the former Yugoslavia, and their points of opens a view to popular culture. Th e popular culture in the countries we are dealing in this text, was the undisputed representative of their peculiar position in the Cold War interregnum division into blocks. Although during the Cold War period systematic studies of cultural consumption in Yugoslavia and Finland was not assessed, based on a view of cultural institutions and events of high artistic, popular and traditional practic-es, we can conclude that there was an undoubted cultural diversity. Th e complexity of consumption in terms of fusion of diff erent cultural forms was present in both countries. However, while some hybrid products appeared in Yugoslavia as a result blends of Western and local elements, Finland fought with indisputable mélange of Soviet and Western models.

Conclusion: Experiences and Challenges of Post-Cold War era for Yugoslavia and Finland

Despite the wish of many researchers of the Cold War period to present the geopolitical picture of the world divided into blocks, based on a kind of a “black and white” model, the political and cultural cooperation oft en did not literally correspond with global events, and they functioned by the principle of relative autonomy. Political and especially cultural cooperation did not disregard a geopo-litical framework, but operated according to local processes, problems and aspira-tions. Th is is especially the case in the states located on the borders of infl uences,

18 For example, an exhibition on history of Dubrovnik Summer Festival was organized in Helsinki.

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meetings, confl icts or cooperation between East and West, that is, with the states of North and South, or the small countries in Europe.

Th erefore, the Nordic state Finland, based on multiparty political system and Yugoslavia based in the Balkans, with single-party communist system were substantially similar in their relation towards the complex geopolitical constel-lation, in the discourse called the Cold War. Th is is refl ected in their selection of “neutral” position in which they maintain their own integrity in relation with the Soviets, while really searched for economic and cultural integration with Western Europe (Kullaa 2012, 40).19 Th is is the basis of their similarity in the process of the Cold War, which reveals problems, anxiety and quests of the both countries, focused towards reaching a better position in the world scene.

Th e cultural cooperation is not a unilateral, consistent, reciprocal pro-cess. Th erefore, the most attracted, for Finns, despite their successful coopera-tion with Yugoslavia in the fi eld of literature, theater, contemporary music and opera, were Tito`s government mechanism of reputation building. At the same time, although the cultural cooperation between Finland and Yugoslavia func-tioned according to the usual European model that we defi ned as a contact be-tween nations primarily through the exchange of high art, or more precisely, by sending its members – artists, performers, actors, the consequences were not reciprocated. Unlike the aforementioned American vision of cultural policy, so-called soft power, cultural cooperation between the European countries was pri-marily focused on a limited target group – the intellectuals. In this case, mainly intellectuals interested in architecture, applied art, painting, sculpture and lit-erature of Finland had benefi t from cultural cooperation between the men-tioned countries. It seems that Finland was more interested in general cultural policy of Yugoslavia and its leader, whose approach was diff erent from the Soviet.In addition to a number of interesting and unexpected details that we addressed in the study of relations between Finland and Yugoslavia during the Cold War, from today’s post-Cold War perspective, the view through the “pericentric lenses” gives quite devastating results from the aspect of a researcher from one of the successor-state of the former Yugoslavia. On the one hand, we have dramatically negative consequences of enormous growth of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia since the end of the Cold War period, and a collapse of the mentioned federation. On

19 Based on insight into a number of common views on policy between the two countries, it is not surprising that the United Kingdom and the United States had similar way of relating towards Finland and Yugoslavia. “Th e British and American governments, and later CoCOM, during 1949 to 1950 reached a decision to consider Yugoslavia, which has recently broken off with the Soviet bloc and Finland, special cases. As such, none of them will be completely free of restrictions in the fi eld of export, but they will have a diff erent treatment than the Soviet bloc countries” (Jensen-Eriksen, 2006, 4).


25

the other, there is Finland, consistently persistent in its peacemaking mission. Events, processes, phenomena that accompanied the rise of nationalism alienated the successor states of Yugoslavia, the former great pacifi st forces, which advocated peaceful coexistence, an opponent of nuclear testing and the division of the world into blocks, toward diametrically opposite position than Yugoslavia had during the Cold War. An greater disappointment for those who are interested in the current position of the former SFRY states and provinces, is an understanding that even with successful foreign policy accomplishments cannot neutralize permanently unfavorable economic conditions, founded by decades of foreign loans, and insuf-fi cient attention to the development of economy and related fi elds (see: Lampe 2000). For future research we will have unresolved or rhetorical questions about potential of the vision of “peaceful coexistence” and the policy of neutrality in Europe in the future. Maybe we would also focus on a search of the specifi c conse-quences of the policy of peacemaking countries such as Finland, to their citizens’ freedoms, compared to citizens’ freedom in other European countries. Exploring of relationship between Finland and the successor states of the former Yugoslavia since the 1990s, in the post-Cold War period, would surely open up many inter-esting questions, and perhaps lead to some answers about the geopolitical conse-quences of the constellation called the Cold War, at current context.

References:Aunesluoma, J., i P. Kettunen. ed. 2008. Th e Cold War and the Politics of History. Helsinki:

Edita Publishing Ltd: University of Helsinky, Department of Social Science History.Bilandžić, V., D. Dahlmann, i M. Kosanović ed. 2012. From Belgrade to Helsinky: Th e First

CSCE Follow-up Meeting and Th e Crisis of Détente. Internationale Beziehungen: Th eo-rie und Geschichte, 10. Göttingen: Bonn University Press.

Biščević, H. 2011. „Jugoslavija u doba Hladnog rata: u zaklonu nesvrstanosti.“ In Tvrtko Jak-ovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata. Zagreb: Fraktura, 10–16.

Cummings, M. C. 2003. Cultural Diplomacy and the United States Government: a Survey. ICD Institute for Cultural diplomacy: Centre for Arts and Culture.

Borodin, K. 1977. “Doktrina vanjske politike Urha Kekkonena: Kontinuitet i inovacije.” In Urho Kekkonen: Borac za mir, edited by R. Vukadinović, 21–29. Zagreb: Globus.

Eloranta, J., i J. Ojala. ed. 2005. East-West Trade and the Cold war. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä Printing.

Eschen, P. von. 2004. Satchmo Blows Th e World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. Lon-don: Harvard University Press.

Jakovina, T. 2002. Socijalizam na američkoj pšenici. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska.———. 2011a. „Nesvrstani su bili puni besprizornih likova.“ Jutarnji list, 19. 2. 2011.———. 2011b. Treća strana Hladnog rata. Zagreb: Fraktura.

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Jensen-Eriksen, N. 2006. “Finland – A Hole in the Cold War Embargo?“ In XIV International Economic History Congress 21–25th August 2006. preuzeto sa sajta http://www.hel-sinki.fi /iehc2006/ Helsinki: University of Helsinki.

Kettunen, P., i J. Aunesluoma. 2008. “History in the Cold War and the Cold War in the Pres-ent.” In Th e Cold War and the Politics of History, edited by J. Aunesluoma i P. Kettunen, 9–18. Helsinki: Edita Publishing Ltd: University of Helsinky, Department of Social Science History.

Konjuh, Ž. 1987. „Kultura i nesvrstanost.“ Kultura 76/77: 226−233.

Krstić, M. 2011. “SFR Yugoslavia during the Cold war and current Serbian foreign policy.” Anthropology: journal of the Center for Ethnological and Anthropological Research (CEAR) 11/1:21−44.

Kullaa, R. 2012. “Th e Birth and Development od CSCE: Finnish and Yugoslav Models of Neutrality in the Early Cold War.” In From Belgrade to Helsinky: Th e First CSCE Fol-low-up Meeting and Th e Crisis of Détente, edited by V. Bilandžić, D. Dahlmann, i M. Kosanović, 39–58. Internationale Beziehungen: Th eorie und Geschichte, 10. Göttin-gen: Bonn University Press.

Lazić, M. 2003. “Serbia: a Part of Both the East and the West?” Sociologija XLV (3):193−216.

Laitinen, P. 1977. “Međunarodni ekonomski odnosi Finske u razdoblju od 1956. do 1975. godine.” In Urho Kekkonen: Borac za mir, edited by R. Vukadinović, 143–164. Zagreb: Globus.

Lampe, J. R. 2000. Yugoslavia as History. Twice Th ere Was a Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Marković, P. J. 1995. Društveni život Beograda 1948−1965: Uticaji sveta podeljenog na Istok i Zapad. PhD dissertation, Belgrade: Faculty of Philosophy.

Petranović, B. 1988. Istorija Jugoslavije 1918−1988: Socijalistička Jugoslavija 1945−1988. III. Belgrade: Nolit.

Schneider, C. P. 2003. Diplomacy Th at Works: Best ‘practices’ in Cultural Diplomacy. George-town University: Center for Arts and Culture.

———. 2004. “Culture Communicates: US Diplomacy that works.” In Disccusion Papers in Diplomacy, edited by Spencer Mawby, 1–22. Netherland institute for International Re-lations “Clingendael”.

Smith, T. 2000. “New Bottle for New Wine: Pericentric Framework for study of the Cold War” Diplomatic History 24/4: 567−591.

Vulović, D., i S. Stefanović. 1986. Kulturološki aspekti politike nesvrstanosti. Belgrade: Centar za marksizam/Međunarodna politika.

Vukadinović, R. ed. 1977. Kekkonen: Borac za mir. Zagreb: Globus.

Williamson, D. 2002. „Th e Historiography of the Cold War” New Perspective 8/1, http://www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/cold%20war.htm


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Periodicals:Jugoslovenski pregled (Jugoslav Survey), “Odnosi Jugoslavije i Finske” 1960: 484–484 (88–90);

1966: 483–486 (81–84); 1975: 125–128 (35–38)Politika, Borba, Oslobođenje

Sources:Archive of Yugoslavia, Fund 534, Federal Commission for Cooperation in Education, Sci-

ence and Culture (1951–1978); Fund 559, Federal Commission for Cultural relations (1953−1971)

Department for Documentary of Radio Belgrade, Fund – Serbia and Finland relations

paper reported; 12. 3. 2013.paper reviewed; 28. 4. 2013.paper accepted; 10. 7. 2013.

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UDK: 001.92:004(480:474.2)”1960/2000”; 327.54(100)”195/199”

APPROACHING COLD WAR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER VIA ORAL HISTORY: A CASE OF FINNISH–ESTONIAN COMPUTING COOPERATION*

Abstract: Th e article discusses the potential of oral history to contribute to Cold War historiography, especially in research concerning technology transfer across the Iron Curtain. It highlights the advantages of oral history when compared to printed historical sources. Examples are provided pertaining to the benefi ts of oral history when analysing the diff usion of knowledge and technology within a Cold War context. Nonetheless, the limitations of oral history are also discussed. Many viewpoints presented in the article support contemporary Cold War research, which emphasizes the importance of transnational, intermediate-level contacts that occurred across the bloc barriers.

Key Words: Cold war, Finland, Estonya, cooperation, tehnology, non-written history

Historians regularly face a dilemma when attempting to construct a better understanding of past events: the picture created in the written sources (letters, newspapers, offi cial documents, etc.) con-cerning a certain historical phenomena is diff erent from the stories told by the people who actually experienced the same event. In these cases, the literal memory can diff er signifi cantly from individual perception of the past. Another and maybe even more common problem is that the necessary historical information does not exist in written form at all and the only way to obtain the knowledge in question is to fi nd someone who – in one way or another – participated into creation of this information about the past.


Sampsa KAATAJAAalto University and

University of [email protected]

* Th e article is a spin-off from a presentation made at the “Challenging the Shadow of the Iron Curtain” seminar in Belgrade on 25.10.2011.

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An ongoing study focusing on Finnish-Estonian computing cooperation between the years 1960 and 2000 has attempted to deal with both of the afore-mentioned challenges throughout the entire research process. Written sources con-cerning the topic are limited, and even the existing materials have turned out to be somewhat defective and sometimes even contradictory. As a result of this, oral his-tory has been the best (and in many cases the only) way to create an understanding oft he types of transfer of ideas, knowledge and technology that occurred between Finnish and Estonian computer scientists during the Cold War period. In the fol-lowing the pros and consof this oral history material will be examined. What are the possibilities and limitations of oral history in research focusing on technology transfer during the Cold War era?1

Oral historyIn contrast to literal sources, such as archival material, magazines, books and

contemporary Internet sources, oral history relies on eyewitness accounts of past events. Th is means information, memories and impressions of the people who ex-perienced the matter under investigation. One of the main strengths of oral history is that it off ers new information and diff erent perspectives on past events that can-not be found in the written sources.2

For the current study, oral history refers to information and recollections pro-vided by the Finnish and Estonian computer specialists. Th is oral history material was collected in the course of twelve interviews from persons who participated in computing cooperation between Finland and Estonia (and the Soviet Union) from the 1960s onwards. Face-to-face interviews were organized in Finland and Estonia during the years 2010 and 2011 and each of the interviews took approximately 1–2 hours. Th e interviews with the computing experts were semi-structured.3

Before the meetings, the interviewees received a list of questions, which formed the backbone of the discussions that were recorded and later analysed. Nonetheless, the interviewees did not have to rigorously adhere to the list of ques-tions in the actual “interview session”; rather, they had the opportunity to speak freely, for as long as and as much as they wanted, and to bounce from one topic to another. For the purpose of getting as much information as possible, the role of the

1 In 1944–91, the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic was part of the Soviet Union, and for this reason the current research also concerns Finnish-Soviet computing relations. Th e examples analysed in this article focus more on Finnish-Soviet relations than on dealings with the Estonians.

2 For an introduction to oral history, (see:, Th e Oral History Reader 2006 and Th ompson 2000).3 In contrast to structured interviews, where the respondent is expected to answer a set of exact and

well-defi ned questions that have been decided upon beforehand, semi-structured interviewing is a method based more on discussion between the interviewer and interviewee. During the interview, new questions can be raised, which enables the interviewer to get more detailed information.

31

APPROACHING COLD WAR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER VIA ORAL HISTORY

interviewer was deliberately minimal. Nonetheless, in situations where, e.g., cor-rections needed to be made to the information provided, more detailed questions were proposed to the computing specialist in question.

Th e result of the method described above has been almost 18 hours of in-terview material about computing history that, to a large extent, does not exist anywhere else. Th is oral history data forms the single most important collection of source material for a study analysing Finnish-Estonian computing contacts and computer-related technology transfer during the Cold War.

New technology paradigm for the Cold War periodIn order to clarify the context within which the Finnish-Estonian computing

cooperation took place,this article begins with a brief overview of the post-World War II technological world order. Nonetheless, it was the technology race between the two global superpowers that set the limits for the computing contacts between the Finnish and Estonian specialists.

Aft er World War II, the creation of a new, bipolar world was witnessed ev-erywhere. Th e race between the Soviet Union and United States had an impact on all sectors of life, and defi nitely not least on the global technology markets. Although US-USSR relations never escalated into direct armed confl ict, military strength became the primary symbol of authority in the global political arena, and both powers invested heavily in their armies and to the development of military technology.

A particular characteristic of Cold War technology was that calculation pow-er became relevant in the strengthening of military muscle in an unprecedented way. During the early years of the Cold War, both the US and USSR realized that they needed to develop their computation abilities to better keep up with techno-logical development: more eff ective mathematical machinery was a precondition for advanced nuclear weapons and missile defence systems. Th ese military needs were the primary reason why the nations applied vast sums of money to R&D ac-tivities on computers4 in both countries from the beginning of the Cold War. Also, several segments of society were harnessed to this development process: universi-ties, science academies, research centres, industrial enterprises and military forces all played an important role in advancing superpower computing.

Regardless of the fact that the fi eld of computing started to develop rapidly in both countries, it was already apparent in the 1950s that the USSR was lagging behind the US in computer technology. All of the eff orts to close the gap proved to be unsuccessful. In this situation, the Soviets turned their attention more and more to their Eastern Bloc allies and to the West in search of advanced computer

4 Or mathematical machines, which was the correct term at the time. (See: e.g. Gerovitch 2001).

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technology. Th ese eff orts culminated at the end of the 1960s when the Soviets de-cided to decrease independent innovation signifi cantly and began copying western computer technology. Th e new strategy was targeted especially at civilian comput-ing, whereas independent R&D on computers continued in the military sector.5 Nonetheless, the strong reliance on Western know-how had devastating eff ects for computing in the USSR, and it is no surprise that Soviet computer scientists strongly disagreed with the new computing strategy (Merik Meriste 18.11.2011).

Th e technology gap between the US and USSR was apparent not only in the fi eld of computing; during the latter part of the 20th century, the problem was vis-ible throughout the high-technology sector. Th e USSR´s innovative output lagged behind that of the US, and in this situation the Soviets tried to compensate for their technological backwardness by transferring technology from more advanced countries. In order to prevent this, the US began to take proactive measures soon aft er World War II. In 1949, together with its NATO allies, it founded the Coor-dinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) as an instrument to impose an embargo on sending high-tech products to Eastern Bloc countries.6 Th e embargo motivated theUSSR to develop new ways to acquire technology and R&D-related information and know-how. During the 1950s, the Soviets conclud-ed several inter-governmental agreements with Western countries, including Fin-land. Finland was the fi rst capitalistic state to establish offi cial scientifi c-technical relations with the USSR in 1955 (Autio-Sarasmo 2011, 66–68).

On the whole, Finland forms an interesting node in the context of Cold War technology transfer. Traditionally, the country had been politically and culturally orientedtowards Western Europe, but aft er suff ering defeats to the USSR in World War II, Finland´s relations with its eastern neighbour changed. Transformation was evident in the new line of sensitive foreign policy towards the USSR. Close cul-tural, scientifi c and technical contacts were also established between the countries during the latter part of the 20th century. Regardless of Finland´s modest scientifi c and technical output when compared to larger European nations, like West Ger-many, it gradually became one of the USSR’s main partners in S&T cooperation.

Together with strong offi cial-level cooperation withthe USSR, Finland si-multaneously maintained good relations with the US. Aft er World War II, Finnish science and technology was primarily oriented towards Western Bloc countries, and individual researchers and engineers in particular had active contact with the US. In proportion to the size of the population, Finland had the most active academic contacts with the US of any European country: at the beginning of the

5 For the time being, the most detailed description of the development of Soviet computing in English is Computing in Russia 2001.

6 For more on CoCom´s role in the Cold War, (see: Førland 2009, McGlade 2005, and Jensen-Eriksen 2011).

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1980s one third of Finnish professors and senior researchers had developed their professional skills in the United States (Paju and Durnova 2009, 313; Rislakki 2010, 170, 178).

In addition to the academic contacts, Western technology was also avail-able in Finland. During the Cold War decades when the embargo was in eff ect, it was possible for Finnish government and companies to purchase American ma-chines, equipment and components, which made Finland a valuable partner for the USSR. At the same time, Finnish companies had to be careful that CoCom-listed technology did not fi nd its way to the Soviets via their products. Nonethe-less, in some cases this forbidden technology made its way from Finland to the Soviet Union with US approval. A known example is the contemporary mobile phone giant Nokia, who – with permission from the Pentagon – was allowed to use American components inthe products that it sold to the USSR (Häikiö 2001, 125–128; Autio-Sarasmo 2011, 73–74).

Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation and oral history

Today the offi cial records concerning Cold War computing cooperation be-tween Finland and the Soviet Union7 are preserved in the archives of the Ministry for Foreign Aff airs in Helsinki. Th e materials mainly include minutes of the meetings, annual reports, cooperation plans and proposals and administrative correspondence (e.g. travel preparations). For a historian, these documents provide an understand-ing of the types of meetings that were organized as part of computing cooperation, when and where the seminars took place and who participated in them. At fi rst glance, the travel accounts that the Finnish participants had to write aft er the com-puting meetings they participated in the USSR might seem more promising source material. Unfortunately, these semi-offi cial documents are more general overviews than detailed descriptions of the content of the computing meetings.

All of the above-mentioned forms of historical information provided by the written sources have been valuable for creating an overview of Finnish-Estonian computing cooperation. Nonetheless, more detailed information is missing regard-ing what actually happened in the meetings of the computing specialists and how the cooperation materialized.8 Th us, the documents do not provide the kind infor-mation that is the most valuable for the purposes of this study.

Oral history accounts provide practically the only information concerning the knowledge exchange and technology transfer that occurred between the Finn-

7 Including the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.8 One important reason why offi cial documents provide only a little information about the results of

the cooperation is that computing cooperation only materialized as transnational research projects on rare occasions.

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ish and Estonian specialists.Th e following examples of the information provided by oral history accounts highlight the importance of the cooperative contacts dur-ing the Cold War period. Nonetheless, whereas the beginning and the political nature of Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation highlight the possibilities of oral history, illegal technology transfer and secret information gathering are examples of the problems a historian can face when using oral history.

Th e beginning of Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation

Th e offi cial computing contacts between Finland and the USSR began in 1970 when a working group on cybernetics was established under the umbrella of Finnish-Soviet scientifi c-technical cooperation.9 Before that, collaboration be-tween the computing experts of the two nations was limited to more or less ran-dom meetings between individual researchers, e.g. at international conferences. No regular connections existed.

From a historian’s perspective, the timing of the cybernetics working group is interesting. In computing history, the year 1969 marks the offi cial beginning of the period of Soviet pirate computing. Aft er that, independent innovation was sig-nifi cantly cut down in the USSR and the country turned its attention to copying and (il)legally purchasing Western computer technology. Th e temporal simultane-ity of the new Soviet computing strategy and the beginning of the Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation raises the question, was there a connection between the two occurrences?

In a situation in which the USSR decided to depend on Western technol-ogy that it could not freely purchase, it would have been logical to actively pursue regular contacts with Finland: even though Finland was no global power in com-puting, it did have direct contacts with US computer scientists and fi rms. Finn-ish universities and fi rms also used Western computer technology. Th us, Finland could have off ered one useful channel by which the Soviet Union could acquire computing-related information and know-how; maybe it even off ered a route for the illegal transfer of computer technology to the USSR.

Confi rmation that there was a connection between Soviet pirate computing and the beginning of Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation comes from the Finn-ish archival documents: according to the minutes of the Finnish S&T Committee, the USSR proposed to Finland that the two countries should cooperate in the fi eld of computing (Minutes of the meeting of the Finnish Science and Technology Committee 10.4.1970 and 8.5.1970). Based on this kind of archival information,

9 A working group on cybernetics was just one among the many fi elds of scientifi c-technical cooperation that was established between the two countries since the mid-1950s.

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scholars have also been tempted to link the Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation to the Soviet´s dubious computing strategy (Autio-Sarasmo 2011, 72).

According to the long-time leader of the cybernetics working group from the Finnish side, JussiTuori, the beginning of the computing cooperation between Finland and Soviet Union had little, if anything, to do with Soviet pirate comput-ing ( JussiTuori 1.3.2011). In reality, the roots of the cooperation lie in the strong personal contacts between three individuals: Hans Andersin and JussiTuori from the Finnish Information Processing Association and Academician Anatol A. Dor-odnicyn from the Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.10

It was Andersin, Tuori and Dorodnicyn who in all but name instigated the process, outlined the details and prepared the offi cial proposal for Finnish-Soviet collaboration. Th e primary setting for these arrangements was provided by the conferences of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP); all three men participated actively in these conferences during the late 1960s as offi cial spokespersons for the national computing organizations.11 Although cooperation between the Finnish and Soviet representatives never took off at the IFIP confer-ences themselves, the international computing association provided a platform for the creation of more permanent Finnish-Soviet computing relations.

Aft er Andersin, Tuori and Dorodnicyn had made the necessary prepara-tions, the offi cial initiative for Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation was jointly proposed in 1969 in the name of the institutions that the men represented: the Finnish Information Processing Association and Computing Centre of the Acad-emy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow. Th us, the plan was not from “the Soviet side of S&T cooperation” as the offi cial Finnish papers suggest, which – at least in theory – would easily link the origin of the collaboration to the Soviet political cir-cles responsible for questions of science and technology. Th e reason that comput-ing cooperation fell under the auspices of the Finnish-Soviet Scientifi c-Technical Cooperation Committee was practical: the existing committee provided the most

10 Hans Andersin(1930–2010) belonged to the group of computing pioneers in Finland and was the fi rst professor of information processing at the Helsinki University of technology. JussiTuori (1940), among other things, was one of the important developers of computing in the Finnish banking sector in the 20th century. For decades, he was also the leader on the Finnish side in the Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation. Academician Anatol A. Dorodnicyn (1910–94) was a long-time director of the Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow. He also was one of the founding members of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). Until 1994, he was the representative of the USSR / Russia in the IFIP and he was also president of the organization in the years 1968–71.

11 For decades, the IFIP was the most important international parent organization in computing. It was founded in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO, and one of its original aims was to bring together computing specialists from the East and West. (See: Tatarchenko 2008).

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useful arena from which computing cooperation could be launched, controlled and maintained ( Jussi Tuori 1.3.2011).

In the case of Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation, the offi cial governmen-tal authorities did not determine the interaction from the outset. Th ey only gave the fi nal approval. Th e normal scientifi c contacts between three specialists from Finland and the USSR constituted the starting point for the inter-governmental collaboration. Th e fact that individual experts were able to pursue their own goals and develop high-level cooperative plans unoffi cially among themselves challenges the impression of the Cold War as a period when all forms of cooperation across bloc barriers occurred within the context of rigid governmental control. At the same time, it raises a question: Did this type of unoffi cial collaboration have a more important role as an initial step in European East-West contacts than has hitherto been acknowledged in Cold War research?

Computing cooperation and politics

A shared experience among the Finnish computing experts is that politics was kept to a minimum in the meetings with their Soviet colleagues. Typically, no pro-Soviet propaganda was presented at gatherings organized in the USSR, and, although offi cial party representatives attended cybernetics meetings, they remained at the background.

In some cases the Soviet side deliberately wanted to keep its distance from politics and focus on computing. In the late 1970s a Finnish computer scientist, who was known to have pro-Soviet political views, spent some months in Moscow as a visiting researcher. Visit was organised as a part of Finnish-Soviet cybernetics cooperation and aft er it a telephone call was received from Anatol Dorodnicyn who commented rather unambiguously that ”they have enough politruks of their own, let’s stay in pure science in the future”. ( Jussi Tuori 1.3.2011 and 22.3.2012). Th us, the Finnish computing experts distinctly recall that the Soviet computing experts did not desire politically oriented individuals as partners – even those in favour of the Soviet ideology.

Two factors need to be taken into account when thinking about the absence of politics in the cooperation between Finnish and Soviet computer experts. First, there is the apolitical nature of computer science. Unlike in social sciences, or, for example, in history, the Soviet political climate only had a small eff ect on the sub-stance of computer science. Politics of course played an important role when of-fi cials sought to defi ne the position of computing in Soviet society aft er the World War II.12 Nonetheless, once computing had been publicly accepted as one of the

12 Th is fascinating story has been described in Gerovich 2002.

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focus areas of Soviet science and technology, no decisive diff erences existed be-tween Soviet and Finnish (or US, British, German, etc.) computing. In practice, this meant that even if Finnish and Soviet experts had diff erent research interests, they held a similar basic view on the essence of computing.

Th e second reason for why politics had practically no role in the Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation can be linked to the apparent non-entanglement of Anatol A. Dorodnicyn in Soviet political life.13 His interests focused on comput-ing, where Dorodnicyn could – thanks to his prominent position in the Soviet computing community – use his infl uence on many decisions. He was also willing and able to advance the development of the fi eld outside the USSR. Th e Ukrainian born Dorodnicyn supported the progress of computing systems in several Eastern Bloc countries, and in China he “is considered the father of electronic computing” (IFIP 1996).

Because of Dorodnicyn, it also became possible to form an offi cial Finnish-Estonian computing network. In the late 1980s Dorodnicyn supported the idea that Finland and the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic could begin direct bi-lateral computing contacts independent of the Finnish-Soviet working group on cybernetics. Th e study’s Finnish and Estonian informants have been unanimous in their opinion that the most important factor behind this decision was the good personal contacts Dorodnicyn had with the key fi gures in the Finnish and Esto-nian computing communities, including, for example, Jussi Tuori and Enn Tougu from Tallinn Cybernetics Institute (Hannu Jaakkola 15.12.2010; Reino Kurki-Suonio 22.10.2010; Ants Work 19.11.2011).

Th is example concerning the apolitical nature of East-West computing coop-eration provides additional confi rmation of the usefulness o foral history in Cold War research. Th e interviews with the key fi gures in the Finnish and Estonian computing communities have provided information that has revealed dealings that, under no circumstances, could have been entered into the minutes or any other offi cial documents.

Illegaltransfers of knowledge and technology: Historical reality or a collective myth?

Oral history is based on the information provided by individuals or groups of people, and, as with any historical information, it can include biased views, col-lective myths and blatant lies. Furthermore, human memory is oft en erroneous, and, even if this is not the case, informants can easily provide disinformation or

13 Lithuanian computer scientists have even labeld Dorodnicyn as a dissident who was against the Soviet Government. (Rindzeviciute 2011, 127)

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partial truths in interviews. Th us, in addition to the benefi ts of oral history, the problems relating to it need to also be discussed.

When analysing the computing-related knowledge exchange and technol-ogy transfer between Finland and the USSR, the limitations of oral history have become evident when talking about the illegal transfer of technology. Th e Finnish informants have suspected that the US computer technology under embargo was transported to the USSR via Finland. Nonetheless, without exception, these views and the examples provided have been based on second-hand information.14 Th ere are serious problems related to this type of anecdotal evidence and using it for research purposes is problematic.

Another diffi cult topic is the alleged information gathering that took place at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT). Even today, it is “common knowl-edge” among the older HUT engineers15 that visiting Soviet students and research-ers actively copied important journals, technical reports, and so forth; they then delivered these materials to the Soviet embassy in Helsinki. However, so far, no one who could actually verify the secret copying of offi cial documents has been found. It is now known that the Soviet embassy had a library with a good collection of scientifi c and technical publications (Merik Meriste 18.11.2011). Nonetheless, whether these materials were collected from the HUT or not is another question.

It needs to be emphasised that the aforementioned does not mean that the illegal transfer of computer technology from Finland did not happen or that Western publications were not secretly purchased via the Helsinki University of Technology. Nonetheless, when examining such a sensitive research topic, anec-dotal evidence cannot be considered suffi cient. Until more detailed information becomes available about the two matters, they remain more as collective myth than as historical reality.

EpilogueIn the traditional Cold War literature, the global division of the world into

two competing blocs defi nes the decades that followed World War II. Th e politi-cal and military race between the East and West is typically emphasised and little space is dedicated to cooperation between the Eastern Bloc and Western Bloc. From individual´s point of view, there seemed to be practically no contacts with the opposite side.

During the last decade, more and more remarks have been heard that atten-tion should also be paid to the interaction, cooperation and contacts that occurred

14 Typically, the intervieweesdistance themselves from the direct experiences with using expressions like “I heard from…” or “it was generally discussed that…”

15 Th is was the case not only in computing, but also in, e.g., chemical engineering and nuclear engineering.

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across the bloc barriers. Th ese views have materialised, for example, in a large Eu-ropean research project called Tensions of Europe,where transnational contacts in Cold War Europe have been one focus area and where several works concentrating on East-West cooperation have been published.16

In terms of individual research, Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy have recently emphasised the importance of intermediate-level actors – e.g. cit-ies, universities and civic organisations – when we are seeking to understand the cooperative networks of Cold War Europe. Th ese kinds of actors operated beyond the national level and, in many cases, formed a constant bridge across the Iron Curtain, which made contacts and information exchange possible in circumstances that were otherwise made complicated by the existing political conditions (Autio-Sarasmo and Miklóssy 2011).17

Th e viewpoints emphasised in contemporary Cold War research are in ac-cordance with the results from this study focusing on the computing relations between Finland and Estonia. With oral history, it has become evident that per-son-to-person interactions and unoffi cial contacts are of utmost importance when we want to understand the knowledge exchange and technology transfer that oc-curred across the Iron Curtain. Nonetheless, more case studies are still needed before it can be said how important these contacts were throughout Europe during the Cold War era.

BibliographyArchival material:Minutes of the meeting of the Finnish Science and Technology Committee 10. 4.1 970. Min-

istry for Foreign Aff airs archive.Minutes of the meeting of the Finnish Science and technology Committee 8. 5. 1970. Min-

istry for Foreign Aff airs archive.

Interviews:Hannu Jaakkola. Pori, Finland 15. 12. 2010.Reino Kurki-Suonio. Tampere, Finland 22. 10. 2010.Merik Meriste. Tartu, Estonia 18. 11. 2011.Jussi Tuori. Espoo, Finland 1. 3. 2011.Ants Work. Tallin, Estonia 19. 11. 2011. Jussi Tuori e-mail to the author 22. 3. 2012.

16 For an introduction to the program and its research, see http://www.tensionsofeurope.eu17 Th e research project “Cities and Transnational Interaction. Th e Cultural Contacts between West

and East European Urban Centres during and beyond the Cold War” at Tampere University is an example of a project that analyses intermediate-level actors in Cold War Europe.

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Literature:Autio-Sarasmo, S. 2011. “Knowledge through the Iron Curtain. Soviet scientifi c-technical

cooperation with Finland and West Germany.”In Reassessing Cold War Europe. Edited by Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy. New York: Routledge.

Autio-Sarasmo, S. and Miklóssy K. 2011. “Th e Cold War from a new perspective.” In Reas-sessing Cold War Europe. Edited by Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy. New York: Routledge.

Georg Trogemann, Alexander Yuryevich Nitussov, Wolfgang Ernst, eds. 2001. Computing in Russia. Th e history of computer devices and information technology revealed. Braunsch-weig: Vieweg.

Førland, T. E. 2009. Cold economic warfare. CoCom and the forging of strategic export controls, 1948–1954. Netherlands: Republic of letters.

Gerovich, S. 2002. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT press.

Gerovitch, S. 2001. “Mathematical Machines” of the Cold War. Soviet Computing, Ameri-can Cybernetics and Ideological Disputes in the Early 1950s. Social Studies of Science 31 (2).

Jensen-Eriksen, N. 2011. “CoCom and neutrality: Western export control policies, Finland and the Cold War, 1949–58.” In Reassessing Cold War Europe. Edited by Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy. New York: Routledge.

McGlade, J. 2005. “CoCom and the containment of Western trade and relations.” In East-West trade and the Cold War. Edited by Jari Eloranta and Jari Ojala. Jyväskylä studies in humanities 36. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä.

IFIP. 1996. “Obituary Acad. Anatol A. Dorodnicyn (1910–1994).” In 36 years of IFIP. Ed-ited by H. Zemanek. IFIP. 1996. http://www.ifi p.or.at/36years/36years.html.

Perks, R. and A. Th omson, eds. 2006. Th e oral history reader. London: Routledge.Paju P. and Durnová H. 2009. “Computing close to the Iron Curtain: Inter/national com-

puting practices in Czechoslovakia and Finland, 1945–1970.” Comparative Technology Transfer and Society 7 (3).

Rindzeviciute, E. 2011. “Internal transfers of cybernetics and informality in the Soviet Un-ion.” In Reassessing Cold War Europe. Edited by Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Mik-lóssy. New York: Routledge.

Rislakki, J. 2010. Paha sektori. Helsinki: WSOY. Susiluoto, I. 2006. Suuruuden laskuoppi. Venäläisen tietoyhteiskunnan synty ja kehitys. Hel-

sinki: WSOY.Tatarchenko, K. 2008. “Cold War origins of the International Federation for Information

Processing.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 32 (2).Th ompson, P. 2000. Th e voice of the past: oral history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

paper reported; 22. 2. 2013.paper reviewed; 14. 5. 2013.

paper accepted; 21.6.2013.

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UDK: 323.269.3:378.18(474.5)”1944/1990”; 316.75:378(474.5)”1944/1990”; 327.54(474.5:47)”1944/1990”

STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS’ RESISTANCE AGAINST THE SOVIET REGIME IN LITHUANIA IN 1944–1990*

Abstract: In 1944 Lithuania was occupied, annexed, and became one of the 15 constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Th e country underwent the programmed continuation of the far reaching and tragic destruction of Lithuanian education and culture. During the Soviet occupation Lithuanian professors and students not only had their fates determined by political changes but also had very few possibilities to survive in Soviet Lithuania. One of such possibilities was to resist the occupation and Sovietisation. By choosing the resistance of university students and professors against the Soviet rule as the subject of the research the Author poses two basic questions: First, what was the nature of Soviet policy of higher education? What were the forms of Sovietisation of higher education? And, second, what types of students and professors’ resistance were observed?

Key words: Resistance, students, professors, sovietization, Soviet Lithuania, Cold War

This article dwells on the issues of students and professors’ resistance against the Soviet regime in the period of 1944–1990 when Lithuania and its citizens were under Soviet occupation. By


Audronė JANUŽYTĖMykolas Römeris University

in Vilnius; [email protected]

* Th e Author is a member of international project Cities and Transnational Interaction. Th e Cultural Contacts between West and East European Urban Centres during and beyond the Cold War, head of the project: Professor Marjatta Hietala, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Tampere, Finland. Duration: 01.01.2010–31.12.2013, funding: Academy of Finland (Partner: Cold War Research Group-Consortium of the Aleksanteri Institute, Finland), see http://www.uta.fi /laitokset/historia/www/hitutkimus.php

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choosing the resistance of university students and professors against the Soviet rule as the subject of the research the Author aims at analysing the goals and forms of resistance as well as revealing the expected assistance from the democratic West in the years of the Cold War. Th e article suggests that individual and collective, armed and peaceful, legal and illegal resistance against Soviet regime initiated by part of the academic community aspiring to preserve Lithuanian identity served as a stimulus to re-establish the country’s independence in 1990. Th e article which is based on ample empirical material processed with the help of descriptive and document analysis methods poses two basic questions: First, what was the nature of Soviet policy of higher education? What were the forms of Sovietisation of higher education? And second, what types of students and professors’ resistance were observed?

Features of the Soviet Policy of Higher Education

In 1944 Lithuania was occupied, annexed, and became one of the 15 constit-uent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Th e country underwent the programmed continuation of the far reaching and tragic destruction of Lithu-anian education and culture. According to Juozas Ambrazevičius, “Th e Bolsheviks were obsessed with destroying everything: the existing social relationships, order, institutions and people heading them” (Aleksandravičius 2006, 186). All private schools, universities, institutes and public organizations were destroyed together with the national system of education.

Soviet rule had substantial aff ect on the curricula of the institutions of higher education. Th e organisational system of education and its curricula were adjusted in accordance with the Soviet Communist ideology and principles. Compulsory courses included the theory of Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism (until 1956) and the history of the Communist Party. University and school curricula as well as the basic textbooks were supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education in Moscow. Th e Ph.D. theses were decided in Moscow; therefore, all doctoral the-ses had to be written in Russian, so that Moscow professors could read and asses them. Th e Russian language dominated in the majority of institutions and was ensured priority status in schools. Th e humanities were subjected to strong Soviet indoctrination. Many historians and writers in the national literary traditions were excluded from curricula. Th eir books were classifi ed as reactionary nationalistic and were banned from all bookstores and libraries and stored in special library funds (spetsfonds) – the collections of forbidden materials. Scholars could gain ac-cess to these books only with special permits obtained from the Soviet authorities. In 1944–1951 600 thousands books were collected from libraries and destroyed. Among them were books by such historians as Antanas Alekna, Mykolas Biržiška,

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Petras Klimas, Augustinas Janulaitis, Jonas Totoraitis and others (see: Anušauskas 1996, 402; Proskyna 1990, 195–205). Strict censorship was enforced.

During the several post-war years a number of prolifi c professors having the greatest experience in diff erent fi elds of education were expelled from the Lithua-nian universities and institutes of higher education. Th ey were accused of oppo-sition to the Soviet authorities, Lithuanian nationalism, bourgeois background, apoliticality, absence of ideology, promotion of Western culture and participation in anti-Soviet actions. In 1944 Lev Karsavin, a renowned Russian philosopher, was dismissed from Vilnius University and later in 1946 was expelled from the State Art Institute of Lithuania. In 1949 Lev Karsavin was arrested and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment at penal labour camps for his “criminal relations with pro-monarchistic emigrants by the consent of international bourgeoisie as well as possession and dissemination of anti-Soviet literature”.1 In February 1945 a group of Vilnius University scientists were accused by the Soviet security service of for-mation of the anti-Soviet committee for the liberation of Lithuania. Th e arrests of Professor A. Žvironas, A. V. Jurskis, and Associate Professor T. Zaleckis followed. Th ey were sentenced to 10 years in concentration camps. In the midst of the mass deportations of 1948 102 professors from Lithuanian universities were accused of anti-Soviet activities, arrested, expelled from the universities and sentenced to imprisonment. Among them was Jonas Boruta, senior lecturer at the Faculty of Mechanics at Kaunas University, sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment for the appeal to the UNO Regarding the Illegal Incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR and Vytautas Andrius Graičiūnas, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Civil Engi-neering who was dismissed from the university on the grounds of his background, studies, and work in the US prior to 1933. In 1951 he was charged with collabora-tion with the US intelligence service and anti-Soviet propaganda and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in the concentration camp of Olzheras (Kemerovo region) where he died in 1952. In 1950–1951 lecturers J. Alekna, J. Kochas, V. Maknys, V. Martinkėnas and B. Pacenkaitė were dismissed from Vilnius Peda-gogical Institute on the grounds of the lack of political confi dence. In December

1 Professor L. Karsavin died on July 19, 1952 in the concentration camp of Abezo (Vorkuta, Siberia). It should be noted that Professor was exiled twice. First time he was deported from his native Russia and the second time – from Lithuania. From 1916 to 1921, i.e. until his exile from Soviet Russia by the Bolsheviks, Lev Karsavin held professorship at the Petrograd Institute of History and Philology (in 1920 was appointed rector) and delivered lectures on general history. Besides, in 1911–1921 he lectured at the Advanced Women’s Courses at St Petersburg / Petrograd University and in 1921–1922 was the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Petrograd University. In 1922 Karsavin settled in Berlin and from 1922 to 1925 worked as a professor at the French-Russian Institute of Science in Paris. In 1928 he was elected as an ordinary professor in the Department of General History at the University of Lithuania and held the offi ce until 1939. (See: Janužytė 2005, 273–277).

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of 1956 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania passed a decree urging the heads of the institutions of higher education and the primary organizations of the Communist Party to “decisively combat professors who dis-seminate bourgeois philosophy even by means of their dismissal”. As a result, in 1958 Rector Juozas Bulovas and lecturers Meilė Lukšienė and Vanda Zaborskaitė from the Department of the Lithuanian Studies were expelled from Vilnius Uni-versity. In 1977 Jurijus Radovičius was dismissed from the position of the lecturer of social sciences at Vilnius Civil Engineering Institute for the submission of 20 amendments to the project of the constitution of the USSR. Attempts to amend the project of L. Brezhnev constitution were viewed as unheard-of impertinence (see: Nakas 2008, 103–106, 110, 131, 155, 171, 190–191).

Since the Soviet occupants’ plan did not provide for any possibility of the restoration of the independent state they started the extermination of the Lithu-anian nation by annihilating its cultural and political elite. Th e most active and educated part of the society – the political, cultural, and economic elite – under-went repressions and was deported. Mass deportations continued from 1944 until Stalin’s death in 1953. Antanas Tyla believes that “the Soviet Union realized very well that a state cannot be destroyed without destroying its political, economic, educational and cultural elite” (Tyla 1992, xviv). For this reason, a large number of professors, school teachers, and students were imprisoned and exiled. During 1940–1953 some 132,000 Lithuanians were deported to the remote areas of the USSR: Siberia, the Arctic Circle zone and Central Asia, and another 200,000 people were thrown into prisons (150,000 of them were sent to concentration camps. (See: Kuodytė and Tracevskis 2007, 5). Among them were 7918 political, economic, educational and cultural professionals, 1892 students and 370 priests (Anušauskas 1996, 402). Jonas Pranas Aleksa, Juozas Jankevičius, Lev Karsavin, Petras Klimas, Marija Mašiotaitė-Urbšienė, Jokūbas Stanišauskis and others were among the deported educational elite. Th ey were sent to concentration camps and subjected to violence and humiliation, served as cheap labour force, suff ered from hunger and faced death. For example, Petras Klimas was arrested by the Soviets on September 19, 1945. Receiving a 10-year sentence he was deported to the concen-tration camp at Chelyabinsk (Southern Ural) where he was interned until 1955. Marija Mašiotaitė-Urbšienė was arrested on July 16, 1940 and was imprisoned for 13 years in various Russian prisons at Tombov, Saratov, Moscow, Kirov, Gorki and others until 1956. Professor J. Aleksa was deported to Tomsk district (Siberia) where he died in 1955. Associate Professor J. Jankevičius was deported to the con-centration camp in Vorkuta (Siberia) and died there in 1945. (See: Janužytė 1997, 162; Nakas 2008, 22).

In fact, during the Soviet occupation Lithuanian professors and students not only had their fates determined by political changes but also had very few pos-


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sibilities to survive in Soviet Lithuania. One of such possibilities was to resist the occupation and Sovietisation. Analysis of professors and students’ individual and collective resistance against Sovietisation in the occupied Lithuania can be divided into two stages.

Th e fi rst stage was the armed anti-Soviet struggle in 1944–1953. In the fi rst days of the second occupation Lithuanians fought for democratic and indepen-dent Lithuania. In 1945 around 30,000 partisans led by former offi cers, students, and teachers hid in forests. 37 percent of all regional commanders were former offi cers, 10 percent were teachers, 10 percent – policemen, 10 percent – students and others (Kuodytė and Tracevskis 2006, 22; Gaškaitė-Žemaitienė 2006, 35). Th ey hoped that Western democracies would ally against the USSR and help lib-erate Lithuania from the Soviet occupation. Th e hope of restoring independent and democratic Republic of Lithuania was related to the end of World War II and the principles set out in the Atlantic Charter. Among them was Juozas Lukša, student of architecture of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Kaunas University. J. Lukša was one of the renowned partisans who strived to establish connections with the West. He joined the Lithuanian Partisan Movement (hereinaft er – LPM) in 1946 and held the posts of the head of the organizational department, head of the press and propaganda department of Geležinis Vilkas (“Iron Wolf ) group of Tauras district, editor of partisans’ newspaper and adjutant to the Commander-in-chief. In 1946 he legalized himself adopting the name of J. Adomaitis and en-tered Vilnius Art Institute yet continued his partisan activities. In January of 1947 the convention of district commanders appointed J. Lukša commander of Birutė brigade of Tauras district in Kaunas and the head of the district’s department. In March Juozas Lukša together with Jurgis Krikščiūnas, student of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Kaunas University, were delegated by the leadership of the LPM to go to Poland and try to establish connections with the West. At the end of 1947 Juozas Lukša and Kazimieras Pyplys, student of the Faculty of Medicine at Vytautas Magnus University, were sent abroad once again visiting Poland, Sweden, West Germany and France on their mission. In 1948–1950 J. Lukša studied at French intelligence school in Paris and later attended American intelligence school in West Germany. On October 3, 1950 J. Lukša together with other trained par-tisans returned from Munich to Lithuania. He made attempts to establish Lithu-anian intelligence centre but was killed in an NKVD ambush on September 4, 1951. J. Lukša was posthumously awarded with the highest symbol of homage to partisans – Freedom Fighter Hero’s Name of Honour. Th e abovementioned stu-dent of the Faculty of Medicine at Vytautas Magnus University Kazimieras Pyplys and Petras Bartkus, student of Kaunas Higher Technical School, were among the 8 most prominent Lithuanian partisans awarded with the said symbols of honour (see: Nakas 2008, 79–86). Th e analysis of the partisan war on the international

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level suggests that it not only helped West European countries and the US con-tinue their policy of non-recognition of Lithuania’s incorporation into the Soviet Union but also encouraged the dissemination of impartial information regard-ing the occupation of the Baltic States, deportations and other repressive means employed against their citizens and their anti-Soviet resistance via the media and other channels. Th is implied that despite the Iron Curtain the occupied Baltic countries would be supported in their struggle against the Communist ideology. On the other hand, Lithuanians themselves realized that due to the changes in the geopolitical situation armed resistance had lost its effi ciency in the strive for independence. Th e change in the tactics and means of resistance was essential, as well as the establishment of new contacts with the West.

Th e second stage covered the period of unarmed anti-Soviet resistance in 1953–1990. Th e stage was characterized by both legal opposition including the writing of petitions, formation of ethno-cultural circles and establishment of hik-ers and environmentalists’ clubs as well as involvement into the Lithuanian Move-ment for Restructuring Sąjūdis and illegal yet peaceful means of resistance such as formation of underground organizations, publication of underground press, and participation in the manifestations, protests, and dissident movement. Th e article will focus on the students and professors’ activities in underground organizations and participation in protests.

Underground Organizations and Groups

Th e conditions for the unarmed anti-Soviet resistance were set up in 1950s and 1970s. Th e most active part of the society was professors, students, and priests. Th e fi rst form of unarmed anti-Soviet resistance was participation in various un-derground organizations and groups. In 1954–1972 some 205 diff erent under-ground organisations and groups totalling more than 1190 members were active in Lithuania. More than a half of the participants were under 18. Collaboration and conformism with the Soviet regime were unacceptable to the younger generation. Th is is obvious from the fact that in 1954–1972 80 percent of the members of un-derground youth organizations were school and university students (Anušauskas and Burauskaitė 2003, 14–15). Th e main activities of the organizations were built upon the main stages of the anti-Soviet resistance.

During the armed resistance stage the main objective of underground organ-izations and groups was to fi ght for the right to self-determination. For example, in 1950–1952 there was in active operation underground organization Unifi ed Labour Union which comprised Vilnius and Kaunas students. 15 students from Vilnius and Kaunas institutions of higher education who had graduated from Ariogala gymnasium and a teacher who was in touch with the underground par-


47

tisans formed the hard core of the organization. One of its members J. Petkevičius explains that the organization’s title was determined by the belief that only con-scious, creative, and well educated individuals can ensure the future of the Lithua-nian nation. Th e prime aim included struggle against the Soviet occupation and restoration of freedom and democracy in Lithuania. Members of the organization believed that two political conditions could make the restoration of statehood possible. Th e fi rst condition was related to the beginning of the Cold War, i.e. it was believed that the possible confl ict between the West and the East would facilitate the liberation of the Baltic States from Soviet occupation. Th e other con-dition was related to the election of the parliament, i.e. if the representatives of well educated younger generation formed the parliament, it would be easier to implant the ideas of democracy, justice, and publicity and destroy the totalitarian regime. However, the latter condition was regarded as unrealistic. Underground press which helped resist the spiritual genocide, get involved into ideological resist-ance and develop national identity was viewed as one of the basic means to restore Lithuania’s independence. Members of the Unifi ed Labour Union reached out to the partisans of Kęstutis district and the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters. Th ey would provide latest information on political situation in Lithuania and the world, publish articles and poems. For example, Algirdas Bitvinskas published a few poems in the partisan press under the pen-name Keranas. Besides, they would read and distribute among high-school students underground newspapers, such as the Laisvės varpas (“Th e Bell of Freedom”) and the Laisvės žvalgas (“Th e Scout of Freedom”) received from the partisans. Th e organization was exposed by the KGB aided by its agent Vytautas Murauskas, 4th-year student of the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University.2 In 1952 all members of the organization were arrested and convicted. Th e 15 members of the Unifi ed Labour Union included: Juozas Petkevičius and Adomas Lukaševičius, 4th-year students of the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University, Kazimieras Vaišvila, Jonas Bersėnas, and Liudas Gaižauskas, 4th year students at the Lithuanian Veterinary Academy, Vytautas Bukauskas, Vytautas Kaminskas, Tadas Jagelavičius, Jonas Kreimeris and Alfonsas Urbonas, 4th year students at Kaunas Polytechnic Institute, Algirdas Bitvinskas, Pranas Čižas, Jad-vyga Žukauskaitė-Petrauskienė, Bronislava Kryževičiūtė and Celestinas Ajauskas, 4th year students at Vilnius Pedagogical Institute and Kazimieras Banys, teacher at Pagojukas primary school in Betygala district. They were said to have been plotting to overthrow the Soviet regime and restore capitalism with the help of foreign imperialistic powers and sentenced to 25 years of imprison-

2 J. Petkevičius claims that V. Murauskas graduated from the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University, continued post-graduate studies in Moscow and was rewarded with the degree of the Candidate of Philosophic Sciences. Later he worked in the Department of Marxism-Leninism at the Institute of Medicine in Kaunas. Committed suicide in 1962 or 1963 (see: Bukauskas 1995, 19).

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ment in penal labour camps (5 years of deportation with confi scation of property and 5 years of suppression of civic rights). Th e court decision was unappealable.

J. Petkevičius and V. Bukauskas were exiled to Vorkuta camp (Siberia), K. Ba-nys, L. Gaižauskas, V. Kaminskas and J. Bersėnas – to Inta camp (Komi ASSR), P. Čižas, A. Bitvinskas, J. Kreimeris and T. Jagelavičius – to Vikhorevka camp (Bratsky district), C. Ajauskas – to Jezkazgan camp (Kazakhstan), A. Urbonas – to Kengir camp (Kazakhstan), J. Žukauskaitė-Petrauskienė and B. Kryževičiūtė – to Tayshet camp (Krasnoyarsk district). In 1956 following the review of political cases by the commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, the majority of them were released from the concentration camps. Upon their return to Lithuania part of the members of the Unifi ed Labour Union continued and fi nished studies started prior to the arrest. For example, Adomas Lukaševičius graduated from the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University thanks to Kęstutis Domaševičius, the Dean of the Faculty, and Juozas Bulavas, Vilnius University Rector (Rector Juozas Bulovas allowed 188 students subjected to repressions to re-enter the University); Jonas Kreimeris fi nished his studies at Kaunas Polytechnic Institute in 1957 thanks to its Rector Professor Kazimieras Baršauskas; Bronislava Kryževičiūtė could re-enter and graduate from Vilnius Pedagogical Institute only aft er sending a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR; Liudas Gaižauskas was allowed to continue his studies and in 1958 graduate from the Lithuanian Veterinary Academy thanks to its Rector Jonas Čygas. Some of them successfully defended Candidate of Sciences (post-graduate) dissertations though outside Lithuania. J. Kreimeris defended his dissertation of the Candidate of Technical Sciences in Kiev. In 1973 K. Banys fi nished his post-graduate studies at the Lithuanian Academy of Agriculture but due to his prior conviction was not allowed to defend his dissertation at the Academy. Th anks to Professor L. Kadžiulis he was allowed to defend the dissertation at Tartu Univer-sity in 1974. Th ere was an appeal to the Higher Attestation Commission against the results. Th e dissertation was handed over to experts but as no shortcomings were detected K. Banys was awarded the degree of the Candidate of Agricultural Sciences in 1976. Some of the members of the Unifi ed Labour Union, including V. Bukauskas, P. Čižas, and V. Kaminskas failed to re-enter the institutions of higher education and continue their studies. Later, in 1968 V. Bukauskas graduated from Kalinin Polytechnic Institute (Krasnodar district) and P. Čižas fi nished Bookkeep-ing College in Vilnius (see: Bukauskas 1995, 3–5, 7, 11, 14, 22–24, 43–44, 57, 87–89, 91, 160–161, 167, 177–178, 210–211), 216, 225, 244–245, 252, 275, 280, 286, 288).

During the period of unarmed resistance the main aims of underground or-ganizations and groups were as follow:


49

1) To constantly remind the Lithuanian society about occupation in order to preserve nationality and native language. For example, in 1956 students of the Lithuanian Conservatory inspired by the Hungarian Uprising formed the secret society called “Jaunalietuviai” (“Young Lithuanians”). 6 students were listed as its members: Virgilijus Juodakis, Algimantas Burdulis, Benediktas Algirdas Būbnelis, Konstantinas Petrauskas, Ričardas Skripkus and Antanas Venckus. Th ey were ag-grieved with the distortion of Lithuania’s historical past, restricted contact with visiting foreigners, compulsory communication with visitors in the Russian lan-guage and usage of the said language in the majority of documents issued by min-istries, factories, and other institutions. Th ey believed that Russians and other Russian-speaking people who permanently lived in Lithuania had either to learn Lithuanian or leave for their native land (Nakas 2008, 162–163).

2) To face down the Soviet propaganda and ideology by publishing and disseminating illegal publications and anti-Soviet proclamations. For example, in 1955–1958 the organization “Laisvė Lietuvai” (“Freedom for Lithuania”) at Pandėlis secondary school published 6 issues of the newsletter the Laisvės Balsas (“Th e Voice of Freedom”) enumerating the major objectives of the organization: 1) to strive for Lithuania’s independence; 2) to seek the withdrawal of the Soviet army; and 3) to organize free elections and create democratic system. In 1958 eight most active members were sentenced to terms of 7 to 8 years of hard labour in exile (Anušauskas and Burauskaitė 2003, 18). Quite frequent were isolated cases when students would draw the symbols of Lithuanian statehood in public places, raise the national fl ag, write anti-Soviet slogans or destroy Soviet symbols. For example, in 1973 R. Čekelis, student of J. Tallat-Kelpša Music School in Vilnius, was sentenced to 3 years in strict regime concentration camp in Mordovia for the dissemination of anti-Soviet proclamations on the eve of the 16th of February (see: Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1976, 137–138). On January 23, 1977 Vilnius University students R. Grigas, S. Marcinkevičius, V. Šinkūnas and G. Stankevičius and Vilnius Civil Engineering Institute students P. Skardžius, R. Augustinavičius, D. Nainys, A. Veršelis and R. Kuprionas were arrested and accused of stripping Lenin’s bas-relief off the wall of Vilnius Central Post Offi ce and throwing it over the Green Bridge into the Neris river. R. Grigas, S. Marcinkevičius, V. Šinkūnas and G. Stankevičius were excluded from the Komsomol and expelled from the University, whereas P. Skardžius, R. Augustinavičius, D. Nainys, A. Veršelis and R. Kuprionas were strictly reprimanded (Nakas 2008, 189–190);

3) To establish underground Catholic seminaries to eliminate the shortage of Catholic priests in the country.3 For example, in 1948 Algirdas Kavaliauskas

3 Th e Catholic Church was particularly persecuted in the Soviet times. Priests were banned from car-rying out their duties, professors who taught their students to be fi rm supporters of the Church and who were brave enough to criticize the anti-clerical policy of the Soviet regime were expelled from

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attempted to establish the illegal Catholic University of Lithuania (Th e Gate of Dawn College) for former ordinands, now students of Vilnius University and Vil-nius Pedagogical Institute, to train priests for partisan units at Vilnius University. However, it was not until around 1970–1972 that the secret Priest seminary, which was in operation until 1989, was founded. 27 priests who graduated from the semi-nary served not only in Lithuania but also in Belarus and Ukraine. A. Jakubčionis believes that the establishment of the secret priest seminary “not only meant a full-scale confrontation with the Soviet regime but also was a unique phenomenon in the Catholic world in the mid-20th century” ( Jakubčionis 2007, 14–15).

It should be noted that legal ethnographic, literary, and tourist clubs at the institutions of higher education were also persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Th eir activities were regarded as nationalistic as the members of the clubs held dis-cussions on contemporary world literature, collected and preserved objects of eth-nic tradition, cultural heritage, and historical memory. Ethnographic clubs were particularly popular among students, young people, and intellectuals in Kaunas and Vilnius. In 1967 about 200,000 young people took part in walks, folk festivals, and other events (Anušauskas and Burauskaitė 2003, 22). Th e Communist Party and the KGB imposed restrictions on the activities of the most popular clubs of regional studies. In 1971 the club of ethnographic studies “Romuva” and “Žygeiviai” (“Th e Hikers”) section at Vilnius Tourist Club at Vilnius University were suspended. On March 27, 1973 about 100 activists from Vilnius, Kaunas, and Riga were arrested in the course of the KGB campaign against Lithuanian and Latvian ethnographic clubs. Th ey were accused of anti-Soviet activities and charged with the formation of an underground organization intended for the dissemination of information about the off ences of the Soviet authorities against the Lithuanian nation, distri-bution of proclamations related to the commemoration of the 16th of February, preparation of underground publications and possession and distribution of illegal literature. Part of the students and professors were convicted and expelled from the institutions of higher education. For example, in 1974 the Supreme Court of the LSSR sentenced Antanas Sakalauskas, lecturer of the German language at Kaunas Polytechnic Institute, to 5 years of strict-regime imprisonment, Viktoras Kruminis, 4th-year student at the Polytechnic Institute, and Šarūnas Žukauskas,

Kaunas Priest Seminary. Among them were the Rector of Kaunas Seminary A. Vaitiekaitis, profes-sors J. Grubliauskas, A. Kruša, and others (Streikus 2006, 100, 102). Some of lecturers and students were discriminated, persecuted, and expelled from universities for their religious convictions or for active practises in the Catholic faith. For example, in 1973 Bronė Pupkevičiūtė, a candidate for the postgraduate degree in education who had been working as a senior fellow was expelled from the Institute of the Scientifi c Research of Pedagogy; Elena Šulinauskaitė, assistant in the Department of History, had to resign offi ce at Vilnius University; in 1976 A. Patackas, lecturer at the Academy of Agriculture and a candidate for the postgraduate degree in mathematics, was dismissed for the “observance of religious prejudices” (Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1978, 69).


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6th-year student at the Institute of Medicine in Kaunas – to 6 years in strict-regime prison and A. Mackevičius, student at Kaunas Polytechnic Institute – to 2 years of normal-regime imprisonment. Albinas Jonkus, student at the Faculty of Civil En-gineering Plumbing, were expelled from Kaunas Polytechnic Institute and Levija Mozerytė, 5th-year student, and Remigijus Morkūnas, lecturer at the Department of Surgical Dentistry, were forced to leave Kaunas Institute of Medicine (see: Lie-tuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1975a, 128, 136–137; Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1981, 247; Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1975b, 188). In 1973 Vilnius University students M. Božytė, V. Jasukaitytė-Ašmontienė and E. Stankevičius and post-graduate stu-dents E. Norvaišas and J. Trinkūnas were interrogated by KGB regarding their trips to the Urals, Siberia, and the Caucasus. Th ey were required to explain why they had visited concentration camps and socialized with Lithuanians in exile. Th e security agents accused them of attempts to establish connections with Armenian, Georgian, and other nationalists while in the Caucasus. Th e students under inter-rogation were scolded for their interest and idealization of the past which led to the dissemination of nationalist ideas. Th e questions were as follows: “Why do you sing exceptionally Lithuanian and partisan songs? Why do you collect data about the partisan movement? Why do you keep in touch with Lithuanians in Belarus, supply them with Lithuanian books and newspaper subscriptions and encourage their children to attend Lithuanian schools?” However, the essential question was how the activities of regional-studies clubs attracted such numbers of young peo-ple. (Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1974a, 262–263; Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1974b, 261–262). It was feared that the informal ethnographic and tourist clubs might escalate to wholesale informal social networks covering not only the Baltic countries but also the rest of the Soviet Union.

Protests

Th e second form of unarmed anti-Soviet resistance was participation in vari-ous protests. Th e fi rst protests and encounters with the Soviet militia occurred on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day in the cemeteries of Kaunas and Vilnius as the only monuments and national symbols related to independent Lithuania that es-caped Soviet demolition were preserved in the cemeteries of cities and towns. Th e very fi rst public protest took place on November 2, 1955 in Kaunas. Th e confl ict with the Soviet militia was provoked by the militia themselves as they tried to force the people who came to honour the fallen for the independence of Lithuania in 1918–1919 and light candles on their graves out of the cemetery. Th e protests which occurred in 1956 were related to the Hungarian Revolution. At that time students would disseminate anti-Soviet leafl ets, deliver speeches, and encourage to follow the example of the Hungarians, thus, publicly declaring their sympathy

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and support for the Hungarian nation. Th is led to the spontaneous manifesta-tions of professors and students on All Soul’s Day (November 2), 1956 in Vilnius and Kaunas. Th ey demanded freedom for Lithuania and expressed support for the Hungarian rebels. In 1956 85 people were arrested in Kaunas, among them were 81 students: 44 – from the Academy of Agriculture, 22 – from Kaunas Polytech-nic Institute and 15 – from Kaunas Medical Institute. Th e students were accused of antisocial behaviour concealing the political motives. For example, in 1956 two students Arūnas Tarabilda and L. Valiukevičius from the State Art Institute were accused of “denigrating and smearing the Soviet regime and distorting the Party’s national politics” and thus expelled from the institute and Komsomol (see: Na-kas 2008, 111, 172). All attempts to disrupt the commemoration of All Saints’ Day in 1957 failed in both cities. Some 2,000–3,000 people gathered to lay fl ow-ers and lit candles on the graves of national heroes in the cemetery near Vytautas avenue in Kaunas. While the militia were trying to push the crowd away from the monuments to the victims of the war of independence, a skirmish broke out and the crowd attacked the militia with stones and fl owed into the street. 102 protestors, including 11 students, were arrested. Th e students as well as other pro-testors were accused of disorderly conduct and sentenced to 15 days’ detention (Anušauskas and Burauskaitė 2003, 23). In Vilnius Rasos cemetery candles were lit on the grave of Lithuanian patriarch Jonas Basanavičius and those of soldiers fallen in the battles for Vilnius, Lithuanian anthem and other patriotic songs were sung. Some 200–250 students participated in the action. According to a KGB offi cial, nationalistic speeches were delivered by Professor Jonas Dagys, Rimantas Gibavičius, Albinas Bernotas and Arūnas Tarabilda (Nakas 2008, 144). Despite various repressive measures, smaller-scale commemorations of the All Saints’ Day and All Soul’s Day took place in various places throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Massive students’ protest against the Soviet regime emerged in Kaunas on May 18 and 19, 1972 following the self-immolation of Romas Kalanta. Th e nine-teen-year old night-school graduate set himself on fi re in protest against the Soviet system and conformist society in the square near Kaunas Musical Th eatre opposing the municipality building on May 14, 1972. His last words were “Only the system should be blamed for my death. Freedom for Lithuania!” R. Kalanta’s self-immola-tion evoked protests among young people. On May 18–19 several thousand young people, including school and university students and workers took part in the ral-lies. Th e protests against the Soviet regime were explicitly nationalistic in character, including chanting for Lithuania’s freedom, singing of the national anthem, and attacks on the symbols of the Soviet regime. Th e protestors confronted the Soviet militia and over 400 people were detained. Aft er protests 50 were punished under administrative law, 10 were put on trial and 8 were sentenced to imprisonment from 1 to 3 years. Th ey were charged with public nuisance and disorderly conduct


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which disturbed the peaceful life of the city and its citizens. In a couple of days the press and the radio informed that R. Kalanta was suff ering from a mental disorder and that hooligans and tramps were ramping around the city. For example, on May 26 TASS (Information Telegraph Agency of the USSR) reported that social ele-ments were rioting in Kaunas, the young man who set himself on fi re had mental problems and no political motivation was underlying the incident (Anušauskas and Burauskaitė 2003, 25) Th e West learned about the events in Kaunas from Western journalists in Moscow who broadcast the memorandum to the Secretary-General of the UNO regarding R. Kalanta’s self-immolation and the unrest in Kaunas all around the world (Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios 1972–1973, 16). Th e same spring 15 more people set or tried to set themselves on fi re. Summing up, it is noteworthy that R. Kalanta’s death in the spring of 1972 marked the end of active youth protests and the beginning of a new period of underground press and public struggle for the rights of Lithuanians which lasted until the initiation of the national movement Sajudis in 1988.

Conclusions

Summarising it can be said that aft er the Soviet occupation the country un-derwent the programmed continuation of the far reaching and tragic destruction of Lithuanian education and culture: all private schools, universities, and institutes were destroyed together with the national system of education; the organisational system of education and its curricula were adjusted in accordance with the Soviet Communist ideology and principles; university and school curricula as well as the basic textbooks were supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education in Moscow; the Russian language dominated in the majority of institutions and was ensured priority status in schools; the humanities were subjected to strong Soviet indoc-trination, i.e. many historians and writers in the national literary traditions were excluded from curricula. Th eir books were classifi ed as reactionary nationalistic and were banned from all bookstores and libraries and stored in special library funds (spetsfonds) – the collections of forbidden materials; strict censorship was enforced; a number of prolifi c professors having the greatest experience in diff er-ent fi elds of education were expelled from the universities and institutes; and the most active professors underwent repressions and were deported to the remote areas of the USSR: Siberia, the Arctic Circle zone, and Central Asia. Th ey were accused of opposition to the Soviet authorities, Lithuanian nationalism, bourgeois background, apoliticality, absence of ideology, promotion of Western culture and participation in anti-Soviet actions.

In fact, during the Soviet regime Lithuanian professors and students not only had their fates determined by political changes but also had very few possibilities

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to survive in Soviet Lithuania. One of such possibilities was to resist the occupa-tion and Soviet rule. Th us, in 1944–1990 part of universities students and profes-sors actively participated in the struggle against the Soviet Communist ideology by means of armed and peaceful, legal and illegal, individual and collective forms of resistance including the formation of underground organizations, printing of il-legal publications and organization of protests and rallies. Despite the aft er-eff ects of the Cold War decisive position of Western politicians regarding the non-recog-nition of the occupation of the Baltic States helped the Lithuanians understand that their strive for freedom is legitimate and supported by Western democracies. Th is bore fruit – on March 11, 1990 Lithuania became an independent state.

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Kuodytė, D. and Tracevskis R. 2006. Th e Unknown War. Armed Anti-Soviet Resistance in Lithuania in 1944–1953. Vilnius: Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.

———. 2007. Siberia. Mass Deportations fr om Lithuania to the USSR. Vilnius: Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.

Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios. 1972–1973. “Los Angeles Times, 1972 kovo 28–29: Murray Seeger pirmasis plačiai pranešė apie R. Kalantos susideginimą”; “N.Y. Times, 1972 m.


55

rugsėjo 8 d. Th eodore Shabad – apie 8 lietuvių teismą Vilniuje po Kalantos susidegini-mo”. 1974. In Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika: pogrindžio leidinys 1:16.

———. 1974a. ”Kas domino KGB”. In Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika: pogrindžio leidi-nys, 1972–1973, (6): 262–263.

———. 1974b. “Tardyti 23 lietuviai.” In Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika: pogrindžio lei-dinys, 1972–1973, 1 (6): 261–262.

———. 1975a. “Akcija prieš Lietuvos ir Latvijos kraštotyrininkus.” Lietuvos katalikų bažny-čios kronika: pogrindžio leidinys 1974–1975 2 (10):128–137.

———. 1975b. “Susidorojimas su kraštotyrininkais.” In Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika: pogrindžio leidinys, 1974–1975, 2 (11): 188–189.

———. 1976. “Teismai ir psichiatrinės ligoninės”. In Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika: pogrindžio leidinys, 3 (18): 137–142.

———. 1978. ”Kaunas”. In Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika: pogrindžio leidinys, 1976–1978, (4). 23: 69.

———. 1981. „Kaunas“. In Th e Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania: underground journal of human rights violations, with an introduction by V. S. Vardys, 1972–1974, 1 (5): 247.

Nakas, A. 2008. Vardan Lietuvos: pasipriešinimas okupacijoms aukštosiose mokyklose 1940–1991 metais. Vilnius: Technika.

Proskyna. 1990. “Išimtinių iš apyvartos knygų sąrašas Nr. 4”. In Proskyna, 4: 195–205.Streikus, A. 2006. “Th e Resistance of the Church to the Soviet regime from 1944 to 1967”.

In Th e anti-soviet resistance in the Baltic States, edited by Arvydas Anušauskas, 84–112. Vilnius: Pasauliui apie mus.

Tyla, A. 1992. “Th e History of Lithuania’s Survival”. In Lietuvos gyventojų genocidas = Geno-cide of Lithuanian people, vol. 1: 1939–1941: ix-xliv. Vilnius: Filosofi jos, sociologijos ir teisės institutas, Represijų Lietuvoje tyrimo centras.


paper accepted; 7. 7. 2013.

57

UDK: 323.12/.13(=411.16)(439)”1945/1989”(093.2); 791.229.2(439)”1975”

INTERPRETING THE SO-CALLED TABOO OF THE SHOAH UNDER THE KÁDÁR REGIME IN HUNGARY

Abstract: Th is paper focuses on the various receptions of the fi lm called Ghetto publicly screened fi rst in 1975 in Hungary. It aims to interpret to the ways in which themes brought up by the fi lm, such as the Shoah or the Jewish ghetto, were recognized on the one hand by politics and professionals, and on the other, by Jewish communities. Further this paper attempts to touch upon the taboo of silence enveloping Jews and the issue of Jewishness under communism.

Key Words: memory, Jew, Hungary, Kádár regime, communism, taboo, Jewish ghetto, Vergangenheitsbewältigung

The film called Gettó (Ghetto) was screened on January 24, 2012 at the Israeli Cultural Institute in Budapest As the fl yer said “Gábor Oláh’s work, done in 1974, focuses on the history of Budapest’s ghetto constructed in 1944. Th e fi lm is going to be screened for the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Israeli Cultural Institute. Following the screening the fl oor will be open for discussion with the director.” Later in an inter-view the director, Gábor Oláh explains that, “[w]ell, this fi lm was born at the cost of a battle or a fi ght and it managed to break a then-unbroken silence. (...) When the fi lm’s fi rst public screening ended our phones started ringing and they did not stop until dawn.”1 He also adds that there was a lively reaction to the fi lm from the younger generations’ part. Although Oláh was not there according to some

1 Th e interview was conducted by the author on February 9, 2012.

Professional article

Anna LUJZA SZÁSZ Eötvös Lóránd University,

Budapest; [email protected]

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witnesses accounts young people gathered at Dohány street2 on the following day and “those who had watched the fi lm were showing the others where the wall of the ghetto stood once.”

Th e fi lm is a documentary based on interviews in which the interview sub-jects recall their past and talk about their experiences under Nazi persecution including the anti-Jew laws; the yellow star, as the visible stigma on the Jewish population; the country’s German occuppation and the far-right’s rise to power; the deportations and the contstruction of the ghetto; and fi nally the liberation of the ghetto and the demolition of the ghetto wall.3 Th us the fi lm follows a chrono-logical order and for each episode invokes and draws on the memory of survivors. Oláh put advertisments to Új Élet („New Life”), that is a Jewish periodical, found-ed as a biweekly, in November 1945, which were saying that “[a] documentary will be made partly on the countryside’s mainly on Budapest’s ghetto-life. We kindly ask those who could help the work of the artists with personal testimonies (maybe with material memories, photos) please send a letter to the address of the Jewish Museum (1075– Budapest, Síp street 12.). In this letter please write down your name and address, as well as in a few sentences the memories you can recall. Th e applicants will be invited for a longer discussion later.”4 In the end approximately ten interviewees were shared their experiences invoking memories and traumas which might have been successfully repressed for a long time. Th e fi lm guided the viewer through the events which culminated in the end to the construction of the ghetto and parallel with this to deportations and mass killing, and in each stage, the interviewees gave voice to and interpreted the events. Th is kind of personalization of the storyline – and in accordance with it, the incorporation of everyday subject-matters which might evoke empathy and make the story consumable – was one of the main guid-ing principles for Oláh who has still been grateful for the interviewees that they managed to “overcome shyness” and “let themselves be involved in the project and in an honest and straightforward way give their testimonies”. On both occasions, following the fi lm screening at the Israeli Cultural Institute and in the interview I conducted with Oláh he mentioned not only the loud welcome of the fi lm by the younger generations to counteract, as he says, a “then-unbroken silence” but also

2 Th is is where the Th e Great Synagogue is located. Dohány street is one of the streets that enclosed the ghetto.

3 Anti-Jewish laws: 1920 – numerus clausus on the percentage of Jews in higher education, 1938 – the so–called I. Jewish law limited the percentage of Jews on religious grounds in business and intellectual sphere, 1939 – II. Jewish law limited the percentage of Jews on racial grounds in the industrial and business sector and in the intellectual sphere, 1941 – III. Jewish law banned mixed marriages, 1942 – IV. Jewish law prohibited Jews from buying agricultural properties and bound them to sell their lands; German occuppation of Hungary: March 19, 1944; liberation of the Jewish ghetto: January 18, 1945.

4 Új Élet 29 (February 15, 1974).


59

the attempts that either under the veil of professionality or behind close doors5 aimed at preventing the director from successfully broadcasting the fi lm on TV in 1975.

What has been interested me since I fi rst saw the fi lm is its reception. More precisely I intended to look beyond the interpretation of the director and explore the ways in which the Jewish communities6 and the professional-political circles reacted upon both its content and visual images in 1975, following its fi rst public screening.

How was it possible that despite the fact that the assertion of Jewish iden-tity and the expression of anti-semitic views became a taboo under communism – being aware that it was the harshest from 1948 till the end of the 1960ies – the fi lm was produced under the auspecies of the TV Documentary Department and broadcasted by the party-controlled TV in prime time, that was 21:45, Friday, Januar 17, 1975? Why did the fi lm not echo silence but on the basis of the warm response as Oláh explained, rather provided the occasion for a Jewish community revival? What is the relationship between silence and violence, further what does the “taboo of silence” mean in this context and what kind of role it plays in the life or a given community? Is silence what is not said because it need not be said or is it what is not said because it cannot be said? I intend to unfold these questions in the following.

First I will provide the socio-historical context of the subject matter and take a closer look at how the communist regime shaped and controlled the existence of the Jewish population. Th en on the grounds of this knowledge I will discuss on the one hand the reactions of the political and professional reception, and on the other, refl ections on the fi lm on behalf of the Jewish community.

In Hungary there were no considerable political confl icts which would have triggered, – as they did in Russia, Poland, the Baltic states, Romania or in Czecho-slovakia aft er the fi rst world – the formation of autonomous Jewish political orga-nizations. Th e Hungarian political elite, let it be of Jewish or of non-Jewish origin, supported the emancipation and integration of the Jews as well as fought against the off and on arising waves of antisemitism. Th at is to say that the rather tolerant political environment did not encourage or necessitate the emergence of various ethnic-religious groups who would have competed with each other for the support

5 Th e night before it went on TV, as Oláh explains, the fi lm rolls were put in front of the studio room and the following day they discovered that a „roll of voice” and a „roll of images” were missing. Luckily those two rolls did not belong together and somehow they managed to eliminate the problem.

6 Hereby I would like to note that I am aware that I generalize in cases I write ’Jewish community’. Th is paper also wishes to emphasise that the Jewish population was not homogenous at all in Hungary and I use ’Jewish community’ as a synonym for ’Jewish population’.

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of the Jewish population and therefore, for “self-marketing purposes”, would have provided an identity diff erent from the others. As a consequence of the rather quick assimilation into the Hungarian society no secular and autonomous Jewish culture came into existence. Although in most of the political debates and politi-cal decision-making processes Jewish politicians followed the rules of mainstream politics, still there were issues7 which forced them to pave their own way and de-velop a specifi c understanding of how they perceive their future of the Hungarian Jewish population (Kovács A. 2003; Győri Szabó 2009).

A new, younger generation of Jew stepped on the stage of politics in the 1880’s which appeared to be more successfull in terms of applying the tools of modern politics in order to win the support of the Hungarian political elite and to represent the interests of the Jewish people. However the politics which was based on the ideas of emancipation and liberalism and managed to be the dominant force of the Hungarian politics as such slowly and surely started to loose signifi -cance and validity. Th us aft er the fi rst world war it became nothing but a marginal stream in the fi eld of rapidly changing power relations (Kovács M. 1997.; Kovács A. 2003; Mendelsohn 1983).

I would not like to get into details of what happened in the interwar period neither analyse the consequences of the Hungarian political desicions and other relevant social processes that lead to the desctuction of thousands of Jews.8 How-ever I would rather like to focus on the post-1945 period, that is also more relevant from this paper’s point of view, and see the forces that are either driving or block-ing movements in the formation of Jewish social life as well as explore the ways in which the experience of the Shoah is remembered.

Approximately 200.0009 Jew survived the Shoah. (Stark, 1995.) Nearly the entire Jewish population of the countryside perished and those were more likely to survive in Budapest who were better integrated in the majority society and

7 Th ese issues were the following: the separation of the neolog and orthodox Judaism; the emergence of antisemitism; the reception of the Jewish denomination. For instance the reaction of the Hungarian Jewish politicians on the emerging antisemitism form the 1880’s (1882–83: Tiszaeszlár Aff air) was „disciplined” and moderate while the liberal, non Jewish MPs of the Parliament expressed their objection in public. However, in „backstage”, the state-recognized organization of the neolog stream of Judaism made signifi cant arrangements to counterbalance the hatred targeting the Jews, such as hiring Károly Eötvös, country-wide famous politician-lawyer, to represent the Jews in the aff air (Kovács A. 2003, 6).

8 For further reading see for example: Stark Tamás, Zsidóság a vészkorszakban és a felszabadulás után, 1939–1955. (Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 1995); Randolph L. Braham, Th e Destruction of the Hungarian Jewry: a documentary account, 2 volumes. (New York: Pro Arte, 1963); Karsai László, Holokauszt. (Budapest: Pannonica, 2001) or websites with Holocaust bibliography: http://www.magyarholokauszt.hu/mh011131.html; http://www.emlekezem.hu/bibliografi a/

9 Th ere is no offi cial number of the dead: it could be between 60.000 and 450.000 (Karsai 1994).


61

thus had more chance to get fake documents or shelter. As a matter of fact the post-war Jewish population was demographically urban, secular, middle-class and well-educated (Kovács A. 2003). However the Jews were said to be “destined to assimilate” (Karády 1985. quoted by Kovács A. 2003), the idea of an autonomous Jewish politics which could then critically review the discriminative laws or raise the problem of responsibility and the ideology of Zionism became appealing for a signifi cant number of Jews. All the more other burning issues, such as the loss of material possessions, the sudden impoverishment of people, the huge number of orphans and broken families were providing new tasks for the Jewish community. Th us on the one hand the infrastructure of a self-maintaining, independent Jewish community was developing and gaining more and more infl uence within the Hun-garian Jewish public life, on the other, communism was becoming more powerful and to the year 1949 political pluralism ceased to exist. Th is proved to be fateful also for the recently born Jewish institutions since as the leading ideologists of the communist party made it clear in the beginning: “[T]here are two ways of solv-ing the Jewish question in Hungary: a reactionist and a progressive. (...) Zionism’s ambition to restore the rotten national consciousness of the Hungarian Jews goes against the Hungarian national development and therefore reactionist. (...) Th e progressive way of solving the Jewish question leads to the complete assimilation of Jews.” (Molnár 1946., quoted by Kovács A. 2003) Th at is to say that by the time the communist party established its monopol situation in all spheres of life, that is around the year 1949, the Jewish political intitutions lost their autonomy and went back on the same track which is the cooperation with the dominant power forces in exchange for some benefi ts.

Simultaneously with the destruction of parliamental democracy and with the abolition of both political parties and the freedom of speech one could have witnessed a growing pressure on religious communions with the aim of suspending the operation of their institutions and cutting their social infl uence. More specifi cly the communist regime nationalized religious schools, confi scated religious proper-ty, propagated atheism in schools and arrested as well as accused with treason and conspiracy those religious leaders – for example: Catholic Cardinal József Mind-szenty and Protestant Bishop Lajos Ordass – who attempted to resist. Th e Jewish religious communion was not an exception to the communist politics either: the agreement between the communist party and the Jewish communion came to an end on December 7, 1948 (Csorba 1990). Th e contracting parties agreed upon the nationalization of schools, optional religious education and the merge of the neolog and orthodox streams of Judaism by 1950. Since then the leadership of the community was under the direction of the „National Representation of Hungarian Israelites” (operated under the guidance of the Department of Religious Aff airs, an agency of the Ministry of the Interior), while religious aff airs were handled by

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two rabbinical committees—one Neolog and one Orthodox; the chairman of each committee was recognized as chief rabbi of the respective religious trend.10 I also have to mention here the Rabbinical Seminary – the one and only seminary in Eastern Europe – which was considered as an autonomous and separate institution from the Jewish leadership and managed to preserve its distinctness and progres-sive thinking as well as its prestige as being one of the most signifi cant centers of Jewish intellectual life in Eastern Europe (Kovács A. 2003; Győri Szabó 2009).

Furthermore Jewish identity was kept registered, the demonstration of secu-lar Jewish identity and Zioism were used as false allegation against people and there was an eff ort to limit the number of Jews in higher positions. (Kovács A., 2003) While the ex-zionist and orthodox Jews perceived the regime as inherently antisemitic, those who did not follow the Jewish traditions or religion considered it as “terrible” but not as “terrible” as the one preceded it. Th us the dilemma be-came for the Jewish leadership how to manoveur in a political space that is uni-polar on the one hand but multipolar on the other hand by the various Jewish interests. As it turned out by the mid-50ies, not only the majority of the Jewish population got allienated from Jewish politics11 and deprived it from its legitimacy but also Jewish politics lost its alliances and evolved into an enclave in Hungarian politics (Kovács A. 2003,).

Aft er the Revolution of 195612, whose reception was not unanimous among the Jews13, according to some estimates 100–200.000 Jews were in Hungary (Győri Szabó 2009, 284). Th e demographical change was due to the fact that Jews once living in the countryside either emigrated mostly for Israel or other parts of the free world or moved to Budapest and the religious Jews from younger generations of the middle-class left the country too. Nevertheless under a milder communist leadership by János Kádár14 the National Representation of Hungarian Israel-ites, were led by Endre Sós (1957–1966) and Géza Seifert (1966–1976) (Győri Szabó, 2009).

10 www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org11 Th e communist party decided in 1951 to resettle the former „ruling classes” to inhospitable places

of the Hungarian Great Plain. Th e Jews were in panic too and sought for the protection of the Jewish leadership which, apart from a few times, off ered its assistance to the party and left its community defenseless.

12 23 October 1956 – 10 November 1956: revolution in Hungary agains the communist dictatorship led by Mátyás Rákosi.

13 Th e orthodox Jews welcomed the revolution perceiving it as a liberation from an atheistic dictatorship as well as saw the chance of leaving the country while the secular Jews were afraid of a regime change which might have brought back antisemitism and fascism to the political scene. 14 János Kádár was a communist leader and a General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Party fom

1956 till 1988.


63

Considering the fact that the Jewish community could only have been de-fi ned in religious terms it excluded immediately the majority of the Hungraian Jews being secular. Th e National Representation of Hungarian Israelites lacked further social support due to its anti-zionist and anti-Izraelian attitude, severing the community from contact with communities in the West and in Israel, as a result of which the organization became an insignifi cant, invisible and isolated entity on the map of Hungarian politics. However the communist state “off ered its help” in fi ghting against antisemitism it laid down rigid conditions for doing so, among which the most important was that Jewish organizations could only operate on religious grounds. In other words, assimilation and identifi cation with the Hungarian nation, that is the acceptance of the communist regime and its pro-gramme, form the right to protection from antisemitism. Hereby I would only like to mention – as I did the same with the Shoah – the Eichmann trial in 1961 and the eight-day war between the Arabs and Israel state in 1967, as two events which infl uenced and severed the relations between Jews and non-Jews in Hungary and rather focus on the issue of the compensation of victims of Nazi persecution under the Kádár regime. On the basis of the Reparation Agreement between Israel and West Germany, signed in 1952, West Germany was to pay for the slave labour and persecution under the Shoah as well as for the property confi scated by the Nazis. Th e Hungarian Jews were not involved in the compensation process. Neither did they receive any compensation when West Germany enacted a law to provide com-pensation and restitution for Holocaust survivors disregarding nationality. Alone in the Soviet block, Hungary appealed to the West German Constitutional Court and aft er a few years of dispute and ignorance in 1971 the Hungarian party re-ceived 100 Million DM: 21300 “living person”, 28500 heir, 600 victims of medical experiments and 18000 victims of property confi scation (Győri Szabó 2009).

As it seems like between 1956 and 1989 the gap between the offi cial Jewish political institutions and the Jewish community was yawning. Alternative voice could only make a diff erence in Jewish politics from “outside” that is from outside of the offi cial Jewish institutional framework. However the communist regime re-garded the Jews as an enitity and “Jewish issues” were always on the agenda, it was required from the utterly dependent Jewish leadership not to mention it in public. Th is pure collaboration did not bring any benefi ts to the Jews but paralyzed both the community and its so-called leadership when in 1989 the communist regime collapsed (Kovács A. 2003; Győri Szabó 2009).

Th e fi lm was screened in the year 1975: in the peak of the compensation process in which period there was dependency and isolation but due to the govern-ments newly imposed, more liberal internal policy there was more space for the Jewish communities to manoveur. First I will look at the political and professional reception of the fi lm. Th e Documentary Department of the TV as Dezső Rad-

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ványi, former member of the secret police force then the head of the Department, described it was an atelier which “generates competition and creates a state of con-stant excitement stemming from the fact that we would like to outshine previous years’ works”.15 “Th e idea of making a fi lm for the anniversary of the liberation of the ghetto” – he continues – “was requested by Gábor Oláh. (...) We made the decision that both the editor and the cameraman should come from a younger generation so they can interpret and fi lm the horrifying past events likewise.”16 Finally, in 1975 it made a little but appreciative echo, it was “moderate, nice and warning”.17 As Rad-ványi emphasised that the fi lm was made to celebrate the liberation of the ghetto so were critiques underpinned the legitimacy of this interpretation by bringing up in their texts war stories deprived from any Jewish connotation: “A friend of mine, K. Kostas has been peacefully living in Hungary for decades. He is introverted in the daytime, does not talk too much, but at night-time he makes assaults, shouts and imitates gunfi re. What pain and sorrow could have this 65 years old Greek gone through who is suff ering from nightmares and it is impossible to wake him up from them even three decades aft er the war?”18 Focusing on the ghetto would have represented the presecution of Jews, the attempt to make them invisible and not worth living and it could also have become a visual image invoking informa-tion about „what happened?” along a continuous stream of images. Instead of it the momentum of liberation gains signifi cance. Liberation of the ghetto in this context becomes the metaphor of liberation from fascism and a fi ght for “world peace”. Th is metaphorical understanding “conveniently forgots entirely to mention the Jewish and other racial victims of Nazi persecution” – writes Mary Fulbrook in her analysis of German national identity aft er the Shoah (Fulbrook 1999. 94), claiming that in that complex, antagonistic post-war power struggle between East and West Germany both parts sought to “anchor new partial identites in diff ering reinterpretations of selected as-pects of a common past” (Fulbrook 1999). Th at is to say that while East Germany was founded upon the defeat of “imperialist-monopolcapitalist fas-cism”, West Germany fell into a “collective amnesia” regarding its past which was followed later by the sense of “collective guilt”.

I would argue that regarding the professional-political reception of the fi lm there was a very similar underlying mechanism which brought success but only if the fi lm stayed within the context of “liberation”. Other alternative

15 “Az élet nyújtja a példát. Látogatás a tévé dokumentumfi lm osztályán,” Filmvilág, February 15, 1975: 29–30.

16 Ibid.17 “Gettó. Egy történelmi dokumentumfi lmről,” Filmvilág, February 15, 1975: 32.18 Ibid.: 31.


65

ways of making sense of the fi lm were not understood or accepted and thus were quickly marginalized in public by politics. Considering the fact that the Getto failed to get on the list of competing fi lms at the Documentary Film Festival at Miskolc, 1976, a year aft er its fi rst public TV screening may harmonize with the above. It suggests that the meanings attached to it were not unanimously accepted and having been deprived of the context, which would have been in this case that it had not been screened on the day the Budapest ghetto was liberated, could have led to diff erent interpretations. With a varying emphasis it might have given voice to the silenced Jewish communal life or would have made available for popular historical consciousness certain themes and topics, such as the Nazi period and the experience of the Jewish persecutions.

“Th e Hungarian Television was broadcasting a long documentary fi lm on the life in the ghetto. Th ee were images about undernourished children and crowds of people tediously walking on the streets of the ghetto. According to the offi -cal data 100.000 Jew got behind the walls of the ghetto in 1944.”19 Th is short report was written in one of the issues of Új Kelet (New East), a Zionist Jewish political newspaper in Hungarian language. It was fi rst issued in 1918 in Cluj, Romania, then following the Hungarian annexation of Cluj in 1940, the paper was banned and revived in Tel-Aviv in 1948. Following this piece of text I assumed that the fi lm was well-received within the Jewish community, however following my research I could hardly discover any signs of talking about this subject-matter. I conducted a research on the two most popular Jewish papers and looked through all the issues between 1974 and 1976 and I found barely nothing worth putting down in relation to the reception of the Ghetto. Besides Új Kelet the other paper was the already mentioned Új Élet which was from 1945 until 1951 the “A mag-yar zsidóság lapja” (the paper of the Hungarian Jews), dealing with actual politi-cal and communal aff airs, and from 1951 until 1989 “A magyar izraeliták lapja” (the paper of the Hungarian Izraelites), carrying only religious connotations and being only concerned with the internal aff airs of the Jewish religious community of Hungary (Győri Szabó 2009, 303; Th e Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe; Scheiber 1993).

However what I did fi nd in these papers was that they were dealing in a vast amount of articles with the past, especially with the experience of the Shoah and were attempting to incorporate those memories to communal life, establish a rela-tionship to them and transfer them to various modes of representation.20 Budapest

19 “A gettó-felszabadulás évfordulója a magyar televízióban,” Új Kelet 8064 ( January, 1975).20 In addition to that apart form the period of 1948–1960, there was a signifi cant number (and from

the mid 1970ies an increasing number )of books published each year under the topic of the Shoah. Th is statement is based upon my research on the rich bibliography of a website dealing with the education of the Holocaust: www.emlekezem.hu. While in 1945–1946, each year more than 20

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was described as “a kind of ghetto: a sinful government, a sinful period of history, a sinful regime which exposed hundreds and hundreds of people to death”21 which was freed from its guilt by the Soviet Army, however, “even if claim that January 18, 1945 – at least symbolically – the year of the liberation of the ghetto we shall not forget that special hardship which those suff ered from who survived in that ghetto – in a narrower sense.”22 Articles talked about the “photo documents, literary representations and material possessions”23 which prove that “the furnace of un-bearable pains”24 was the segregated area in the heart of Budapest where “mummies were waiting nothing but the complete destruction”25. Besides invitations to com-memorations and then summaries on them, there were short stories and testimonies written in various styles and recalling diff ering episodes of time. Th ere was even one emphasising that “there is a very low inclination to remember ourselves those mo-ments which brought some laugh to people’s faces”.26 Th en the author tells the story of a man, a member of the Arrow Cross Party27, who was chasing and wanted the shoot down a Jew but out of a sudden his pair of trousers got torn off and everyone could see that he was not wearing an underwear. As if happy forgetting “can only arrange itself under the optative mood for happy memory” (Ricoeur 2006, 505).

Th us I would argue that the theme of the Shoah was party considered as a taboo. Th e striking absence of ‘the Jew’ from public media or from offi cially recog-nized history books (Kovács A. 2003; Győri Szabó 2009; György 2011) meant on the other hand, a rather powerful presence of these issues within the Jewish com-munity. As we have seen in relation to the compensation of the victims, besides religious questions Jewish circles were allowed to discuss the memories of Nazi persecution, the Shoah (Győri Szabó 2009, 337). However the texts in Új Kelet and Új Élet suggest that their treatment of the memorialization and commemo-ration of the events was more than a one-time eff ort but constituted an essential element of communal existence: restored the capacity of acting as a community and drew a horizon for future achievements. Regarding the latter, at the 30-year anniversary of the liberation of the ghetto in the message of the Director of the Bu-

books got published approaching the Holocaust from various perspectives, aft er almost a decade of silence from the 1960ies onwards one could witness a slow but sure increase. In the year 1975 I counted 13 books and 6 of them were presonal recollections of the past.

21 “Szabadság és kényér,” Új Élet 30 ( January 15, 1975).22 Ibid.23 Új Élet 29 ( June 15, 1974).24 “Szabadság és kényér,” Új Élet 30 ( January 15, 1975).25 Ibid.26 Bálint Lajos, “Menekülések,” Új Élet 29 (February 15, 1974).27 National Socialist Party led by Ferenc Szálasi and was on the Hungarian government between

October 15, 1944 and March 28, 1945.


67

dapest Rabbinate, László Salgó, envisions a community which is not only founded upon terrible memories of past experiences but on cooperation, power of will and future aspirations for a better world.28

What I would like to suggest with the above is that the lack of archived documents on the fi lm’s reception could profoundly be attributed to the fact that the Jewish community was already conscious about the Shoah. In the global space of memory politics the memory of the Shoah has been playing a decisive role: through socio-historical processes it became detached from a particular historical event and became a central tragedy of humanity in modern time. Considering the memorialization of the event, besides an obsessive attention attached to the it, since the 1960es, that produced standardized relations based upon and defi ned by the Western Jewish Holocaust narrative and stimulated an unprecedented uni-versalization of moral and political responsibility (Alexander 2002), communities have started to produce their own interpretation of it for symbolic or fi nancial recognition. In our case personal recollections of the past were not only dicussed in family circles29 but shared with the wider public through printed media which created reading publics and constituted as well as defi ned a Jewish community.30 However controlled the offi cial public sphere was for Jewish subject-matters, the appearence and operation of memories in the alternative Jewish public space cre-ated a vivid and stimulating environment in which the fi lm could only have reso-nated with and not produced memories.

Th is paper would also argue, being aware of its own limitations, that the contemporary usage of the so-called taboo is unprecise and is a mistifi cation of the Kádár regime. Mistifi cation in the sense that it veils under the idea of compromise the various ways in which relations of domination and relations of resistance were still in a dialectical game under communsim. Further, I would add that “silence” has become a topos, an aesthetic attachment of the Kádár regime which tends to overlook the details, but mediate political interests and produce hegemony while obstructing our coming to term with the past.

Bibliography:Books:Alexander, J. C. 2002. “On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: Th e Holocaust from

War Crime to Trauma Drama.” In European Journal of Social Th eory 5 (1): 5–85.

28 Salgó László, “A pesti gettó felszabadulásának 30. évfordulójára,” Új Élet 30 ( January 15, 1975)..29 As Oláh writes in his memoire: Oláh Gábor, Ígéret (Budapest: Tevan Kiadó, 2003)30 Resonating with Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Refl ections on the Origin and

Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).

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Braham, R. L. 1963. Th e Destruction of the Hungarian Jewry: a documentary account, 2 vol-umes. New York: Pro Arte.

Csorba, L. 1990. “Izraelita felekezeti élet Magyarországon a vészkorszaktól a nyolcvanas évekig.” In. Hét évtized a hazai zsidóság életében, edited by Lendvai L. Ferenc, Sohár Anikó and Horváth Pál, 61–190. Budapest: MTA Filozófi ai Intézet.

Fulbrook, M. 1999. German National Identity aft er the Holocaust. Cambridge: Blackwell.Győri Szabó, R. 2009. A kommunizmus és a zsidóság az 1945 utáni Magyarországon. Buda-

pest: Gondolat.György, P. 2011. Apám helyett. Budapest: Magvető.Karsai, L. 2001. Holokauszt. Budapest: Pannonica.Kovács, A. 2003. “Magyar zsidó politika a háború végétől a kommunista rendszer bukásáig.”

In Múlt és Jövő, 3: 5–40.Kovács, M. M. 1997. “A kisebbségek nemzetközi jogvédelmének politikai csapdája.” In Th e

Holocaust in Hungary. Fift y Years Later, edited by Randolph L. Braham and Attila Pók, 137–146. New York: Columbia Univesity Press.

Mendelsohn, E. 1983. Th e Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars. Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press.

Molnár, E. 1946. “Zsidókérdés Magyarországon.” Társadalmi Szemle, 5: 326–334.Oláh, G. 2003. Ígéret. Budapest: Tevan kiadó.Ricoeur, P. 2006. Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago: Th e University Chicago Press.Scheiber, S. 1993. Magyar zsidó folyóiratok és hírlapok bibliográfi ája, 1847–1992. Budapest:

MTA Judaisztika Központ.Stark, T. 1995. Zsidóság a vészkorszakban és a felszabadulás után, 1939–1955. Budapest: MTA

Történettudományi Intézete.Articles:Bálint, L. “Menekülések.” In Új Élet 29 (February 15, 1974).Salgó, L. “A pesti gettó felszabadulásának 30. évfordulójára.” In Új Élet 30 ( January 15,

1975).“A gettó-felszabadulás évfordulója a magyar televízióban.” In Új Kelet 8064 ( January, 1975). “Az élet nyújtja a példát. Látogatás a tévé dokumentumfi lm osztályán.” In Filmvilág. February

15, 1975: 29–30.“Gettó. Egy történelmi dokumentumfi lmről.” In Filmvilág. February 15, 1975: 32. “Szabadság és kényér.” In Új Élet 30 ( January 15, 1975).



Part IIGeopolitical Realignments

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UDK: 327.54(497.1):930 ; 321.64(497.1)”1945/...”

COLD WAR BELGRADE: PARALLEL REALITIES AND ILLUSION OF POLARIZATION*

Abstract: Disappearance of great European continental empires during the WW I left Eastern Europe in a state that soon proved to be only contemporary. National and social revolutions disturbed seemingly tranquil order and opened new questions that gradually turned discontents and impatience into totalitarian ideologies and movements. Eastern Europe inherited weak institutions, remnants of feudalism and rural poverty, nationalisms, clerical infl uences and defi ciency in modern urban development (Aldcroft 2006, 3−16). Aft er the WW I Eastern Europe became probably the biggest victim of rising totalitarism, for it used empty political, social and ideological space that appeared on the ruins of outdated legitimist order. Th e rise of totalitarism was so powerful that its power was divided to both belligerent sides during WW II. Allies victory over the Axis therefore wasn’t historical defeat of totalitarism, neither general success of democracy.

Key Words: Cold war, Belgrade, Eastern Europe, totalitarism

Eastern Europe paid the price that can’t be explained solely by its unfavorable conjuncture. Th e communism ran down Eastern Europe in a fury of the WW II. Th at process did not occur solely due to weakness of pre-war democracies and Allies priorities: communism became one of direct historical legacies of nazism. In half a century that followed, Eastern Europe paid the price defi ned by international relations from pre-war times, and those established during war between the Allies and the Axis. Czechoslovakia, the most democratic of pre-war Eastern Europe countries, was occupied by Germany


Nikola SAMARDŽIĆFaculty of Philosophy

University in [email protected]

* Th is article was developed as part of the project “Modernization of the Western Balkans” (No. 177 009) fi nanced by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia.

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in 1938. Th at’s where sovietization met most resistance, until beginning of 1948, than Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968. Th e communism fi nally went down in the Velvet revolution of 1989, while nationalism, also totalitarian in origin, helped its disintegration.

Yugoslavia, together with Czechoslovakia, belonged to democratic, West-oriented European states. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and USSR disintegrated af-ter the fall of communism. Actually, communism went down only in Czechoslova-kia. In Yugoslavia and Soviet Union the communism transformed into nationalism that relied on same power leverage, so civilian institutions could not rule them at all times and in each segment.

Anyway, cold war position of Yugoslavia had much in common with Finland, left by Allies to slowly and patiently fi nd its way through last permeable creases of the Iron curtain. Yugoslavia, as well as Finland, was also a part of a regional system. Historical, economic and political ties with German sphere of infl uence and Italy, during expansion of fascism and nazism caused in Yugoslavia during 1930s confu-sion that turned into disarray fuelled by national clashes and under infl uence of clericalism and communism. Finally, it resembled complex ethnic systems of USA and USSR. Federalist aspirations denoted certain democratic tendencies, although their essence made temporary or permanent blocking of particular nationalist is-sues and some assimilation attempts were made, and in multicultural reality that reminded emerging process of American nation. Centralism, military and police pressures and peripheral extremisms were some of characteristics that implied di-rect soviet exemplar.

Yugoslavia was attempt to accomplish a complex state concept that envisaged emergence of state-nation. In that political process diff erent infl uences entwined, and they included international agreements that ended WW I. Establishing unique national body of Southern Slavs was, on one side, excuse for dominance of Serbian army that began its political agenda by assassination of 1903, that brought Karađorđević dynasty and radical nationalist forces back to power. Resistance to unitarism went beyond Yugoslav borders. Yugoslav idea preceded emergence of Yugoslav state, and survived its disappearance in 1991.

Both Yugoslavias (1918–1941, 1945–1991) were unsuccessful states. Th e fi rst Yugoslavia disappeared under Axis occupation. Th e second one disintegrated in internal confl icts, eff ectively historical break of Serbs and Croats, its integrative factors. Yugoslavia was not the only example of national disputes and minority issues. Although until 1941 it tried democratic transformations both in foreign policy orientation and in an eff ort to ease national tensions (establishment of Gov-ernate of Croatia in 1939, distinguished national entities). Anyway, democratic tendencies in foreign policy purported disagreements with Italy and Germany, and those disagreements did not fi t Yugoslav interests, so convergence towards Axis

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was felt in both Serbian and Croatian politics, otherwise not prone to compro-mising. Dictatorial and totalitarian tendencies, clericalism and nationalism pos-sessed irresistible pull. It came as no coincidence that Yugoslavia was torn apart aft er quick capitulation of the same army that in western provinces was seen as a tool of centralist enforcement by Belgrade.

Specifi city of Cold War Belgrade refl ected specifi city of Yugoslavia in post-war international relations, but also its internal metamorphosis. Belgrade was pas-sive in the years that followed Nazi occupation. Nazi regime left even holocaust to local collaborationists. To explain such phenomena requires deeper research and refl ection that experienced so far. At the same time, resistance to fascist Italy and nazi Germany and quislings took place also in western provinces. German repressive measures made communist partisans little desirable already by the end of 1941. Communist met resistance when tried to turn national confl icts into con-text of social revolution. Th at idea was acceptable in provinces with longer feudal and, simultaneously, working tradition, the ones that before Yugoslav tradition were under Habsburg, or not long ago, under Ottoman rule. USA and Great Brit-ain during 1943 accepted communist partisans as a side accepting no compromise and therefore as desired partner for fi nal operations considered to ensue. Inclusion of communist partisans into international agreements on future Yugoslavia and Soviet intervention in Eastern Yugoslavia in 1944 contributed towards military and ideological mobilization of that, until then not very numerous, movement (Wilson 1978, 77−78; Swain 1992, 641−663).

Belgrade became a site of intensive social and ideological engineering. It was occupied twice, in 1941 and 1944, by the forces that considered it its legitimate booty. Exuberance because of liberation quickly retreated due to trauma of facing nature of new regime and its barbarian social basis. Just few direct testimonies remained on those traumas. Belgrade became military-police camp and corrective ideological center. By its ruthlessness, violence and primitiveness, new administra-tion was constantly reminding that new political structure is pretty much based on new social structure. Blindsided and weak, citizen elite quickly reorganized to serve order that in time repressive measures turned towards its own people, either for they strayed or were only suspicious. Dissidents in later years were sometimes linked to defeated citizen class, and that mimicry contributed to moral degrada-tion.

Belgrade found itself not only in a complex tight corner of the Cold war. Until the end of 20th century, Belgrade remained in epicenter of Yugoslav na-tional issue. National divisions only partially coincided with Cold war paradigm that revealed affi nities of western republics towards German sphere, Serbia and Montenegro towards Soviet Union, and Moslem communities towards Turkey and the Th ird world. Such a scheme would be, anyway, pretty coarse. Yugoslav project

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suff ered consequences of all post imperial traumas burdening Eastern Europe aft er 1918. Yugoslavia was conceptualized as multinational collectivity, but suprana-tional identity in assimilation process never became reality, not even as a lasting political idea. Serbian community was the most numerous, but not absolute major-ity. Dissatisfaction could be felt also on Serbian side for vague accomplishment of national interest aft er both world wars. All other minorities were prone to object Serbs their domination, conducted primarily through Yugoslav army, while all the institutions of central government were situated in Belgrade. Identity of Belgrade, capital of both Serbia and Yugoslavia, was halved in simultaneous reality of two concepts, national and integrative one. Although multiethnic city with Serbian character pronounced only aft er national revolution 1804–1815, Belgrade in a way took over curse of Yugoslav concept.

Belgrade almost literally depicted ethnic structure of Yugoslavia, in both national and religious sense the most complex European state of mid-size. Open, repressed and hidden clashes were its permanent weakness. Serbo-Croatian clashes paralyzed entity of the union and made it vulnerable to foreign interests. Belgrade also depicted unfavorable demographic image of Serbia itself. Loss of lives and de-mographic defi cit of WWI is estimated at almost one third of pre-war population. Already undeveloped economic capacities were almost totally destroyed (Gripp 1960, 934−949; Bertsch 1977, 88−99).

As relatively small environment, Belgrade did not allow clear separation be-tween authorities and society, winners and losers, citizens and provincials, indige-nous people and newcomers. Totalitarian order did not result from direct pressure of Soviet troupes that actually just passed through Serbia and Yugoslavia, and that order within half a decade lost some of its original rigidity. In fi rst post-war years sovietization was happening faster than in other Eastern European regimes. Citi-zen resistance was negligible, as was the one in the years of nazi occupation. Loss of lives, measured in hundreds, was evaded in majority of Serbian towns. Some Belgrade citizens considered new authorities liberatory, some as new occupation forces, but even those divisions were soon relativized. Th e fi rst wave of repression ran out of steam within years, and in 1948 it focused on rigid Stalinists, real ones, suspicious or just fi ctitious. And although order was based on Stalinist dogma, overturn was sudden and unexpected (Clissold 1975).

Actually, the whole establishment revealed tendency to belong to citizenry. In relatively small Belgrade society it wasn’t possible to make strict lines of so-cial demarcation. Th at assimilation was contributed by absence of direct pressure by Soviet troupes. Deservedly in certain aspects, new totalitarian order could be considered as liberatory. Citizen amnesia, coming out of characteristic hypocrisy, helped quick oblivion.


77

First post-war years were passing in a trauma of collaboration. Facing col-laboration burdened, with no exceptions, the whole of Europe that underwent nazi or fascist occupation. In ethic dilemmas that tore apart both Cold war Europe and the one that replaced it, important points of that issue were revealed, but clear were tendencies to relativize crimes over collaborationists, and to relativize signifi -cance of collaboration with Soviets and new communist regimes.

Collaborationist relations with nazi and fascist invaders and Soviet liberators in a way became paradigm of relations towards new communist authorities. Pre-war Belgrade intellectual circles also made certain contacts with nazism, especially its political-orthodox derivates – culmination was renewal of St. Sava cult, or with communism. Nazi ideas reached intellectual and clerical circles under infl uence of Russian emigration, and its emphatic anti-Western, anti-Semite and anti-democ-racy dogmas. Onslaught of totalitarian ideologies and anti-Semitism contributed towards revival of Russian myth, although it wasn’t much ideologically coherent.

Belgrade became scene of ideological and values confusion. Belgrade citizen-ry could be considered simultaneously historical loser and winner in an overturn whose hidden logic directed it towards gradual interest-based gathering, despite real or imagined political affi liation. Belgrade society enjoyed certain privileges. Belgrade remained Yugoslav capital, and although Yugoslavia turned into federa-tion, certain birocracy centralism was still felt. Not only Yugoslav administration was still concentrated in Belgrade, Belgrade was at the receiving end of huge mi-gration processes from passive western provinces with emphatic frontier or bor-der mentality. Simultaneously it became a center of concentrated military-police power. Political pacifi cation that, despite occasional jolts, characterized 1950s, brought Belgrade temporary stabilization that followed „Th ird way” of offi cial politics. Meandering along this road didn’t bring signifi cant derangements. By sup-port of Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 and establishing of, seemingly neu-tral, Non-aligned movement in 1961, Yugoslavia stepped into global politics, but on anti-democracy side, cooperating with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Opening of borders brought immediate economic emigration towards Western and Northern Europe, and that process can be understood in a light of establishing strategic balance in ever more complex Cold war conjuncture.

While armed engagement and resistance took place at ideological extremes, and mass crimes and holocaust at the margins of general disability and moral in-disposition, neutrality of Belgrade society during WW II adopted to the frame of social-political consensus on mutual interest. From the depths of regime dissident voices could be heard, but they more denoted abnormalities within ranks of new invaders, than genuine discontentedness.

Democratization that was felt until beginning of 1950s refl ected facing re-ality. Second Yugoslavia was taken by economic collapse. Economic degradation

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was more a result of accelerated sovietization than of the war. Change of course implied changed position in international relations. But that „middle” or „third” way was imposed. Anti-Western, anti-American, anti-capitalist, „anti-imperialist” rhetoric remained present in high politics, in intellectual circles, among clergy, workers and students, with no apparent diff erences. Yugoslavia developed its unique position towards communism. Consensus on communism „with human face” FIGURE kept hidden hypocrisy towards Eastern Europe. Th at value crisis hid roots of nationalism that destroyed not only Yugoslav union, but also its most important human, moral and cultural values, leaving behind desolation even where its destruction had no direct eff ects.

Aft er WW II Belgrade was simultaneously capital of federalized Yugosla-via and of federal unit of Serbia. Yugoslavia, despite its federal organization that in time converged towards confederation, remained centralized so all important common institutions were concentrated in Belgrade. Belgrade was conceptualized as a city-barracks, stronghold of the regime actively or passively defended by settled army and police members, a central point of political violence whose deep his-torical and social essence hid far behind wars and national clashes (Wilmer 2002, 8−20).

Identity of Cold war Belgrade was determined by unique long-term histori-cal structure it belonged to. Defi ciency of urban development is one of possible explanations for Southeast Europe’s falling behind in modern history. Balkans cit-ies were small, poor and neglected. Th ey were almost temporary, side borders of small economically active ethnic communities, oft en considered foreign or hostile by surrounding rural population. Th ey entered industrial revolution era as con-glomerates without professional, technological or scientifi c resources that had to be invested into new economic, cultural or social values. During Turkish reign the Balkans lagged behind at the margin of pre-modern European civilization, at the periphery of peripheries, isolated from infl uences of Renaissance, Reforma-tion, Enlightenment and Rationalism. Nationalism and colonial imperialism also contributed to neglection of urban development in 19th century. Political will, at the beginnings of parliamentarism and democratization, also addressed prejudices and backwardness of archaic agrarian world that became object of manipulations. Citizenry had a lot of diffi culties to earn space in a cleft between elites and wide agrarian base of authoritarian power and autarchic economy. Preservation of tra-ditional mentality contributed towards survival of patriarchal, paternalistic and authoritarian political model. Th e Islam and eastern orthodoxy during 19th and 20th century revealed certain similarities, aft er centuries of coexistence, in refusing individualism, capitalism and working ethics. First national writers that belonged to Balkans literary realism revealed reality of local urban civilization in dark hues


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of neglected and ignored communities, depicting dark side of human nature im-mersed in historical heritage and curse of ignorance and poverty.

Th e Balkans belonged to Habsburg periphery, with feudalism and clericalism relicts sown, including eastern-orthodox clericalism. Slavic nations in Habsburg monarchy did not feel compelled to conform in every way to a notably German state. Relations became more complex aft er Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 when Hungary became equal partner to Austria, but its potentials for cul-tural assimilation were shadowed by national relations, more harsh in a contrast to Slavic environment.

Trauma of national revolutions was deeply etched into structure of new state creations. Enterprising strata in Balkans were foreigners, or considered as such, Italians, Dubrovnikans, Jews, Greeks, various Germans. Landlords were Muslims or Hungarians, but feudal history aft er 1945 had to be defi nitely closed. Anyway, the remnants of feudal structure, both in economy and mentality, was still felt. Eu-rope’s periphery regions at the beginning of 20th century were mostly populated by agrarian communities, with income reaching just a half of that in developed European provinces. In comparison to poor Southern Europe, at the beginning of 20th century in the Balkans between 70 and 80% of population lived in vil-lages, with very low productivity and high rate of illiteracy. During 20th century these diff erences enlarged further, demographic potentials of rural communities remained weak and poorly structured. Post-feudal rural cultures and mentalities undermined already weak bases of urban civilization. Cities sometimes were iden-tifi ed with foreign cores of a nation and a state (Bartlett 2008, 8−20).

And while in 19th and 20th century in the Balkans a process of ethnic con-solidation took place, primarily through dislodging and moving of rural popula-tion and citizens of towns, urban structure remained a challenge for that historical tendency. Cities remained life space that allowed more tolerance, or a mimicry. Belgrade, though, developed in markedly agrarian surrounding, and that remained its contrast, sometimes even antithesis.

Poor achievements of urbanization were also related to modest industrial development. Balkan economies remained agrarian and consumer, extremely sen-sitive to external shocks, tied to a state and privileged groups and monopolists, instead of business oriented urban society. Low standard and poor conditions of living encouraged survival of traditional strata of economic and social power. Un-der such circumstances, a communist nomenclature appeared that followed logic of inherited social relations.

Socialist utopia of planned industrialization was another factor that shaped Cold war Belgrade. Traditional economic structure was the basis of economic culture, and that one remained at low level of barter of raw materials and cheap commodities. During second half of 20th century a lot was invested into industri-

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alization that enabled production of uncompetitive commodities of low quality, protected by state regulation, or exported to less choosy East Europe markets. All parameters of urban development remained therefore very adverse: infrastructure, public transport, social services, culture and education. Cities were managed by incompetent offi cials, prone to self-will and corruption.

Th e fi rst mayor of communist Belgrade was Mihailo Stolarić, „Stolar“, on behalf of national-liberation city council between 1944 and 1947. Th e president of the Council from 1947 to 1951 was Ninko Petrović, a member of executive council of Left agricultural party. Đurica Jojkić, born in the village Turija close to Srbobran, was presiding in two mandates between 1951 and 1961. In the mean-time, from 1955 to 1957, mayor was Miloš Minić, born in Preljina near Čačak. He is better known as later ministry of foreign aff airs and, previously, attorney general of Serbia and important person in Belgrade proceedings against general Dragoljub Mihajlović, sentenced on July 15, 1946 to death by fi ring squad, permanent loss of political and citizen rights and dispossession of all property. Th e fi ft h mayor of Belgrade was Milijan Neoričić, from 1961 to 1965, who fi nished grammar school in Užice. Branko Pešić, the president of Assembly of city of Belgrade in an impor-tant period of big construction exploits and mass immigration, 1965–1974, was a boxer, fi nished grammar school and Political high school „Đura Đaković“. By con-struction of a highway and Mostar and Autokomanda loops, the whole residential zone and parts of town that used to belong to wider center were turned into ghet-toes, traffi c became prone to frequent collapses. One of members of his cabinet was Slobodan Milošević, future culprit of violent disintegration of Yugoslavia.

With such leadership that ruled masses of newcomers from villages, peas-ants, migrants and homeless, Belgrade became object of urbanistic and architectur-al failures, failed or robbed investments, a conglomerate of lost human destinies, a cacophony of unordered rights and interests. Th at’s why consequent generations of newcomers, although born in Belgrade, felt the capital as something distant and strange. From city authorities they could take over same model of regard and behavior, especially towards public spaces, common property and other citizens.

Gradual abandoning of rigid politics that was felt aft er 1950 enabled citi-zenry to reestablish its social infl uence. Anyway, citizenry could establish balance to social masses and violent elite only through full collaboration. Regime also needed that collaboration to achieve quick industrialization, to eradicate illiteracy and build infrastructure. In Belgrade, traditional role in commerce, industry and fi nances partly belonged to „foreigners”. But new „foreigners” that populated Bel-grade did not bring working and business experience, although it is considered that new social mobility, in special circumstances aft er WW II, became one of initiators of urban development. In other words, Belgrade in Cold war epoch, despite very pronounced dynamics of changes, revealed defi cit of European and modernization


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potentials. National traumas and antidemocratic character of both fi rst and second Yugoslav union obstructed, at the same time, integration of Belgrade into modern Western Europe culture, including political culture. Th at culture was guideline for all progressive nations east of Berlin wall.

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Studies, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.


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TOWN TWINNING IN THE COLD WAR WORLD

Abstract: Town twinning refers to a practice of creating bonds between pairs of towns located in diff erent countries in order to enable interactions between municipalities and townspeople in such fi elds as culture, education and local development. As an extensive and organized activity, town twinning started in the aft ermath of the Second World War to provide material aid to those who had suff ered fr om the war and to promote fr iendship and mutual understanding between former enemies. Owing to this kind of background, town twinning contained intrinsic potential for transnational interaction and for bridging divides. Yet fr om the 1950s, town twinning started to play a role in the cultural Cold War as one of those means which were used in the competition for cultural and political infl uence by both blocs. In the West, town twinning with western partners was encouraged in order to reinforce its cultural legacy against communism. Along with this kind of a bonding model of twinning, a so called bridging model appeared as relationships were established between East and West bloc towns. Even though East – West twinning activities obviously were characterized by the Cold War spirit of rivalry, they should not merely be considered fr om the viewpoint of such competition. In accordance with its original idea, town twinning also enabled encounters between people living on the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain and, therefore, the dimension of interaction should not be neglected in the research concerning the Cold War twinning activities.

Key words: town twinning, sister cities, the Cold War, municipal internationalism, transnational interaction

Review article

Kirsi AHONEN, University of Tampere

Th e School of Social Sciences and Humanities

[email protected]

* Th e author is currently a member of the research project ‘Cities and Transnational Interaction. Th e Cultural Contacts between West and East European Urban Centres during and beyond the Cold War’, located at the University of Tampere and funded by the Academy of Finland.

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Confrontation and rivalry have usually constituted the starting point for discussion on the cultural contacts between the East and the West during the Cold War era. As a part of the attempts to illuminate more diversifi ed fabric of human and cultural transnational encounters during this period, my article shall focus on an activity that had its background in the post-war eff orts to generate peace and understanding between people and provided thus intrinsically a channel for interaction in the Cold War world as well.

Th is channel, town twinning, represents a special form of municipal inter-nationalism (Ewen and Hebbert 2007, 340). Taking place under the level of gov-ernments and high politics, it has sometimes been characterized as municipal or citizen diplomacy. Th e aim of creating bonds between pairs of towns located in dif-ferent countries is to enable co-operation between municipalities and townspeople in such fi elds as culture, education and local development. Twinning is oft en based on formal agreements and is supposed to be reciprocal. Moreover, the relationships do not limit themselves to single projects but enable a variety of activities on a regular basis. Th ese include the exchanges of offi cial delegations, schoolchildren and students; sports events; theatre, fi lm, dance and musical performances; visits by diff erent kinds of artists, members of professional organizations and hobbyists; festivals and fairs; exhibitions; experiments in the other community’s cuisine; the sharing of technical and other expertise and sometimes assistance in the form of material aid, equipment, advice and information (Zelinsky 1991, 3, 27).

Town twinning movement emerged from the human suff ering and material devastation caused by the Second World War. Already during the war, some towns started to send material aid to such localities that were badly hit by warfare. Th e link that was established between British Coventry and Soviet Stalingrad in 1944 is oft en referred to as the fi rst town twinning. It arose out of the desire of ordi-nary people of Coventry, who themselves had experienced severe bomb damage, to help others living even in more desperate conditions. Another example of wartime contacts is the connection between Canadian Vancouver and Soviet Odessa, from 1944 as well (Zelinsky 1991, 5–6; Coventry 2012). In addition to these relation-ships between cities located in the Allies, partnerships were also formed between Nordic municipalities. From 1940, material aid was sent from the towns of the neutral Sweden to Finland that was attacked by the Soviet Union. Th ese contacts between Swedish and Finnish municipalities persisted throughout the war, when Finland continued its fi ght against the Soviet Union as an ally of Germany, and the post-war reconstruction period.1

1 From the early 1950s, the nature of these links started to shift from aid to cultural co-operation Korppi-Tommola 1982; (see: Sandberg 1995, 141–142).


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Whereas human and material aid had marked the wartime town twinning, another kind of mission emerged when the war was over. Interaction at grassroots level became an important tool when reconciliation was sought between former enemies. Th e idea of friendship and mutual understanding was also connected with the desire to prevent new wars and this motivated some municipal leaders and private citizens in Western Europe to create contacts with their former en-emies in the fi elds of culture, education, leisure activities and professional life. Th e fi rst such contacts seem to have been those between British and West German towns, Bristol and Hanover probably forming the fi rst pair in 1947. Other pairs of British – West German and to some extent American – West German munici-palities as well followed this example (Weyreter 2003, 37, 40). Nevertheless, the most extensive twinning movement developed between French and West German towns. Th is Franco – German municipal co-operation started in 1950 with the twinning of French Montbéliard and German Ludwigsburg. Th e number of twin-nings between French and West German towns increased rapidly and, at the end of the Cold War, these made up about twelve per cent of all recorded twinnings in the world (Campbell 1987, 77–82; Zelinsky 1991, table 3 p. 12–13, table 5 p. 14).

In accordance with the principles of friendship and mutual understanding that were the essence of town twinning, the appellations used in diff erent languag-es to describe this practice bear the idea of closeness as well. Town twinning and the twin town are expressions used in British English whereas the sister city is the term in North America. Similarly, French ville jumélee (twin town) and Russian го-род-побратим (brother town) refer to kinship while Swedish vänskapsort, Finnish ystävyyskaupunki and German Partnerstadt refer to friendship or companionship.

When the post–war spirit of peace turned into the rivalry between two com-peting blocs, such ideals as reconciliation and maintaining peace were accompanied by new goals, which draw town twinning into the toolbox of the Cold War. Even though those involved in twinning activities in the West still represented munici-pal institutions, some of them exercised rather the foreign policies of their govern-ments than acted primarily on the basis of local interests (Bautz 2002, 236ff ; Vion 2002; Clarke 2010). Th is resulted from the all-embracing nature of the Cold War, where rivalries over political infl uence did not limit to the level of high politics and superpower diplomacy but were also extended to other fi elds of human action. An essential part of the Cold War was the competition for the hearts and minds of or-dinary people. Both blocs emphasized the supremacy of their political system and life style and, therefore, saw the importance of reinforcing their cultural infl uence inside the bloc as well as of extending it to the other side of Iron Curtain. Con-cerning the fi rst aim of the cultural Cold War, the most famous example consists of the endeavours of US government to prove to West Europeans the high quality of

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American culture, for which it used plenty of money by organizing varied cultural exchanges (Stonor Saunders 1999; Scott-Smith and Krabbendam 2003).

Considering town twinning from the viewpoint of states that have been in-volved, a distinction between a bridging and a bonding model of twinning pro-vides a fruitful frame for discussing the Cold War twinning activities. Th e bonding model of twinning refers to cultural and civic exchanges between towns located in countries that can be regarded basically similar, for example countries having the similar political systems or on similar level of economic development. Th us twin-nings between towns located in the West bloc countries or in developed industri-alized countries can be characterized bonding ones. Th e bridging model, for its part, depicts relationships that are created between towns located in countries that diff er from each other for instance in terms of the political system or economic development. Consequently, twinnings between towns on diff erent sides of the Iron Curtain or between towns in developed and developing countries can be seen as bridging relationships (Clarke 2010, 177–178, 185–186).

In Western Europe, the bonding model of twinning was predominant and actually favoured by certain forces that promoted and coordinated transnational municipal cooperation. Th ough local initiative had been decisive for the emergence of town twinning movement, a few international organizations assumed an impor-tant role in advancing this activity. One of these, Council of European Municipali-ties (CEM), believed that by creating and maintaining relations with other West European municipalities the western cultural legacy could be reinforced against communism (Vion 2002, 627–631; Clarke 2010, 175–178). Similarly, from the mid-1950s the United States encouraged its towns to seek twinning partners from the so called free world in order to strengthen American cultural infl uence there (Zelinsky 1991, 7–8). However, along with the tendency for bonding twinning relations, eff orts were made in Western Europe, particularly in France, to create contacts with East block towns as well. On the organizational level, United Towns Organization (UTO), a body originally created for preserving the French language, advocated links between blocs. Such twinnings formed a part of its pursuits to ori-ent outside Western Europe, which also included the Th ird World. Consequently, bridging model can also be discovered in the twinnings established by West Euro-pean municipalities. Yet it is quite obvious that these contacts refl ected Cold War politics. On the one hand, West European communists were suspected of using town twinning for their own political purposes in domestic arena. On the other hand, it is probable that sometimes such twinnings were motivated by the desire to diff use western ideas and culture through the Iron Curtain. Still, it is possible that these inter-bloc twinnings were, at least partly, motivated by the genuine wish to bridge the political divide and to learn something about each other’s culture (Vion 2002, 632–639; Clarke 2010, 179–185).


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On the Eastern side, the benefi ts of town twinning were recognized from the mid-1950s. Soviet Union showed interest in establishing contacts with non-socialist countries at the municipal level in order to promote its strategy for peace-ful coexistence. At the same time, this provided opportunities for showing socialist achievements and promoting socialist way of life to Western people. Towards the end of the 1950s, German Democratic Republic became active, motivated by the desire for the recognition of its international status (Bautz 2002, 263–264, 333; Weyreter 2003, 41).

Nevertheless, viewing the totality of twinning relations, their vast major-ity was established between towns located in Western countries. Considering the number of twinnings, the most active countries were those where the fi rst initia-tives had been taken: France, West Germany, the United States and United King-dom as well as Nordic countries Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. None of the socialist countries ranked high with their twinning contacts, Soviet Union coming only 15th and East Germany 19th. Considering partners, the general pat-tern is that those of western towns in most cases were other western towns. By con-trast, from the viewpoint of Eastern bloc, the greater number of their contacts was established with western towns, making up about 60 per cent of their twinnings. Th ese relations suggest to a pattern of bridging the Iron Curtain though it is likely that a considerable part of them originated only during the last years of the Cold War (Zelinsky 1991, 8, table 4 p. 13, table 5 p. 14; Weyreter 2003, 40).

Th e background of town twinning movement with its aim to build bridges between people divided by the hostilities of war prompts to explore Cold War inter-bloc twinnings henceforward from the viewpoint of interaction. It might be tempting to bypass town twinning as a less relevant phenomenon and label it as an activity made up of ritualistic performances and superfi cial contacts exemplifi ed, for instance, by the visits of offi cial delegations. Nevertheless, as town twinning included various kinds of activities which enabled travelling and contacts through the Iron Curtain, the nature of these contacts is not at all self-evident and deserves a closer look. Moreover, it is not self-evident either which kind of role governmen-tal politics played in these activities even in those cases where Cold War cultural policies had contributed to the establishment of twinning relations. Th ere might still have been room for manoeuvring at the municipal level. In any case, in addi-tion to intended consequences, twinning activities may also have had unintended consequences like any human activity.

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ReferencesBautz, I. 2002. Die Auslandsbeziehungen der deutschen Kommunen im Rahmen der europäis-

chen Kommunalbewegung in den 1950er und 60er Jahren. Siegen: Universität Siegen. http://dokumentix.ub.uni-siegen.de/opus/volltexte/2005/11.

Campbell, E. S. 1987. ”Th e Ideals and Origins of the Franco-German Sister Cities Move-ment.” History of European Ideas 8 (1): 77–95.

Clarke, N. 2010. “Town Twinning in Cold-War Britain: (Dis)continuities in Twentieth Cen-tury Municipal Internationalism.” Contemporary British History 24 (2): 173–191.

Coventry City Council. 2012. ”Twin Towns and Cities, Volgograd, Russia.” Accessed Novem-ber 2. http://www.coventry.gov.uk/directory_record/6224/volgograd_russia

Ewen, S. and Hebbert, M. 2007. “European Cities in a Networked World during the Long 20th Century.” Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 25: 327–340.

Korppi-Tommola, A. 1982. “Ystävyyttä yli Pohjanlahden. Ruotsin ja Suomen välinen kummi-kuntaliike 1942–1980.” PhD diss., University of Helsinki.

Sandberg, S. 1995. “Kommunens internationella kopplingar – vad berättar vänorter och besök om kommunens nätvärk?” Kunnallistieteellinen aikakauskirja 2: 141–156.

Scott-Smith, G. and Krabbendam, H. 2003. Th e Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960. London: Frank Cass.

Stonor Saunders, F. 1999. Th e Cultural Cold War. Th e CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: New York Press.

Vion, A. 2002. “Europe from the Bottom Up: Town Twinning in France during the Cold War.” Contemporary European History 11 (4): 623–640.

Weyreter, M. 2003. “Germany and the Town Twinning Movement”. Contemporary Review, 281 ( Jan. 2003): 37–43.

Zelinsky, W. 1991. ”Th e Twinning of the World: Sister Cities in Geographic and Historical Perspective.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81 (1): 1–31.



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UDK: 141.7:929 ФЛОРОВСКИ Г. В.; 271.2-1 ФЛОРОВСКИ Г. В.; 141.4:271.2(470)”19”

FLOROVSKY AT THE CROSSROADS: IMAGINING RUSSIAN RENAISSANCE FROM MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS*

Abstract: Th is paper looks at Georges Florovsky, an infl uential religious historian, philosopher, theologian, and his ideological transformations as he came to New York City in 1948, in particular to Morningside Heights, to be a professor of Church history and dean of the newly founded St Vladimir Th eological Seminary. At Morningside Heights, where a good number of various theological seminaries were located, Florovsky formulated his vision regarding what went wrong in Russia in 1917 and what needed to be done to get Russia back on the right path. Florovsky’s ideas prefi gure the critique of European Enlightenment and its Orientalist attitudes that were formulated in the 1970s by Edward Said. Florovsky argued that Russia gave up its own Hellenic heritage of Church Fathers, and replaced it with the trajectory of the Renaissance of ancient Hellenic philosophy in Western Europe. Th e remedy for this condition, which Russians imposed on themselves, was “the return to the fathers,” establishing a direct philosophical connection with Russia’s Byzantine and Hellenic heritage, thus by-passing the Western Renaissance. For this revival of Hellenic Late Antiquity Florovsky is most remembered in the world of Orthodox culture. Th e idea of Hellenic patristic revival had also run into some problems at Morningside Heights, specifi cally in the World Council of Churches and with the Union Th eological Seminary, which was hosting St Vladimir Seminary at the time. Florovsky, always more focused on Russian and Orthodox issues that on the issues of ethnic identity in America, misread the changing political situation in the late 1950s. American theology was becoming infl uenced by Reinhold Niebuhr, who was more interesting in

Published scientifi c conference contribution

Alexander MIRKOVICNorthern Michigan University

[email protected]

* Th is paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the North Eastern Association for Slavic, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies held on March 24 at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, located incidentally also at Morningside Heights.

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improving the world by fi ghting sin thought progressive social action, then in the niceties of Church History and the esoteric issues of doctrine. Th e new American priorities were the homogenization of ethnic churches into a progressive union, achieved under President Kennedy. Florovsky’s ideas about the Russian religious revival, once popular at the height of the Cold War now seemed dated. Th us, Florovsky was removed fr om the deanship of St Vladimir Th eological Seminary in 1955 and a more Americanized generation took over the leadership of this very important theological and intellectual institution in the Orthodox world.

Key Words: Florovsky, Orthodox Church, Russia, Russian Religious Revival, Renaissance, West, St Vladimir Th eological Seminary, Morningside Heights, Hellenic heritage, Church Fathers, Cold War

“Religion is sociologically interesting not because it describes the social order, but because it shapes it” (Geertz 1973, 119)

Cliff ord Geertz Father Georges Florovsky was a con-servative Russian thinker of the 20th century émigré community. While not as fa-mous and popular in the American conservative circles as Ayn Rand, Florovsky’s ideas of ecclesiastical revival contributed considerably to the so-called conservative revolution (Reagan Revolution) in the United States and in the West in general. Furthermore, Florovsky’s political and religious ideas had a crucial infl uence on the re-organization and ideological renewal of the Russian Orthodox Church in the post-communist period. It is no exaggeration to say that post-communist Rus-sia has been shaped by Florovsky’s vision of Russia as a revival of the Byzantine Hellenic Empire, a Christian nation diff erent in its historical development from the West. Th is vision of new Russia developed fi rst and in part in Paris, and more importantly in New York at St Vladimir Th eological Seminary, originally founded at Morningside Heights in 1948 (Alfeyey 1999, 15–17). If we would like to un-derstand the current resurgence of the Orthodox Church in Russia, its expanding infl uence on practically every aspect of social life, I believe we need to look at the Russian diaspora, which prepared the way for what appears to be almost magi-cal resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church in contemporary post-commu-nist Russia, aft er seven decades of severe marginalization during the communist period.

FLOROVSKY AT THE CROSSROADS: IMAGINING RUSSIAN RENAISSANCE FROM MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS

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In the life of one of the most important Russian religious émigré thinkers, Georges Florovsky, his coming to New York in 1948 plays a special role. Floro-vsky was called to New York from Paris by Th eophilus, the metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, in order to organize St Vladimir Th eo-logical Seminary. Th e new seminary was located at Morningside Heights. In those days it was renting a couple of rooms from Union Th eological Seminary. At the St Vladimir seminary Florovsky was a professor of Church History and the fi rst dean (1948–1955). During that time Florovsky constructed his dream of the Russian Renaissance that was to create the new Christian Russia aft er the fall of communism.

With the publishing of the “Ways of Russian Th eology” in Paris in 1937, Florovsky not only diagnosed the main problem of Russian intellectual history, but also broke up with the émigré community in Paris over that issue. Claiming that the Russia’s intellectual wondering through the desert occurred when Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries broke from the Patristic tradition (Hellenic Chris-tianity of Late Antiquity) and under the infl uence of the Western Renaissance ideas, began to look at its own Byzantine heritage as the “dark ages.” Accepting the Western Renaissance and secular ideology, a rift opened between the Russian elites, which were becoming more and more secular and Russian people, which kept the practice of Hellenic Byzantine Orthodoxy. Th is rift between the classes in Russia was the cause of the Bolshevik revolution. Once this judgment of the Russian intellectual history had been issued on the pages of the “Ways of Russian Th eology,” Florovsky never came back to the diagnosis of the Russian problem of identity, but only worked toward fi xing it (Blane 1993, 89). Florovsky came to New York to plan on how to correct that big Russian mistake.1 Th e role of the dean of the newly founded St Vladimir Th eological Seminary fi tted perfectly his plans to reconnect Russian culture with the Hellenic Christian thought.

Th e role of Morningside Heights, a neighborhood situated between the Up-per East Side to the south and Harlem to the north, plays an important role in this narrative. As a kind of American Vatican, Morningside Heights contains a large number of institutions closely linked to religious and political life during Florovsky’s tenure as the dean (1948–1955). First there was the World Council of Churches, in 1946 known as Church World Service and subsequently as the Interchurch Center, located at 475 Riverside Drive and West 120th Street. It was an ecumenical institution in which Florovsky was deeply involved. In addition, Morningside Heights could be seen as a symbolic center of American Protestant religious life, with Union Th eological Seminary, Jewish Th eological Seminary, New York Th eological Seminary, the interdenominational Riverside Church, and

1 Florovsky used the words “the break from patristics and Byzantinism” (see: Florovsky 1979, 8).

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fi nally nearby, the largest church in America, the Episcopalian (Anglican) church of St. John the Divine.

Florovsky came to New York because of his activities in the ecumenical movement and thus it is not surprising that he ended at Morningside Heights. His understanding of Russian Orthodoxy was very well received through his contacts with the Anglican Church in the period between the wars. First contacts with the English speaking world for Florovsky occurred through the ecumenical society of St Alban and St Sergius, a Russian-English club founded in 1928, which fostered the mystical leanings of high church Anglicans and the numerous Russian religious refugees. During these fi rst meetings it became obvious that the English speaking members of the society, clearly preferred Florovsky over other members of Rus-sian diaspora, because of his knowledge of the Bible and the Church tradition. Nicolai Berdyaev and Father Sergei Bulgakov, whose approach to Christianity was rooted more in the German idealistic tradition, where not so successful among the Anglicans.2 Th ese diff erences between the Parisian circle of Russian émigrés and Florovsky was going to become more apparent in New York. Florovsky intel-lectually matured in the Orthodox religious circles of Paris, he was a friend of Nicolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov, yet his vision for Russia, for a new Russia rising out of the revival of Hellenic religious thought matured only in New York, at Morningside Heights.

Florovsky came to New York at the beginning of the Cold War in 1948. While fully engaged in the intellectual movements of the 20th century, and an unambiguous Cold Warrior, a card-carrying member of the Republican Party, Flo-rovsky was also a person who decades before Michel Foucault and Edward Said formulated his critique of the European and Russian Enlightenment program and clearly understood Western prejudices in dealing with Russia and the Orient in general. Florovsky was similar to many neo-conservative thinkers, who incorpo-rated a good deal of their experience with liberal thought in the service of the conservative cause. But, as we shall see, Florovsky was not a reactionary and he slid into his conservativism pushed by the circumstances of the Cold War and the personal and generational choices that he made.

Th e ecumenical relations in American context are burdened with ethnic is-sues and many cultural prejudices. In particular, the relations between the West and Russia are laden with the heritage of Orientalism, a heritage of patronizing attitude of the West toward the East, in this case, Russia. Orientalism involves two particular, seemingly contradictory strategies, the one is the excessive praise and admiration of the East, the other involves the uncritical loathing of the East. In

2 Florovsky writes, “Father Bulgakov ignored completely the whole Biblican aspect, which was so important to the Anglicans.” (See: Blane 1993, 64).


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both cases, it is important to notice that the East is never treated as an equal, but as the other, made necessarily inferior by this rhetorical strategy. Th ese attitudes play an important role in our story, especially because during the Cold War, Russia became the ultimate other.

Turbulent relations between the West and Russia have left many bruised egos and led to many misleading statements. Western Orientalism (in reality a form of racism) towards Russia dominated this discourse since the Russian Enlighten-ment of Peter the Great. Erich Auerbach, for example writes, “Russian coming to terms with European civilization… was signifi cant not only for Russia. However confused and amateurish a process it oft en was, however much it was impaired by inadequate information, false perspective, by prejudice and passion, there was at work in it an extremely sure instinct for the things that were unsound and critical in Europe.” Georges Florovsky detested these kinds of statements which, while seemingly appreciating the Russian contribution to the West, unfl atteringly placed Russia in the position of a pupil and the West in the position of a teacher, who by virtues of the teacher’s superior understanding of the human condition, has the perpetual right to evaluate the work of Russians.

During the fi rst part of his life in exile (1920–1948), which he spent in Eu-rope, Father Florovsky received a relatively cool treatment from other leaders of the Russian Religious Revival in exile.3 Th is cool treatment happened for many reasons, but primarily because the émigré community in Paris and in Europe be-tween the wars consisted of people who were born in Russia and whose identity was not tied to the West. Florovsky grew up in Russia, but left fairly young. As Florovsky was advancing as a scholar and a priest, he came in a confl ict with the leader of the Russian émigré community. His publication of the Ways of Russian Th eology alienated him from Nicolai Berdyaev and this is a well documented pub-lic controversy. Th ere were other controversies. In 1934–36, he was a participant in the heresy trial of the “sophiology” of Sergei Bulgakov, which proved fatal for their friendship and to his status in St Sergei Th eological Institute in Paris, a Rus-sian émigré institution. Th e heresy trial was a decisive in alienating Florovsky from the Russian émigré community in Paris. Sergei Bulgakov was already condemned both by the Russian Patriarchate (Red Russian Church) and by the White Russian Church in exile in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. When Father Florovsky agreed to be a member of the theological commission, appointed by his own jurisdiction,

3 By Russian Religious Revival I mean here the liberal revival movement before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, which, among other things, reconstituted the offi ce of the Patriarch. Th e offi ce was abolished by Peter the Great in 1721. Many members of this revival movement were Christian Socialist deputies in the Russian Duma, such as Sergei Bulgakov. Th e movement was opposed by the conservative higher clergy, led by metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky. Th e term was coined by Nicolai Berdyaev, one of the main fi gures of the movement.

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the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, agreed that Bulgakov’s teaching contained “serious errors” and his fate among the Russians in Paris was fi nished. Berdyaev was not a cleric and could not be disciplined in that way, but Father Bul-gakov was forced to recant. In turn, father Florovsky decided to leave Paris.4 He fi rst spent the war years in Yugoslavia, then running in front of the Soviet troops gradually liberating Eastern Europe, he ended back again in France and from there came to New York, in particular to Morningside Heights in 1948.

Whereas the heresy trial of Father Bulgakov opened the rift , it was the writ-ing of the Ways of Russian Th eology that cemented the fi ssure between Florovsky on the one hand, and Berdayev and the older generation of Russian émigrés on the other hand. In the Ways Florovsky made the diagnosis of the problem of the many “whys” of the Bolshevik Revolution and never in his writings returned to the question of the diagnosis.5 At Morningside Heights and in America in gen-eral, Florovsky worked to fi x the problem, but no longer wondered about why has the Russian intellectual development led to the Bolshevik Revolution. Florovsky’s argument as to why so many wrong turns in the Russian intellectual tradition that caused the Bolshevik revolution is basically nationalistic. Russia needs to be rooted in its own heritage; otherwise it is on the wrong path. Later on Florovsky will discover that the heritage of Hellenic Orthodoxy is the true heritage of Russia. Berdyaev as a philosopher could not understand this nationalistic argument. For Berdayaev philosophy was not a national discipline. It could have national fl avors, but it is essentially ecumenical and international. In fact, one could argue that the in Th e Russian Idea, Berdyaev argued that Russian messianic nationalist ideas, from the Th ird Rome to the Th ird International, were actually aberrations, errors against true philosophy and existentialist Christianity in which Berdyaev believed in. According to Berdyaev, the mistake of Russia was the obsession with great, im-perialist, internationalist, messianic ideas. We would say today, Russia would have been better off building a civic society instead of an imperial program.

Th us in 1948, aft er the interlude of World War II, Father Florovsky arrived to New York with a dream in mind. Th is dream was, on the one hand, an example of Russian nationalism exemplifi ed by old sentiments dating back to the times of Ivan III, right aft er the liberation from the Mongol Yoke. Th ese sentiments pre-

4 "Th e teaching of Professor and Archpriest S.N. Bulgakov – which, by its peculiar and arbitrary (Sophian) interpretation, oft en distorts the dogmas of the Orthodox faith, which in some of its points directly repeats false teachings already condemned by conciliar decisions of the Church..." Moscow Patriarchate. 1935. Decision No. 93. Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. 1935. Decision of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad of the 17/30 October 1935 concerning the new teaching of Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov on Sophia, the Wisdom of God.

5 Th e allusion here is the popular book by Richard Pipes (Pipes 1995).


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sented Russia as the Th ird Rome, the heir of Byzantium. Florovsky’s dream made a close fi t with the US foreign and domestic policy during the Cold War, which wanted to see a Christian Russia in place of the atheist Soviet Union, and wanted to see Russian-Americans loyal to that anti-Communist idea. It should not be for-gotten that Florovsky arrived to New York only a year aft er the annunciation of the Truman Doctrine, and aft er being rejected by the liberal wing of the Parisian émigré community. Th at dream of the Russian Christian Renaissance, which inter-estingly enough came true in the post-communist Russia, was not only to redefi ne the Orthodox Church, but also to redefi ne how Russians see and defi ne themselves in relationships to the West.6 Th is dream also helped defi ne the Orthodox Com-munity in the United States. Florovsky’s confl icts with the older generation of émigré leaders, such as Berdiayev and Bulgakov, were not personal in nature, even though some harsh words had been exchanged between the large egos (Berdyaev 1937). Florovsky believed that what were at stake in these debates of the Russian émigré community were the future of the Orthodox Church and the future of Russia aft er communism. Berdyaev and Bulgakov were men from the past, people still wage battles which they inherited from the Imperial Russia. All those battles between the liberals and conservatives in and around the Church are now, that is aft er the Bolshevik Revolution, irrelevant. Florovsky was probably the fi rst n the émigré community to start looking toward the future, trying to determine what went wrong in Russia that led to the victory of the Bolsheviks and what will be-come Russian national ideology once the Bolsheviks are gone. With the help of his many disciples, Florovsky won this battle for Russian Orthodox identity, both in the West and eventually in Russia.

Florovsky was aware that he represented a new generation of thinkers, the next generation aft er the Russian Religious Revival of the early 1900s. Florovsky writes, Bulgakov as well as Berdyaev “belonged to the generation responsible for the so-called religious renaissance (of the early twentieth century). I was a young-ster when it was going on… Th ey could never forget this renaissance, for them it was basic and decisive.” (Blane 1993, 61) Th is was very true. Members of the Russian Religious Renaissance were all on the left of the political spectrum. Be-fore World War I, they grew up and fought the conservative hierarchy and the ideology of the Imperial Church, as exemplifi ed by the work of the conservative chief procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who was forced

6 Florovsky’s programmatic statement was delivered at a conference of Russian Orthodox Clubs in Philidelphia in September of 1949, just a year aft er his arrival. Two main points were, fi rst, the claim that Orthodoxy is not a national, but an international, ecumenical, a catholic Church. (In the original Greek, the word catholic means, for all). Secondly, he predicted that America might become the only country where freedom of religion is preserved, since, “it is quite possible that this freedom will be lost on the whole European continent in the next generation.” (Blane 1993, 93).

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fi nally out of politics in the changed atmosphere aft er the Russian Democratic Revolution in 1905. For Berdyaev, Bulgakov, and others who constituted the Rus-sian Religious Renaissance, this short Russian liberal summer, from 1905 to 1917, was the culmination of their life’s work. Florovsky was a man who matured as an intellectual only aft er the Bolshevik Revolution, in particular in exile. Th is change of generations was not only characteristic of Russia. Similar change happened in Germany, where the 19th century tradition of liberal theology was replaced, aft er the appearance of Karl Barth, with a much more conservative dialectical and neo-orthodox theology. Th ere is a reason why people of the time called World War I, the Great War. Th e war and revolution changed everything.

Th e strength and the ultimate success of Florovsky’s vision lies in his un-derstanding of the relations between Russia and the West.7 Unlike Berdiayev or Bulgakov, Florovsky was primarily a historian, and I would argue, a historian who, long before Edward Said’s analysis of the historical development of Western Ori-entalism, developed his own critique of Western Orientalism. Florovsky believed that he had discovered the ways in which the West had “stolen” the mantle of Roman heritage from Russia. Th is had happened with the malicious invention of the term Byzantine for the ancient Greek and Roman heritage by which the West ensures its own direct line to Greco-Roman antiquity and ultimately to the sources of Christianity. Th is is very true; Byzantium never really existed; Byzan-tines always saw themselves as Romans. It was the German Renaissance scholar, Hieronymus Wolf (1516–1580), who invented the word Byzantine. Furthermore, with the help of many Russians, who much like Berdyaev or Bulgakov, embraced one or the other kind of the Western style philosophy, that theft of cultural prop-erty has been perpetuated to this day.8 Th us for Florovsky, the Renaissance is the crucial period, because it was during the Western Renaissance and, by mean of the Moscow Baroque, its importation into Russia that the Russians were convinced to forget their relations with Constantinople (Florovsky 1974b, 189).

Th ese ideas of Florovsky were not just recycling of the old ideas of the nine-teenth century narodniks or the twentieth century Eurasians, who were numerous among the Russian émigrés. Th e Eurasians, such as Nikolai Trubetzkoy and Dimi-

7 By ultimate success of Florovsky’s vision I have in mind the fact that the post-communist Russia Orthodox Church has been revived largely by his vision and by the work of his followers. Th e goal of this article and other coming in this series is to trace the infl uence of Russian émigré communities on the revival of Orthodox Church in the post-communist Russia.

8 Th e words “stolen and theft ” are mine. Florovsky was much more polite at least in his writings. He emphasized that the past is always an interpretation, a reconstruction, and that such a reconstruction can only be achieved through a certain interpretative framework. “True inquiry is prejudiced from the very start.” Here Florovsky quotes Marc Bloch in support of this thesis, “every historic research presupposed that the inquiry has a direction at the very fi rst step.” It was in the work of Foucault and Said that his “direction” was clearly defi ned (Florovsky 1974a, 36–37).


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tri Mirsky, believed that Russia is not and never has been part of the West. Th us Russia needed to develop its own Asian identity. In his comments on Eurasians, Florovsky said that they “raise the right questions, but off er wrong answers.”9 Th is was a very sophisticated analysis of the anti-western discourse in Russia. In oth-er words, if you are opposed to something, that something that you oppose still defi nes who you are. Florovsky clearly understood the master-slave dialectics of Hegel. A slave can be held in bondage by the forced obedience as well as by the uncontrollable hatred of the master. Similarly, the Eurasians were still defi ned by the West, because of their uncontrolled anger towards the West and thereby they defi ned Russia again in Western terms.

In contrast to the Eurasians, who saw the future of Russia in Tibet, China, Florovsky called for a “return to Hellenism.” Th is is a little understood aspect of Florovsky’s thought. Oft en he is credited with the call to “return to fathers (pa-tristic revival)”, but this is just a partial understanding of the radical nature of Flo-rovsky’s main idea (Florovsky 1961, 165–176). What Florovsky wanted was not to create a new identity for Russia, like the Eurasians. Russia and the Orthodox Church already have a Roman (Hellenic) identity, which had been stolen from it by the West through a process that began with the Renaissance and continued to this day. John Romanides, Florovsky’s student, put it together rudely but very succinctly: the story of the West and Russia is not a story of continued rivalry between the Latin West and the Hellenic East. Th ere is no West, says Romanides. Th e confl ict is between the Romans and their heirs, the Orthodox nations, and the Franks and other barbarians (Romanides 1981). Th is is the summary of Florovsky’s ideas by Romanides, who defi ned the confl ict practically in racial terms. Florovsky put it this way, “the Eastern Church is in an unparalleled position… Her voice is not merely voice of the Christian East, but a voice of Christianity antiquity.”

Florovsky was clearly ahead of his time with regard to the issues of Orientalism, Byzantine history and its relations to Russia, because he saw how the West appropri-ated for itself this ownership of antiquity, including the Christian antiquity. He saw the process that began with Gibbon which involved the two steps move. First step was the condemnation of the Orthodox and, by extension, Russian tradition of Late Antiquity. Th is was done by Gibbon, Voltaire and many other liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment. In his Ways of Russian Th eology he documented how those ideas of the Enlightenment advocated by Gibbon (1735–1794) came to Russia. Once this connection between Russia and Hellenic thought is severed comes the second step. Th at was the idea that developed during the Renaissance, but fl ourished in the era of the Grand Tours and into the Romantic (Orientalizing) period, which defi ned the West as the product of the revival of the Greek Classical tradition.

9 Florovsky on Eurasianism, where does it come from?

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By this two step approach Russia was severed from the Classical (Hellenic) tradition and relegated to the margins of Europe. Th at is why Florovsky advo-cated the neo-patristic approach and called for the return to Church Fathers. Th e Church Fathers, who were all steeped not only in the Christian religion but also were well versed in the Hellenic philosophical tradition, could and would bring Russia back to its roots. He believed in Greek Fathers and Late Roman Empire long before it became fashionable to argue for a reconsideration of Late Antiquity. In the 1970s, Peter Brown and other members of the Late Antiquity movement rebelled against the prevailing Gibbon’s assessment of Eastern Roman Empire as a society in perpetual decline, a state that was in the process of dying out for over thousand years, was not accurate (Brown 1971).

Berdyaev was absolutely correct to assume that Florovsky, while putting on his priestly cassock, also became a political conservative. Th is political conserva-tivism was not anti-Western, as Berdyaev believed. Florovsky was not opposed to Western ideas per se, but he was opposed to the false claims that the West intro-duced philosophy to Russia. He clearly understood that these Western ideas, while praiseworthy in and of itself, contained a Trojan horse, and that was the idea that the Roman tradition of Late Antiquity, which was the intellectual foundation of the Orthodox Church, was a way of thinking that represented an intellectual de-cline and that was pejoratively called Byzantine.

Florovsky also understood the second step in the process by which the West appropriated or “stole” the Hellenic Late Antiquity from the Orthodox. Th e fi rst step was the labeling of the era of Church Fathers as an era of decline. Th e second step was the idea that the fl owering of the ancient Hellenic culture, aft er the de-cline of the Dark Ages, was fully restored only through the Western Renaissance and the Classicism of the Enlightenment. In other words, the Ariadne’s thread, which begins with the classical Hellenics schools, peripatetic, the skeptic, the stoic, was taken away from Plotinus, Gregory of Nazianz, the Cappadocian Fathers, and moved to the West, to the Platonic Academy of Florence, and the English Pub-lic Schools with their classical curriculum. Th is is how Florovsky understood the Grand Tour of the English aristocracy, as an attempt to take away the Hellenic heritage away from Russia, where it naturally belongs, and to appropriate it for England and for the West in general. Florovsky saw the underside of the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment that has not been noticed up until recently. As the crusaders plundered Constantinople in 1204 and took its relics to the West, in order to claim the mantle of apostolicity and antiquity, so have the thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Gibbon, fi rst degraded the continuity of the Hellenic heri-tage and appropriated it for the West. Th is was for Florovsky an obvious historical spoliation, the intentional hiding of historical evidence for the benefi t of Western


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superiority. One has to wait till the appearance of Foucault and Said to encounter such a penetrating critique of the Enlightenment and the Western tradition.

It might seem at the fi rst glance that Florovsky’s understanding of what con-stituted the genuine Orthodox tradition was much more anti-Western then what was considered the real Orthodoxy by Bulgakov or Berdyaev. Aft er all, Bulgakov was working within the tradition of German Idealism and Berdyaev is oft en called Russian existentialist. But, the West seems to have preferred Florovsky’s defi ni-tion of Russian Orthodoxy even though Florovsky was calling for expulsion of the Western infl uence from Russian Th eology and a return to its Hellenic roots. Berdyaev had trouble understanding this, since he saw himself as a guardian of progressive Western ideas in Russia and an opponent of religious conservativism and obscurantism. Berdyaev’s believed that when Florovsky started wearing his priestly cassock, he simultaneously abandoned the progressive tradition in Rus-sia. Berdyaev could not understand why the West would prefer Florovsky’s more conservative vision over his own more liberal vision for Russia. Th ere is a good evidence that such preference in favor of Florovsky and his more conservative vi-sion already existed in Europe, and it was only enhanced once Florovsky crossed the Atlantic.

Th ere are several reasons for this Western preference for the conservative self-defi nition of Russian Orthodoxy. Most importantly, aft er World War I, the West and Protestant theology in particular were in the middle of the neo-ortho-dox revival, symbolized by the fi gure of Karl Barth. Neo-orthodox movement was rejecting the liberal theology of the 19th century, to which Berdyaev also be-longed. In addition, in the Anglo-American world the philosophical speculations along the lines of Continental Philosophy were never very welcomed, especially not among the ecclesiastical circles. Florovsky, always exceptionally sharp-eyed, noticed that during the Anglo-Russian meetings, Russian religious intellectuals oft en “ignored completely the whole Biblical aspect, which was so important to the Anglicans.”(Blane 1993, 64) Furthermore, the neo-orthodox theology became tremendously ubiquitous in the West aft er World War II, when Karl Barth, for example, emerged as a rare and lonely German theologian who bravely stood up to the Nazis. It should also be mentioned that immediately aft er World War II, in other words, at the beginning of the Cold War, the West was not in the mood for the liberal criticism of religion. Th us the Cold War years, especially in America, reinterpreted the neo-orthodox theology as a religious revival and a shield against godless atheism.10 In short, in the 1940s and 50s the West, in particular the United States, was a fairly conservative place.

10 Karl Barth, the founder of Neo-Orthodox movement explicitly criticized American Cold War simplifi cation of his teachings (see: McCormack 1995, 24–25).

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As a dean of St Vladimir Seminary (1948–1955), Florovsky developed his program of neo-patristic synthesis, summed up by the slogan, “return to the fa-thers.” Florovsky believed that Hellenization of Christianity, accomplished in Late Antiquity by Greek Fathers of the Church, was a necessary and a positive thing. Simply put, Church Fathers preserved the best of Hellenistic philosophical tradi-tion and the best of the revealed traditions of Judaism, namely the teaching of Jesus (according to Florovsky). For Florovsky this issue of Athens vs. Jerusalem was a simple issue. He believed in the truth of Christianity, which rested on Jesus and his Church, and both the teachings of the founder and of the Church were expressed in Greek. Th ere was no contradiction there. Even the Jewish elements of the Christian tradition were mediated through the Greek language. Th is is the Hellenic tradition that Constantinople handed over to Russia at the time of her conversion. Th at tradition was gradually abandoned fi rst during the times of the Moscow Baroque (which could also be called the Russian Renaissance) and fi nally jettisoned out of intellectual circles aft er Peter the Great. Florovsky then believed that Russia does not need a Renaissance to return to the Hellenic philosophy, Rus-sia already had that tradition in its possession and it abandoned it by mimicking the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Th e West needed to re-discover Plato during the Renaissance, but Russia already had available the disciples of Plato in Gregory of Nazianz, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil the Great and therein lies the tragedy of Russian history. Th is is very diff erent from Berdayev’s belief that the messianic idea in politics was the curse of Russia from the Th ird Rome of Ivan III to the Th ird International of Lenin and Stalin. Florovsky did not mind the Russian messianic tradition. Russia’s tragedy was that it abandoned its own Hellenic tradi-tion in order to fi nd that same rationalistic and idealistic tradition in the West. Florovsky’s question was very poignant, why travel to Athens by ways of Berlin and German Idealistic philosophy? Why not go through Constantinople instead?

It was not just the clarity of thought that characterized Florovsky that made him so popular in the Orthodox World. It was the way in which he restored dignity to the Orthodox tradition. He answered the insulting scrutiny posed by many Westerners when observing the Christian East, namely that Russia and East-ern Europe was the “wild East” because those regions had never gone through the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (Wolff 1994, 25). Florovsky’s answer was that Russia did not need to get out of the Dark Ages, since it never was in the Dark Ages of medieval Europe. It was, up until the times of Moscow Baroque and Petrine Enlightenment, fi rmly in the fold of Hellenic Roman civili-zation. It was this simple statement of equality with the West that attracted the humiliated post-communist societies to Florovsky.

Aft er the Marxist experiment, when Russia adopted what was considered at the time one of the most progressive Western traditions and then failed as a


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state, many Russians felt disoriented, in particular by the stiff ness of the prejudice from the West toward Russia. In vain Michael Gorbachev pleaded for the idea of “Common European Home.” Russia was the other when it was Marxist; Russia re-mained the Orient even aft er the fall of Communism. It is not diffi cult to see why the Florovsky’s argument about Russia proud of its own Byzantine tradition, equal to the West, was so appealing to many aft er the fall of Communism. No matter how hard Russia tried to adopt the current progressive philosophy of the time, be it the Enlightenment philosophy under Peter and Catherine the Great, or Marxist philosophy under Lenin and Stalin, it always fails in Western eyes. Russia failed when it implemented Western Marxism; Russia failed again when it implements the free market reforms under the instructions from Western economists. In all of these cases, the blame is never assigned to the unsound Western ideas, but to the Russian fl awed implementation. In the eyes of ordinary Russians this is a clear example of Western prejudices, if not outright racism. Racial inferiority is, aft er all, intrinsic; it cannot be superseded by learning and Russia seemed to have learnt nothing since the time of Peter the Great. Florovsky, interestingly enough did not blame the West for these racists attitudes that oft en permeate Western scholarly and popular views of Russia. He just pointed out that it was Russian themselves who fell into this trap, by rejecting their own Hellenic heritage and adopting the inferior Western version of the Renaissance.

Needless to say, Florovsky’s ideas are nationalistic, and that is one of the rea-sons why they are very popular in the post-communist Russia today. Th is kind of Russian patriotism is something that obviously the Russian people desire aft er the humiliating experience of the post-communist transition. However, this Rus-sian nationalism was also the reason why Florovsky was eventually ousted from his position of the dean of St Vladimir Seminary at Morningside Heights. It is com-monly asserted that Florovsky was ousted from St Vladimir Th eological Seminary because he was too strict as a professor. Namely, Florovsky wanted to make Rus-sians into Classical Hellenes. His insistence that all seminary students take courses in ancient Greek language became the stuff of anecdotes (Blane 1993, 95). Most seminary student at that time came from uneducated working families. Th ey were oft en the fi rst in their family to enroll in a degree granting college. It is not hard to imagine how these students reacted to the requirement to take two years of classical Greek. Ultimately, however, it was not the resentment toward the strict curriculum that brought Florovsky down from the position of the dean and founder of the seminary. He came into confl ict with Reinhold Niebuhr, the foremost protestant theologian of 1950s and 60s and the creator of the infl uential political organiza-tion Americans for Democratic Action. Th is confl ict was not direct or personal, but it was a confl ict of two visions for the Orthodox Church in America and how would the Russian community fi t into the assimilation process aff ecting all the im-

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migrant communities. Th e confl ict occurred within the confi nes of the ecumenical movement (World Council of Churches) where both men participated actively, but where Niebuhr was gaining ever stronger infl uence.

From the very beginning of his stay at Morningside Heights, Florovsky par-ticipated in the ecumenical movement where his best friend on the Protestant side was Karl Barth. Aft er the war Barth enjoyed unequalled prestige among the German Protestants for his principled stand during the Nazi dictatorship and his active participation in the small but signifi cant Confessing Church in Germany. Florovsky held a similar position with regard to Communism in Russia, a man of integrity who stood up for intellectual freedoms and against the oppressive re-gimes. Th e two men were sitting together for years on the Faith and Order Com-mission of the ecumenical movement. Both Karl Barth and Georges Florovsky were interested in the doctrinal theological issues and believed that true Christian unity only could be achieved through unity of what is believed in, the unity of faith. However, these were the concerns that were important in Europe. Florovsky and Barth fought battles that started before World War II. Th e reality in America changed considerably in the mid 1950s at the height of McCarthyism. Reinhold Niebuhr was trying to organize a broad based progressive political and religious coalition. Th at coalition was also to include various immigrant churches. Th e ideo-logical basis of this coalition was not going to be the unity of faith, and the unity of liberal social action. Niebuhr was a conservative democrat, espoused progressive policies, but took a fi rm anti-communist line in the Cold War struggles. Niebuhr famously criticized Karl Barth for being “soft on communism” (Gorringe 1999, 220–221). Karl Barth, in turn believed that Niebuhr does not understand theol-ogy (Blane 1993, 107).

Niebuhr, since his experience of a pastor in Detroit during World War I, was a fi rm believer in the assimilation of German Protestants into the American mainstream. Now aft er World War II when he became the pre-eminent Protestant theologian in the country, he focused on the social gospel. As a member of the Justice Commission of the World Council of Churches, he had no patience for theological niceties of Florovsky or Barth. He even disliked the philosophical ex-istentialism of Paul Tillich, his colleague at Union Th eological Seminary, whom he brought from Nazi Germany to New York. For Niebuhr, sin was not an abstract theological issue, but a practical social issue. He saw the American capitalist self-centeredness as a sin and a root of social evil. Th e social problems were theological problems and they were to be solved by practical, decisive, political, and ultimately religious action. In a way, Niebuhr was a typical Puritan who wanted to create a society of hard working Americans, of all races and ethnicities, as an example of the shining city on the hill. According to Niebuhr, the theological diff erences were irrelevant; building of the Kingdom of God in America was everything. It was


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important that all American Christians can agree to improve their societies and thus combat sin in very practical terms. Philosophically oriented Barth, Tillich, and Florovsky thought this was another American quick fi x founded on the lack of real understanding of theology. Niebuhr saw their resistance as resistance to the will of God.

Father Florovsky was not opposed to social issues and Christian action on social issues. He was not anti-society in a way Ayn Rand was. However, for him the idea of the Orthodox Church as the bearer of the Hellenic spirit was a non-negotiable category. He found the assimilation of various American churches into a fuzzy communion of mainstream denominations, based on social gospel and the theology of the Serenity Prayer, repugnant.11 Russian Orthodox community was being asked to accept the latest fad in the Western theological thinking, the so-cial gospel. Th is was the Russian problem since the Moscow Baroque. Florovsky believed that the Orthodox Church was the true Church, universal in its mission and that Russian must be aware of this fact and proud of its universal mission. Th e agreement toward Church unity must be on the basis of theological unity. In other words, the Protestant Churches should return to the Orthodox Catholic Church of the Hellenic Fathers and Ecumenical Councils. Th is was in clear opposition with the American practice of assimilation, where various religious groups are in-corporated into the American mainstream, by accepting the main philosophical te-nets of American ideology, while retaining the ethnic fl avoring. In short, Florovsky wanted a Hellenic Universal Church that would incorporate occasional American convert, but whose primary focus would be to restore Russian and by extension Orthodox dignity in the world. Niebuhr wanted the immigrant churches to be-come American, with an occasional Russian accented sermon and the intermittent shouting of “opa” as a sign of the ethnic fl avor. Th ere was to be no compromise between these two positions. Florovsky clearly lost and, aft er being removed from the deanship at St Vladimir, he found no place at Union Th eological Seminary, where Niebuhr dominated. He moved, fi rst to the Greek Th eological Seminary in Boston and then in 1956 to Harvard Divinity School. Tillich also followed suit, left Union Th eological Seminary and settled at Harvard.

Th us, with Florovsky leaving St Vladimir and Morningside Heights, ended a very important phase in the trajectory of Russian Diaspora. Florovsky’s students, such as John Meyendorff and Alexander Schmemann, continued to pursue his call for the return to Hellenistic Christianity of Late Ancient Church Father. But nei-

11 Th e Serenity Prayer is the common name for an originally untitled prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). It has been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs. Th e best-known form is: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Th e courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the diff erence.”

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ther Meyendorff nor Schmemann were blind followers of Florovsky. In the same way that Florovsky led the Russian émigré community during the Cold War period in 1950s, Meyendorff and Schmemann led the St Vladimir Seminary through the turbulent era of 1960s and 70s. Th e seminary moved out of Morningside Heights, severed its links with Union Th eological Seminary, and established itself in the New York suburb of Crestwood. Th e move to the suburbs was very symbolic. Th e seminary became much more middle class American. More about the contribution of Meyendorff and Schmemann to the trajectories of Russian émigré community is to come, but here I can also say that these two men made the Russian Orthodox community in the United States more American. Florovsky did not understand that. Much like Berdyaev and Bulgakov, he was more interested in Russia than in America.

Bibliography: Berdyaev, N. 1937. Ortodoksia and Humanness, (Critique of Florovsky’s „Th e Way of the Rus-

sian Church”). Journal Put’, apr–july, 53: 53–65.Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev. 1999. “Orthodox Th eology on the Th reshold of the Twenty-First

Century” (Paper at the international scholarly conference Th e Russian Orthodox Church fr om 1943 to the present at the Transfi guration Monastery in Bose (Italy), 15–17 Sep-tember 1999).

Blane, A. ed. 1993. “Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual, Orthodox Churchman”. In St Vladimir Seminary Press. New York: Crestwood.

Brown, P. 1971. Th e World of Late Antiquity. London: Th ames and Hudson.Geertz, C. 1973. “Religion and a Cultural System” in Th e Interpretation of Cultures. New

York: Basic Books.Florovsky, G. 1961. “St Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” In Sobornost, 4

(4): 165–17.——— 1974a. “Th e Predicament of the Christian Historian”. In Christianity and Culture,

Th e Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Vol II. Belmont, Massachussets: Northland Publishing Company.

——— 1974b. “Th e Ways of Russian Th eology”. In Aspects of Church History, Th e Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Vol IV. Belmont, Massachussets: Northland Publishing Company.

———. 1979. Ways of Russian Th eology. Reprint, Belmont, Massachusetts: Northland Pub-lishing Company.

McCormack, B. 1995. Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Th eology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pipes, R. 1995. Th ree Whys of the Russian Revolution. Toronto: Vintage Canada.Romanides, J. 1981. Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine (Patriarch Athenagoras Memo-

rial Lectures), Holy Cross Orthodox Press.


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Wolff , L. 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe: Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlighten-ment. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Pre

Gorringe, T. 1999. Karl Barth against Hegemony. New York: Oxford University Press USA.

Sources:Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. 1935. Decision of the Bishops’

Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad of the 17/30 October 1935 concerning the new teaching of Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov on Sophia, the Wisdom of God.

Moscow Patriarchate. 1935. Decision No. 93.



Part IIIArt of the Survival

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UDK: 327.5(497)”1952/1956”; 327:355(497)”1952/1956”; 327(497.1)”1952/1956”

BALKAN PACT 1953 AND YUGOSLAVIA*

Summary: Balkan pact signed by Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey shortly before Stalin’s death on 5th March 1953 was among the biggest achievements of NATO in the fi rst years of the Cold war. A year aft er Greece and Turkey had joined NATO, Yugoslavia entered the pact with two new NATO member states. NATO had the same strategic challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean like in Scandinavia and Baltic area. Th e entrance of Greece and Turkey was an equal success as the presence of Denmark and Norway since 1949. Greece was one of the most important members of NATO: the Greek civil war ended in 1949 and country was dominated by the communist ideology with a very strong pro-Soviet mindset. Aft er the breach between Stalin and Tito, the Yugoslav foreign policy was inconsistent: fr om sponsoring Greek partisans to abandoning and betraying Marcos and Greek communists. Yugoslav foreign policy in the fi rst years of the 50s was at fi rst marked by the confr ontation with USSR, but latter with closer relations to USSR that would lead to failure of the Balkan pact. Involvement of Yugoslavia in Balkan pact and possible connection with NATO was an illusion and the result of cold relations between two communist leaderships of Yugoslavia and the USSR. For NATO, the southeast of Europe was equally important as the northeast because of the physical distance fr om the USSR. Th at is the reason why Yugoslav situation, to some extent, is comparable with Finland (especially aft er Finn-Soviet Treaty of 1948). Th e research will be based on unpublished sources fr om the National Archives in London, which will give an input on relation of western intelligence services towards Yugoslavia and towards Balkan pact and its founding states. Yugoslavia was showing false signs of approaching West alliance and pursuing anti-Soviet policies. Th at politic was also a result of poverty and economic situation in which material

Original scientifi c paperHa ris DAJČ

Faculty of Philosophy University of Belgrade

[email protected]

* Th is paper was prepared as a part of the Ministry of Education and Science of Republic of Serbia project Western Balkans Modernization (reg. number 177009).

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help fr om the West was essential. Th e events of 1953 in GDR and of 1956 in Poland and Hungary confi rmed the Yugoslav pro-Soviet orientation.

Key Words: Balkan pact, alliance, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, NATO, Tito

The Balkans alliance was a military-political alliance active in the early stage of the Cold War, what makes it specifi c in many ways. It was unique for, while Korean war was still raging, it brought together two NATO members, Greece and Turkey, on one side, and a „renegade” from the Eastern bloc, Yugoslavia. Having in mind characteristics of social-political systems and diff erences between alliance members in a bipolar world, forming of such re-gional concord made unprecedented political exception, if not absurdity. Th e idea of military union of Balkan countries was not new, and diff erent Balkan alliances were formed on several occasions in the fi rst half of 20th century (Terzić 2008). Links formed in 1953 were result of feelings of endangerment, not of territorial aspirations as was the case with fi rst Balkan alliances. Closer relations and friend-ship treaty, as well as latter military alliance of Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia were caused by threat from potential aggression by USSR and/or its satellites (Laković 2008). Th e most threatened state among those three was Yugoslavia. Greece and Turkey became NATO members in 1952, so other members were obliged to react in case they were attacked by some other country. It could be said Greece and Turkey aft er 1952 were very unlikely to become a target of Soviet Union. On the other hand, aft er the breach between Stalin and Tito in 1948 Yugoslavia became the fi rst „renegade” from communist bloc, so military confl ict between Yugoslavia and USSR and its allies became very probable during 1948 and 1949 (Luberić 1994). Outbreak of Korean War in 1950 substantially decreased probability So-viets and their allies will attack Yugoslavia, while Stalin’s death in 1953 marked the beginning of the end for tense relations between USSR and Yugoslavia. Aft er 1953 and Stalin’s death Eastern bloc countries themselves became uncertain an institutionalized military cooperation was benefi cial. Yugoslavia had other motives for cooperation and alliance besides Western fi nancial support, necessary in those years for Yugoslavia’s survival (Laković 2006). For Yugoslavia a military coopera-tion with NATO members, Greece and Turkey, was very important because of Trieste crisis and tense relations with Italy because of unsolved territory issues. Aft er the summer of 1954 forming of military alliance, i.e. turning of Treaty on friendship and cooperation between three countries into a military defense alli-ance helped Yugoslavia to attain better negotiation positions for ending Trieste

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issue (Luberić 1994). Probably the most important result of this military alliance aft er Stalin’s death was acquiring additional negotiation assets for reconciliation between Tito and Khrushchev: making pact with NATO members while evading to enter NATO or start negotiations in that direction put Yugoslavia in clear posi-tion as neutral towards Western alliance, giving it additional prestige in a Socialist bloc (Bogetić 2000). Although it appears as a paradox, alliance with Greece and Turkey was for Yugoslavia a very important prerequisite to normalize relations with Soviet bloc.

Interests of Greece and Turkey were overshadowed by 1952 when those two states joined NATO. Civil war in Greece ended in 1949, aft er Tito ceased help-ing Greek communists. Tensions between Yugoslavia and Greece ended and aft er joining NATO Greece considered its boundaries were secured despite Yugoslav wish to discuss „Macedonian issue”( PRO FO 371/1131661 Belgrade 20th Febru-ary 1954). NATO membership of Turkey was a success of Turkish foreign policy and additionally secured open Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, an issue Soviets wanted discussed at Potsdam conference. Interests of Greece and Turkey resulted from a need for strengthened NATO infl uence in the Balkans and Asia Minor which improved positions of those countries. Links with Yugoslavia and its poten-tial joining NATO would strengthen positions of both states in the NATO, but also fully secure Southern wing of NATO and brought about overland connection with Italy, an important issue for NATO positions in eastern and southeast Europe (Dimitrijević 2008). During preparations for the Treaty and latter military alliance interest of USA, as leading Western power, was to slowly bring Yugoslavia under the auspices of the Western bloc. Th e threat of Socialist bloc attack on territories of three Balkans states ebbed away and that considerably eroded previous unity of these countries over common foreign policy priorities. Diff erences between two NATO members and one country with communist attitudes became more obvi-ous, so since autumn of 1954 the end of that alliance could be envisaged, and aft er Soviet delegation visit to Yugoslavia in 1955 the purpose of the alliance was questionable. Events in Hungary next year proved that alliance members belonged to diff erent poles and alliance petered out, despite certain provisions and proto-cols of previous agreements were ratifi ed by inertia (Bogetić 2008). On the other hand, Greece-Turkey dispute over Cyprus showed the alliance was not functioning even when only NATO partners were involved (Terzić 2010). Relations between Greece and Turkey became even more complicated in second half of 1950s, while Tito and Yugoslavia turned to Non-aligned movement. Tito obtained valuable experience during existence of Balkan alliance and he used it later for neutrality

1 Public Record Offi ce, in further text it will be called PRO, Foreign Offi ce, in further text it will be called FO 78/10.

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policy of Non-aligned movement: same as in the case of military agreement with Balkan neighbors, Yugoslavia used neutrality Non-aligned solicited to continue its own „way” towards communism without rejecting fi nancial support from the West (Laković 2006).

Researchers from Balkan countries that studied Balkan alliance oft en accept-ed one-sided approach to British attitude towards events in 1952–1954. Unpub-lished documents give way to conclusion that British position towards the alliance was not bare opposition to military alliance, but primarily reasonable doubt that it will ever function if Yugoslavia do not start process of joining NATO. Initiative for forming of the alliance came from Yugoslavia, for that country had most inter-est for it: literature on this topic neglected this important fact. British diplomatic and military dispatches enable following evolution of Balkan alliance idea that developed in Belgrade (PRO FO 371/102191 Rome 16th May 1952).

Yugoslavia’s convergence to Greece and Turkey can be followed through newspapers and news on „neighborly” relations and a need for more intensive cooperation between Yugoslavia and Greece and Turkey (PRO FO 371/102191 Belgrade 25th April 1952). Reports on change in attitude towards Greece British diplomats conveyed to the Whitehall, and as reasons stated bad relations with Italy and a fear of Soviets. Converging of these three countries and possibility of political and military cooperation were mentioned in Jugopress newspaper in April of 1952.

In the same period, during April British ambassador in Athens suspected that goal of Yugoslav politics and improved relations with neighbors was military alliance that would help Yugoslavia in case of a military attack and would oblige Greece and Turkey to help it (PRO FO 371/102191 Athens 30th April 1952).

According to British diplomats dispatches from Balkan capitals and other European cities it became clear that initiative for developing closer relations be-tween Balkan countries originated in Yugoslavia (PRO FO 371/102191 London 26th May). As an overture for military delegations meetings that took place to-wards the end of that year, Yugoslav side initiated parliamentary visits with Greece in summer of 1952. Next exchange of parliamentary delegations Yugoslavia had with Turkey in September of the same year. Anyway, correspondence of ambas-sador in Ankara and announcement of Turkish minister of foreign aff airs, Mr. Korulu, showed that Turkey wanted to build stronger links between Balkan al-liance and NATO pact. Possible military cooperation Turkish minister did not conditioned by Yugoslavia approaching NATO (PRO FO 371/102191 Ankara 17th June 1952).

By the end of June British side realized that Tito’s tactics concerning pos-sible alliance was that aft er improving neighborly relations he would switch to next phase – building of military-political alliance. As a confi rmation of increased


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activity of Yugoslav offi ces abroad and their lobbying it cited that one of the most infl uential generals and a member of army general headquarters, Peko Dapčević, received for the fi rst time Greek military attaché aft er refusing to see him in 18 months since his arrival in Belgrade. Greek general headquarters relayed to British colleagues their interpretation of Yugoslav plans for alliance development as a kind of alliance in SE Europe that would weaken Soviet infl uence and would be unique European security mechanism (PRO FO 371/102191 Paris 23rd June 1952), an equivalent to European Defense Community.

In summer of 1952 announcement of three Balkan countries alliance became public secret in European diplomatic and military circles (Bogetić 2008). Italy’s position towards possible alliance was reserved and complex: it both supported idea of convergence of three states and remained skeptical towards Yugoslavia’s motives for an alliance with two NATO candidates at the time. Italy even ex-pressed its wish to cooperate in a program for common security mechanism for SE Europe, but highlighted it required additional consultations with its allies (PRO FO 371/102191 London 23rd July 1952).

Th e treaty signed by three countries in Ankara on February 28 1953, few days before Stalin’s death, was titled Agreement on fr iendship and cooperation be-tween Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, Kingdom of Greece and Republic of Turkey, but Tito’s plans actually concurred with news British intelligence had: the fi rst proposal for exchange of ideas and plans of army general headquarters of three states Yugoslav side relayed to Turks through their ambassador in Belgrade already on July 25 (PRO FO 371/102191 Istanbul 26th July 1952). Th at happened two years before fi rst offi cial conference of three armies chiefs of general stuff 2 (Terzić 2008). Assumption that military alliance of three countries could be in future used as an instrument in recruiting Yugoslavia for Atlantic treaty can be found in diff er-ent sources from summer 1952, but British diplomats and military personnel re-mained by and large suspicious (PRO FO 371/102191 London 23rd July 1952).

First signifi cant military team from Yugoslavia traveled to Athens on Septem-ber 5–10 to meet members of Greek general headquarters (PRO FO 371/102191 Athens 8th August 1952). Interesting detail is that fi eld marshal Montgomery was in Athens at the time. Possible meeting with marshal Montgomery was skipped due to timidity of Yugoslav side, afraid to be seen with the fi eld marshal, reported British representative in Belgrade and his Greek colleague in Belgrade concurred (PRO FO 371/102191 Belgrade 16th August 1952).

Diplomatic news made very important military-political delegations visit Yugoslavia in the second half of 1952 and check possibility Balkan alliance would be formed. Visit by British foreign aff airs minister Anthony Eden in September

2 Bled, August 10–14 1954.

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and his meeting with Tito could be seen in that light (Terzić 2010). Next step in improving foreign politics position of Yugoslavia was a visit by American general Th omas Handy in November of the same year. In the autumn of 1952. British sources put a lot of eff ort but could not resolve attitude of Yugoslav side towards NATO, since Yugoslav side always replied either they had no instructions for such talks or it was not included in meeting agenda (PRO FO 371/102191 Athens 6th August 1952). Head of Yugoslav military delegation that visited Ankara on September 24 aft er visiting Athens, general Jakšić, for the fi rst time publicly an-nounced Yugoslavia would momentarily reply if some country attacked Turkey (PRO FO 371/102191 Ankara 30th September 1952). Th at announcement was certainly related to hypothetical attack on Th race Bulgaria could make following USSR instructions or Soviet breakthrough towards straits.

Dispatch from Washington to Ministry of defense in London at the begin-ning of November 1952 shows that highest military circles in West already knew Yugoslav military mission was ready at best for data exchange and a dose of cour-tesy (as source cited), so they advised two NATO members, Greece and Turkey, to achieve additional harmonization of their relations and military plans within Western defense mechanism (PRO FO 371/102191 Washington 7th November 1952).

End of November and December brought Greek and Turkish military del-egations to Belgrade, respectively. Reports of both delegations lead to the conclu-sion that expectations were not met and either side did not stick to precise agenda. Greek side was very surprised when their Yugoslav colleagues suggested joint mili-tary planning on certain topics, something Greeks were not informed about at all (PRO FO 371/102191 Belgrade 4th December 1952). Very surprising was off er by Yugoslav general headquarters to show Greek delegation military data and plans never mentioned before, despite realistic assumption Greeks would share them with NATO partners. As reasons for that Brits cited Trieste crisis and wish of Yugoslav side to forestall possible Italian obstruction of further cooperation of Balkan countries (PRO FO 371/102191 London 13th December 1952).

Tripartite military meeting was held at the end of December. Greeks and Turks remained puzzled why Yugoslav side was ready to present military data on its capacities and army disposition while still having territorial dispute with an-other NATO member – Italy (PRO FO 371/102191 Washington 16th December 1952).

Preparations for treaty and cooperation with Greece and Turkey paid off to Yugoslavia already at the beginning of 1953, when it received economic sup-port from US government and an international bank (Laković 2006). Th e only remaining thing that spoiled Tito’s plans concerning Balkan alliance was unsolved Trieste issue.


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Confi dential dispatches from Washington from the end of December reveal that meeting with Th omas Handy was important for joint strategy and plans were made in case Soviets attacked Yugoslavia (PRO FO 371/102191 Washington 16th December 1952). Th at can be considered as an introduction or preparations for opening Yugoslav negotiations with NATO. Confi rmation came on January 21 of the next year when, during meeting of foreign aff airs ministers of Yugoslavia and Turkey in Belgrade, minister Keprilia pointed the problem of Yugoslav stance towards NATO and presented position of its government that tripartite treaty should be only one stage of the journey that will bring their relations into unison and lead to ultimate goal: Yugoslavia’s participation in NATO (Bogetić 2008). Yugoslavia did not accept that but left options for further institutionalization of relations. Aft er Belgrade, Turkish minister visited Athens in order to agree joint position towards Yugoslavia with a representative of Greek government, marshal Papagos.

Ankara treaty that would remain remembered as Balkan treaty was signed on February 28 1953 by three ministers of foreign aff airs. By ratifying it, Yugoslavia formally aligned with West, so this event was welcomed in the Western world. Reality that suited Tito and Yugoslavia as one of protagonists was that proclaimed alliance plans ideas were very diff erent to its operational capabilities. Th at became evident in 1954, and in 1955 the alliance slowly lost any meaning.

Yugoslavia’s attitude towards NATO shaped very much joint strategy of three Balkan allies: Greeks and Turks kept favoring conclusions of meeting with Th omas Handy and forming of a military alliance to decrease threat of East Eu-ropean countries attack on the Balkans. Th e key issue for functioning of Balkan alliance was its relation towards NATO. Turkish side was most in favor of linking with NATO, while Tito evaded that idea (Laković 2008).

Next meeting of military representatives aft er treaty signing in Ankara took place in Athens in June 1953. Th e corner stone for further plans was joint attitude that attack on one of the states would be considered attack on all three partici-pating countries. In certain way that presented link between Balkan and Atlantic treaty, for in case of USSR or some of its satellites attacking Turkey or Greece Yugoslavia had to react. By the end of 1953, aft er several meetings including mili-tary conference in Washington (August 1953), Tito’s avoiding to make concrete steps to bring Balkan alliance closer to NATO was winning. In November 1953 in Belgrade the Additional agreement was signed that announced forming of a politi-cal body – permanent secretariat, instead of a military committee as proposed by Greece and Turkey. During the year a slightly revised plan of Greek general head-quarters was accepted concerning joint battleground near Yugoslav-Greek border

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and Th race. Th is tripartite defense plan specifi ed military component of Balkan alliance (Heinemann 2008).

In January of 1954 British intelligence sources noted there is stagnation in cooperation, so beside exchange on military readiness nothing much happened. As many times before, it was noted that Yugoslav-Greek border, Tracie and straits are strategically the most important belt of Balkan alliance defense from potential enemy (PRO FO 371/113166 London 26th January).

Reports from Belgrade at the beginning of the year cited that Yugoslav of-fi cials seemed off ended when their partners from Greece or Italy announced that Balkan alliance is step towards stable links and approaching to NATO. Dailies attack Greek prime minister, marshal Papagos, for such statements (PRO FO 371/113166 Belgrade 6th February 1954). In foreign policy terms, 1953 is very important for Yugoslavia because of Stalin’s death (Terzić 2010). Aft er consoli-dating his position, Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev started to converge with Tito. Balkan allies realized aft er 1955 how important it was for Yugoslavia to es-tablish best possible relations with USSR. British reports from 1954 describe slow change of Yugoslavia’s attitude that brings it closer to ideologically familiar USSR (Peilikin 2008).

Th e anniversary of treaty ratifi cation and a letter from Koča Popović, sent with comments to the Whitehall, best describe futility of Balkan alliance only a year aft er it was formed, but also that contemporaries saw and interpreted Yugoslav foreign policy as egotistic and inconsistent (PRO FO 371/113166 Belgrade 20th February 1954). Aft er a period of improved relations with Western powers since 1952, it became obvious Yugoslavia had various priorities: one of declarative ones was Balkan treaty that from the beginning showed it will not last long since diff er-ences between Yugoslavia on one side and Greece and Turkey on the other were too big, so much so that foreign policy goals of Yugoslavia had nothing to do with those of Greece and Turkey. As examples of Yugoslav inconsistency mentioned were Macedonian propaganda and bringing up of „Macedonian issue”, despite al-liance between two states. Aft er Reuters relayed news on text by propaganda organ „Glas na Egejcite”, a protest came from Yugoslav state secretariat that Brits want to break the alliance (PRO FO 371/113166 Belgrade 20th February 1954)! As a motive for such foreign policy stated was inferiority complex that make Yugoslavia establishment behave like an economy or military power (PRO FO 371/113166 Belgrade 20th February 1954). Th e fact that Yugoslavia had diplomatic relations with 29 countries in 1950, and with 52 four years later explains well importance Yugoslavia gave to relations with Costa Rica or Burma (PRO FO 371/113166 Belgrade 20th February 1954). Shallowness of such politics aimed at fascinating own citizens was stated by British source that illustrated it with Tito’s visit to Ethi-


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opian monarch Haile Selassie when Tito ordered for that purpose special medal „Marshal’s star” made of gems and of exceptional value. A need to fi nd friends became so important and present in Yugoslavia’s politics that it was normal that leading newspaper headline reads „Important potential of economic cooperation with Costa Rica” (PRO FO 371/113166 Belgrade 20th February 1954).

January 1954 (PRO FO 371/113166 London 26th January 1954) both Brit-ish sources and admiral Dick who was in Paris consider treaty ratifi ed by three states was not in collision with emergency defense plans of Great Britain. In 1954, aft er Tito’s meeting with Turkish government representatives imitative was started to turn Balkan treaty into alliance. Decision to make alliance was made in Ankara aft er discussion of Yugoslav and Turkish side, so that caused negative reactions in Athens since Greece felt like a junior partner (Terzić 2010). However, Tito visited Athens in June and same agreement was reached like few months before in Ankara. Th e prime enemy of ratifying the alliance during preparations was Italy because of unsolved Trieste issue. British sources cited Italian concern for premature de-cisions of Turkey and then Greece to enter an pact with a non NATO country that moreover have unresolved territorial issue with another NATO member: Italy (PRO FO 371/113166 Ankara 4th May 1954). Italian worries over Trieste did not prevent forming of Balkan alliance, but USA advised Turkey to slow down quite quick preparations for alliance ratifi cation. Tito’s initiative to form the alliance resulted from unfavourable economic situation that force him to better cooperate with Western bloc, at least that is what French and British sources reported from Belgrade in the spring of 1954. Biggest challenge for Western alliance remained relations between Balkan pact and NATO, i.e. what obligations would Yugoslavia accept. French ambassador to Belgrade off ered three options on Yugoslavia and its status: 1. entering NATO, 2. special relations between Yugoslavia and Euro-pean Defence Community (EDC), 3. Acceptance of Yugoslavia into EDC (PRO FO 371/113168 London 18th May 1954). By making military defence pact with two NATO members, Yugoslavia obtained protection from the whole Western bloc, but did not accept any obligations. Th at was the reason for such proposals by French ambassador. However, by the end of summer it showed none of off ered options will come true. In May and June British and American sources reported they were worried by rush preparations to turn treaty into a pact. Th ey cited it was wrong to rush and that pact would have no real importance if not supported by NATO or if legal framework for cooperation with NATO is not achieved (PRO FO 371/113168 London 25th May 1954).

Italy’s opposition to forming of Balkan pact was supported by France and USA, because of Trieste issue and obligations NATO would accept if two of its members sign such an agreement, specially for it carried no similar obligations for Yugoslavia (PRO FO 371/113167 London 11th June 1954). An interesting

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turn happened in June when Italy changed its attitude towards future pact (PRO FO 371/113167 Ankara 10th June 1954): Italian ambassador in addressed rep-resentatives of Turkish government and stated that Balkan pact would help in fi nding solution for Trieste issue, something totally opposed to previous attitude. Anyway, the most interesting was proposal that Italy join Balkan pact (PRO FO 371/113167 Ankara 10th June 1954). If Italy joined that would certainly be pre-mature, but that did not happen. Initiative for accepting Italy came from Turkey that was instructed by USA (Bogetić 2000), but Great Britain made them not put pressure on Yugoslavia to accept Italy into alliance (PRO FO 371/113167 Paris 17th June 1954). British sticked to a safe policy, they did not want to gamble with existence of the alliance, so they advised USA Italy should join later and only aft er Trieste issue was resolved (Bogetić 2000).

Preparations to turn treaty into military defence alliance were executed dur-ing spring and summer. Signing took place in Bled, Yugoslavia on August 9, when during Bled conference Balkan alliance was ratifi ed as a military alliance for a period of 20 years. Yugoslavia succeeded in its endeavour to have alliance independent of NATO. At the meeting of three general headquarters representatives Yugoslav side emphasized it respected NATO membership of two other allies and obligations their membership brings (Terzić 2008). Possible reason NATO accepted such an alliance that was suitable for Yugoslav side was failure of EDC (European Defence Community), since its establishment was not ratifi ed in French parliament on Au-gust 30 1954. Roughly at the same time Trieste issue was coming to an end, fi nally was resolved on October 5 by signing of London treaty (Bogetić 2000).

Balkan pact signed at Bled conference in August 1954 inherited Balkan treaty signed in Ankara on February 1952 and was special alliance that due to contradic-tions and diff erent bloc affi liation of its member could not survive bigger foreign policy challenges. By signing the agreement and entering this alliance, Yugoslavia and Tito won a lot without losing anything. Th ey profi ted by extended fi nancial support from West that was of existential importance for quite poor and isolated Yugoslavia, but also with symbolical importance of the alliance that was used for achieving more respect worldwide, especially in the Eastern bloc and the Th ird world. Stalin died just before agreement signing, so with new Soviet leadership and in changed circumstances, Tito raised his negotiations capital. Turkey and Greece not much before became NATO members in 1953. Greece ended in 1949 its civil war that was partially fi nanced by Yugoslavia, while Turkey had all of its northern border exposed to potential attack by USSR or its satellites. Balkan agreement, later a pact, were important for security of both countries for they could be certain Yugo-slavia will be no threat. According to British sources it was obvious cooperation of three Balkan countries has no big signifi cance if not linked to NATO. Tito, at least judging by British archives and available literature, did not show ambitions for Yu-


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goslavia to join NATO or for any obligations towards Western alliance that would distance him from Eastern bloc. Tito used Balkan treaty and pact to strengthen po-sitions for talks with Khrushchev. It could be assumed that experience Tito earned in preparation and realization of Balkan treaty and pact was precious, for later Non-aligned movement was used by Tito and Yugoslavia primarily for personal promo-tion and giving Yugoslavia more importance in the world than it could deserve by its economy or anything else. Th e treaty and the pact served their purpose and protected signing countries from attack by USSR or its satellites, the one that be-came very unlikely aft er Stalin’s death. Anyway, diff erences between members were large, the world of Cold war was bipolar, and on of the signatories (Yugoslavia) was unwilling to make radical changes in its foreign policy orientation, so pact was not sustainable and remained one of the paradoxes of the Cold war.

Unpublished materials:Public Record Offi ce, Foreign Offi ce, Southeast ST department PRO FO 371/113166, Foreign Offi ce, Southeast ST departmentPRO FO 371/113167, Foreign Offi ce, Southeast ST departmentPRO FO 371/113166 Foreign Offi ce, Southeast ST department

Bibliography:Bogetić, D. 2008. “Podsticajni i faktori ograničavanja na putu savezništva Jugoslavije, Grčke i

Turske 1952–1953. godine.” Zbornik radova Balkanski pakt 1953/1954: 64–83.Bogetić, D. 2000. Jugoslavija i Zapad 1952–1955 jugoslovensko približavanje NATO-u.

Beograd: Službeni list SRJ.Dimitrijević, B. 2008. „Jugoslavija i Nato 1951–1958. skica intezivnih vojnih odnosa.”

Zbornik radova: Spoljna politika Jugoslavije 1950–1961: 255–274.Heinemann, W. 2008. „Nato and the Balkan pact.” Zbornik radova Balkanski pakt 1953/1954:

169–175.Laković, I. 2008. „Zapadna vojna pomoć Jugoslaviji kao uvod u stvaranje Balkanskog pakta.”

Zbornik radova Balkanski pakt 1953/1954: 201–211.Laković, I. 2006. Zapadna vojna pomoć Jugoslaviji Jugoslaviji 1951–1958. Podgorica: Istori-

jski institut Crne Gore.Luberić, R. 1994. Vrući mir Hladnog rata. Podgorica: Istorijski institut Crne Gore.Pelikin, J. 2010. „Th e Yugoslav state visit to the Soviet Union, June 1956” Zbornik radova:

Spoljna politika Jugoslavije 1950–1961: 93–117.Samardžić, N. 2012. „Identitet Beograda: Globalni grad ili globalno selo?” Limes plus 1–2

2012. 61–76.

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Terzić, M. 2008. „Titova Jugoslavija u stvaranju Balkanskog pakta 1953/1954.” Zbornik ra-dova Balkanski pakt 1953/1954: 96–110.

Terzić, M. 2010. „Jugoslavija i Balkanski pakt 1953/1954.” Zbornik radova: Jugoslavija u Hladnom ratu: 111–126.



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UDK: 72.03(497.11)”180/197”

* PhD, Associate Professor, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Architecture** PhD, Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade

BETWEEN EAST AND WEST – Infl uences on Belgrade Urban and Architectural Development from the early 19th century to the 1970s1

Abstract: If we want to understand modern urban development of Belgrade in the 20th century, it is necessary to understand the importance of its specifi c geo-strategic and geo-political position between East and West – on the confl uence of the Sava and the Danube rivers – having a crucial impact on its urban and architectural development throughout history. Political and cultural infl uences of the East and West, which were alternating aft er the Serbian state had been restored, constitute the basic elements of its modern identity, which is also largely expressed in a constant struggle between the traditionalism and modernism, the conservative and the progressive. Aft er the WWI, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed (1929), which apart fr om the erstwhile Kingdom of Serbia, consisted of the regions that used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman empires. Th e new Kingdom was a political and cultural symbiosis of the East and the West parts of the Balkans. Th e Capital, Belgrade, lost its centuries-long border position. In the large scale reconstruction of the, in the war devastated town, the state authorities tried to reconcile the existing historic and cultural diff erences in the new Kingdom, and in its urbanism and architecture, to refl ect a new national, political and cultural identity. Aft er the WWII, Belgrade was the capital of the Democratic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, led by the Communist Party and

1 Th is paper is a part of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia scientifi c project Th e Western Balkans modernization (reg. No. 177009).

Review article

Mirjana Roter Blagojević,*[email protected]

Marta Vukotić Lazar**[email protected]

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Tito. By 1948, the country claimed allegiance to Soviet Union. Aft er 1948, the Yugoslav political elite chose the “third way” between the communist East and capitalist West. In the fi rst post-war years, the old idea of extending the city to the plains, between the Sava and the Danube, was revived. Th e new area, called New Belgrade, was planned, and two competitions were announced in 1946. In the area of future New Belgrade, stretching fr om the Old Sava Bridge, as a link with the old town, a broad boulevard was built with the Yugoslav Presidency building (1947–1954) and the Communist Party Central Committee building (1964). Th ese buildings symbolically mark the creation of a new political state centre and the new capital city, outside the old town. Th e very architecture of the buildings was supposed to refl ect the new progressive social and aesthetic trends – the so-called Socialist Realism. Th e 1960s Belgrade architecture was more liberate and rich. Diff erent Yugoslav versions of the Western International Style and poetical interpretations of the Western mainstream Modernism were expressed on major public buildings. Th ese buildings symbolised the fi nal cultural and artistic turn to the West, and fr om that time progressive architectural ideas fr om the developed European countries starting to bee adopted.

Key Words: traditionalism, communism, soc-realism, modernism, progress

Urban and architectural development of Belgrade in the 19th century

If we want to understand modern urban development of Belgrade in the 20th century, it is necessary to understand the importance of its specifi c geo-strategic and geo-political position between East and West – on the confl uence of the Sava and the Danube rivers – having a crucial impact on its urban and architectural development throughout history. Political and cultural infl uences of the East and West, which were alternating aft er the Serbian state had been restored, constitute the basic elements of its modern identity, which is also largely expressed in a con-stant struggle between the traditionalism and modernism, the conservative and the progressive.

We can say that modern political and cultural development of Serbia started in the early 19th century.

BETWEEN EAST AND WEST – INFLUENCES ON BELGRADE URBAN AND

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Aft er the First Serbian Uprising in 1804, Belgrade became the Capital of the new Serbian principality. However, in the 1820s, the Turkish army returned to the Fortress and the Moslem population to their homes (Ђурић-Замоло 1977).

Serbian Principality had a partial political autonomy and Prince Miloš Obrenović marked that by building his new Court (1829–30) and the new Church (1837–1840) at the Sava slope where the Christian population lived. (Максимовић 1983, 8–11). Th ey had the façades with elements of Central Euro-pean Baroque and Classicism and were the symbol of political and cultural break with the Eastern tradition and of an adopting European culture and architecture. (Несторовић 2008).

At that time, the Ser-bian Principality and Bel-grade had specifi c political and strategic position, be-tween the Austrian Monar-chy and the Ottoman Em-pire. In 1834 Prince Miloš Obrenović began prepara-tions for building a new Serbian part of the town – the 19th century New Belgrade – on the slopes of the west Vračar area. Koen-ning’s Plan (1854) clearly

Th e Belgrade in the mid of XIX century

Th e Kenning’s Plan of Belgrade, 1854

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shows the contrast between the rational European orthogonal street network on the slopes of the west and east Vračar and the Levantine areas with spontaneously formed streets in the Old Town. (Шкаламера 1997, 181).

Favourable circum-stances for an extensive transformation of the Ser-bian capital came about in 1870s, when Prince Mihai-lo Obrenović fi nally man-aged to accomplish the fi nal withdrawal of the Turk-ish army and the Moslem population from the Old Town. With the Obrenović Dynasty, Serbia established

stronger ties with Europe, especially with Austria. Aft er the proclamation of King-dom in 1882, foreign investments started. Numerous plans and photos show a speedy transformation of Belgrade and its growth into a modern, Western town. (Ротер-Благојевић 2006).

Modern transformation in the fi rst half of the 20th century

Th e turn of the centu-ry was marked by intensive city constructions. In the early 20th century, like in other European countries, Belgrade sees the results of modern architecture: Art Nouveau or the Austrian Secession in combination with the monumental style of Academism. (Kadijević 2005) Some architects com-bine the Secession with the national Serbian mediaeval style in many public and res-idential buildings, creating a new authentic approach, a symbiosis of modern and

Kralja Petra St.at the end of the 19th century

Njegoševa 11 St, arch. Branko Tanazević, 1912 (photo M. Roter Blagojevic)


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traditional national architecture (Kadijević 2004, 53–70). On many buildings, like Njegoševa 11 St., were aplied the combination of the Secession elements with the Serbian mediaeval decorations – in the spirit of the Serbian Byzantine style.

For the further political and cultural development of Serbia, a very important issue was a dramatic change of dynasty in 1903, when King Aleksandar Obrenović and his wife Draga were assassinated. Th e new king was Petar Karadjordjević and he turned away from Austria and established a close connection with the Russian Monarchy.

However, in architec-ture and urbanism, Europe-an infl uences were still quite strong and the fi rst Belgrade Master Plan was made by a French architect Alban Chambond (1912), in the spirit of the 19th century French academic town plan-ning (Милатовић 1980, 221–238). But, the prob-lems of the inherited urban structure and real problems of the town were neglected, and WWI stopped the plan to be carried out.

Aft er the war, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed (1929), which apart from the erstwhile King-dom of Serbia, consisted of the regions that used to be part of the Austro-Hun-garian and the Ottoman empires. Th e new Kingdom was a political and cultural symbiosis of the East and the West parts of the Balkans, and King Aleksandar Karadjordjević wanted to establish a new national, political and cultural identity of the Kingdom – the idea of a ”national unity” was a dominant one in the govern-ment politics (Ignjatović 2007). Very important was that the Capital, Belgrade, lost its centuries-long border position. In the large scale reconstruction of the, in the war devastated town, the state authorities tried to reconcile the existing his-toric and cultural diff erences in the new Kingdom, and in its urbanism and archi-tecture, to refl ect a new national, political and cultural identity – the spirit of the ”national unity”.

In 1921, at the Serbian Architects and Engineers Association’s initiative, an international competition for the New Master Plan was organised, showing a de-sire to establish a dialogue with other European professionals, so as to get some

Th e fi rst Master Plan of Belgrade, Alban Chambond, 1912

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modern ideas and functional solutions, but most of all, to get free of the closed local frames, burdened with traditionalism. In 1923 a Master Plan draft based upon the proposed ideas was presented. Th e author of the Plan, Đorđe Pavlović Kovaljevski, was one of the many Russian engineers who aft er the October Revo-lution came to Yugoslavia and worked in the state or municipality construction offi ces. In order to connect Belgrade with Zemun and the conquered new terri-tory on the left bank of the Sava river, the Master Plan proposed construction of two bridges. Cutting a tunnel beneath the historic core of the city was supposed to facilitate a more functional motor and railway traffi c, as well as to help clear the river banks (Максимовић 1980). And although numerous quite advanced ideas presented in the Plan were, unfortunately, never realised, the Plan started some progressive initiatives, clearing a path to their partial realisation in the future.

Th e Chain Bridge across the Sava (1934) connected Belgrade and Zemun, spanning the eastern and western parts of the Kingdom which had been divided for many centuries and developed under diff erent political and cultural infl u-

ences. Across the river, the complex of the Belgrade Fair Grounds (1937) was built, becoming a symbol of a modern city prosperity. Th e Complex had the Ital-ian, Czechoslovakian, Hun-garian, Rumanian, German and Yugoslav pavilions. Th is modern composition, organized in a rational and functional way, with its dominant central tower, was telling a story about ac-

ceptance of an avant-garde concept of architecture (Vukotić Lazar, Đokić 2006, 34–40).

However, a completely opposite approach was in the central core of the old city, with the government and military buildings. Since the 1880s, Kneza Miloša St. and Nemanjina St. have become a representative “state buildings axis”, the grand avenues with major governmental headquarters, monumental academic architec-ture of historic styles, designed by architects educated in Austria and Germany. Since the 1920s, new government buildings were built – the Ministry of Finance (1926–28), the Ministry of Forestry and Mining and Ministry of Agriculture and Waters (1925–29), the Military Headquarters, the Ministry of Transport (1932). Th ey represented a style imposed by the state and were designed by the Ministry

Th e Old Fair Grounds and the Chain Bridge across the Sava (photo fr om 1937)


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of Civil Engineering. Many Russian ar-chitects worked there under protection of King Aleksandar (Кадијевић 2002–2003, 131–142).

Apart from the monumental aca-demic style that came about under the infl uence of European architecture, a na-tional style was being developed, carry-ing on a tradition of the mediaeval Ser-bian and Byzantine architecture. It was mostly implemented in church building designs (the St Mark’s Church in the

Tašmajdan, modelled according to the Gračanica Monastery Church in Kosovo, 14th century).

Th e national style was also imple-mented in public buildings, mostly on schools (the Trade Academy and the Second Women’s Grammar School). One of the major eminent architects to follow the national tradition was Mo-mir Korunović, educated in Belgrade, Prague, Rome and Paris. He create an au-thentic Yugoslav architectural language, based upon the mediaeval and vernacular tradition (the Post Offi ce 2, 1928–29) (Кадијевић 1997).

Also the third, modern architec-tural language was developing in blocks of fl ats. In only two decades, almost the eight thousand new multi-storey build-ings were constructed in the city centre. Modernism was particular to private houses and villas in new residential areas at the city outskirt (the Professors’ and the Traders’ Colonies, and in Neimar, Senjak and Dedinje) (Blagojević 2000; Blagojević 2003).

Th e State Print Shop, a work of architect Dragiša Brašovan (1933–40), is one of the most outstanding examples of Modernism in Serbia. Brašovan studied

Th e Ministry of Finance, Nemanjina St. 1926–28

Th e St Mark’s Church, arch. Branko and Petra Krstić, 1930–39

Th e Trade Academy, arch. J. Denić, 1925

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at the Technical Universes of Budapest and Belgrade, and opened his own prac-tice in Belgrade (Ignjatović 2003).

On April 1941 the capital of Yu-goslavia was bombed by the Luft waff e. Th e city was heavily destroyed. Unfor-tunately, Belgrade was also bombed by the Allies in April and May 1944, which also caused signifi cant damage.

Development under the communist regime

Aft er the Second World War, Belgrade was the capital of the Democratic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, led by the Communist Party and Tito. By 1948, the country claimed allegiance to Soviet Union. Aft er 1948, the Yugoslav politi-cal elite chose the “third way” between the communist East and capitalist West. In September 1961, the fi rst Non-Alignment Movement conference was held in Belgrade. Th e Yugoslavia’s communist regime became one of the leaders of the Non-Alignment Movement and established a close connection with other African and Asian leaders (Nehru, Nasser and Sukarno).

Th e multi-storey building, arch. B. Marinković,1932

Th e State Print Shop, D. Brašovan, 1933–40. (photo M. Roter Blagojević)

Th e State Print Shop and Railway bridge aft er bombarding


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In the fi rst post-war years, the old idea of extending the city to the plains, be-tween the Sava and the Danube, was revived. Th e new area, called New Belgrade, was planned, and two competitions were announced in 1946 expecting designs for the main government buildings, along with a preliminary plan for the whole New Belgrade. Aft er that, construction of the city was based on the 1948 Belgrade Master plan, under the architect Nikola Dobrović’s authority. His idea of a new socialist metropolis – the Great Belgrade – started to be realized. Nikola Dobrović was born in Pecs (Pecuj), the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, educated in Budapest and Prague and had a prosperous practice in Prague and Dubrovnik before the WWII. Since 1944, he was the Head of the Architecture Section of the Yugoslav Ministry of Civil Engineering, the Main architect of Belgrade and the professor at the Faculty of Architecture (since 1948). He has a special place in the history of the capital city urban planning and made a great impact on architecture in the socialist “renewal and construction “period. In addition, he made the fi rst drawing of the New Belgrade construction (Vukotić Lazar 2002).

In the area of future New Belgrade, stretching from the Old Sava Bridge, as a link with the old town and its centre on Terazije, a broad boulevard was built with the Yugoslav Presidency building (1947–1954) and the Communist Party Central Committee building (1964). Th ese buildings symbolically mark the creation of a new political state centre and the new capital city, outside the old town. Th e very architecture of the buildings was supposed to refl ect the new progressive social and aesthetic trends – the so-called Socialist Realism (Vukotić Lazar 2002).

Yet, apart from its political connotation, the New Belgrade urban composi-tion and architecture were primarily based upon the Western infl uences – the Le Corbusier’s ideas on a modern city, integrated in the 1933 Athens Charter. In

Th e fi rst model of the New Belgrade, 1948, N.Dobrović and collaborator’s M. Macura and J. Krunić, the Serbian Institute of Urbanism

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the late 1930s, three Serbian architects worked in Le Corbusier’s studio in Paris – Milorad Pantović, Jovan Krunić and Branko Petričić – who aft er the WWII had successful design and university ca-reers in Belgrade. Th ey were a sort of a conduit for the Western international theory and style to be brought to Yugo-slavia. In 1952, there was a great exhibi-tion on Le Corbusier in Belgrade, when an extensive catalogue was printed, which was of a major infl uence on the city planners and architects in the coun-try (Krunić 1998).

New Belgrade was the place where the mass-production of apartment buildings, home for more than 200,000 peo-ple, grouped in 72 area units (named “blocks”), started to be built as early as in 1946. Th e construction started with voluntary youth actions, arranging the land and covering it with sand. In the area at the end of the representative boulevard, Students Accommodation Pavilions where built for the young people, the future of the state. Th e New Belgrade was the country’s “fi rst socialist city,” and a model for new residential areas all over Yugoslavia (Blagojević 2007).

New satellite suburbs for workers’ families started to spring up in new in-dustrial zones, quite distant from the city. Th e fi rst one was Železnik, a new in-dustrial town of 18,000 people. In 1947 and 1948 66 blocks of fl ats were erected, with about 450 fl ats, according to a prof. Branko Maksimović project. Although the architects wished to provide humane living conditions for the working class, following modern standards, the hous-ing pavilions were rather modest and uniform in their design, which refl ected the hard post-war times when they were built (Генерални урбанистички план 1950).

Th e period of Social-Realism in Serbian architecture was a dominant one in the major public buildings, continuing the pre-war tradition of merging the elements of academism and modernism, but now adapted to the new communist ideology. Public architecture was totally a refl ection of the new age, of the one-party totalitarian establishment taste and ideas. A major example and one of the symbols of the period is the Union Building (1952, arch. D. Petričić) incorporated

Th e Yugoslav Presidency building, 1947–1954 and the Communist Party

Central Committee building, 1964

Th e Železnik, a new industrial town


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in the old city core of Belgrade, between Terazije and National Assembly build-ing. And in front of the huge building, a new monumental square – symbolically named Marks and Engels Square – was built. The architecture of the square relates to the similar public complexes of communist regimes in the centre of Bucharest, Sofi a and Moscow (Krunić 1998).

As crucial in the post-war architecture was the First Yugoslav Architects and City Planners Conference held in Dubrovnik in 1950. Th e Conference announced some signifi cant changes and more freedom in architecture, and a unanimous wish of all the participants to break with the so-called social-realism practice. It certain-ly marked a political break with the Soviet Union and a start of a new state policy. In 1953, the centralised Belgrade Design Bureau was closed, which gave rise to independent studios. For any major projects, public competitions were organised (Referati, 1950).

In the old part of the city, at the intersection of Kneza Miloša St and Ne-manjina St, the complex of modern mili-tary buildings, known as the „Dobrović Headquarters” (1954–1963), were erect-ed. In the exceptionally monumental urban composition, formed by the two buildings, opposite one another, the new Military Headquarter and National De-fence Secretariat werw housed (Vukotić Lazar, 2002). Th e main mass of this twin pale red edifi ce, bent over Nemanjina St, are ascending like a staircase towards the sky. Th e buildings confi rmed that archi-tect Dobrović was one of the key fi gures in establishing modern architecture not only in Belgrade, but also in the country in general. Th e 1999 NATO bombard-ment demolished the complex.

The National Defence Secretar-iat building today (photo M. Vukotic Lazar).

Th e Union Building, arch. D. Petričić, 1952

Th e project of the new Military Head-quarter…

… (1) and National Defence Secretariat (2) buildings, arch. Dobrović,

1954–1963

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Th e 1960s Belgrade architecture was more liberate and rich. Diff erent Yu-goslav versions of the Western International Style and poetical interpretations of the Western mainstream Modernism were expressed on major public buildings – the Museum of Con-temporary Art, 1965, arch. I. Raspopović and I. Antić; the Faculty of Philosophy, 1964–74, arch. S. Ličina; and the Belgrade Institute of Urbanism, 1970, arch. B. Jovin (Stojanović, Martinović 1978). Th ese buildings symbolised the fi nal cultural and artistic turn to the West, and from that time progressive architectural ideas from the developed European countries start-ing to bee adopted.

BibliographyBlagojević, Lj. 2000. Moderna kuća u Beogradu (1920–1941). Zadužbina Andrejević,

Beograd.Blagojević, Lj. 2003. Modernism in Serbia: Th e Elusive Margins of Belgrade Architecture 1919–

1941. Th e MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London.Благојевић, Љ. 2007. Нови Београд: Оспорени модернизам. Завод за уџбенике,

Архитектонски факултет у Београду, Завод за заштиту споменика културе града Београда, Београд.

Vukotić Lazar, M. 2002. Beogradsko razdoblje arhitekte Nikole Doborivća. Plato, Beograd.Vukotić Lazar, M.; Đokić, J. 2006. “Complex History as a source of planning problems: Old

Belgrade Fairground,” Spatium 13–14: 34–40.--. Генерални урбанистички план 1950, Београд, Извршни одбор Н.О. Београда, Београд,

168–169.Ђурић–Замоло, Д. 1977. Београд као оријентална варош под Турцима 1521–1867. Музеј

града Београда, Београд.Ignjatović, A. 2007. Jugoslovenstvo u arhitekturi. Građevinska knjiga. Beograd.———. 2003. Arhitektonski počeci Dragiše Brašovana 1906–1919, Zadužbina Andrejević.

Beograd.Kadijević, A. 2004. “Two courses of the Serbian architectural Art Nouveau: International

and national / Два тока српског архитектонског Aр-нувоа: интернационални и национални.” Heritage/Наслеђе, 5: 53 – 70.

Th e Museum of Contemporary Art, arch. I. Raspopović and I. Antić, 1965 (photo M.Roter Blagojevic)


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———. 2005. Естетика Архитектуре академизма (XIX – XX век). Грађевинска књига, Београд.

———. 1997. Један век тражења националног стила у српској архитектури (средина XIX – средина XX века). Грађевинска књига. Београд.

———. 2002–2003. “Улога руских емиграната у београдској архитектури између два светска рата.” Годишњак града Београда 49/50: 131–142.

Krunić, J. 1998. Beograd imajući biti. Savez arhitekata Srbije, Beograd.Максимовић, Б. 1980. “Вредности Генералног плана Београда од 1923. године и њихово

поништавање.” Годишњак града Београда 27: 239-269.———. 1983. Идеје и стварност урбанизма Београда 1830.–1941. Завод за заштиту

споменика културе града Београда, Београд. Милатовић, М. 1980. “Албан Шамбон, Генерални урбанистички план Београда.”

Годишњак града Београда 28: 221–238.Несторовић, Б. 2008. Архитектура Србије у XIX веку,.Арт прес: Београд.Реферати за I саветовање архитеката и урбаниста Југославије, први део, Дубровник 23.

до 25-XI-1950 год. Научна књига, Београд 1950.Ротер-Благојевић, М. 2006. Стамбена архитектура Београда у 19. и почетком 20. века.

Архитектонски факултет Универзитета у Београду и Орион арт. Београд. Stojanović, B., Martinović, U. 1978. Beograd 1945–1975. Urbanizam. Arhitektura, NIRO

„Tehnička knjiga“: Beograd 1978.Шкаламера, Ж. 1967. “Прилог проучавања картографских извора за историју Београда

19. века.” Годишњак града Београда 14: 169–201.


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UDK: 316.334.56:711.4(497.11)”195/199”; 72.01:316.75(497.11)”195/199”

THE CITY IN SELF-MANAGEMENT: THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW BELGRADE’S ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY

Abstract: Th e article deals with the development of Socialist Yugoslavia’s urban policies in the decades aft er the break with the Soviet Union. Th e new openness toward the infl uence of Western modernist architecture and the resulting changes in the urban planning are refl ected in the history of New Belgrade. A special attention is given to the relation between the construction of New Belgrade and the ruling ideology of workers’ self-management. Apart fr om the offi cial policies, the article opens the question of the ways in which the social movements fr om below infl uenced the practice of city planning in Yugoslavia. Finally, the text briefl y discusses the potency of Henri Lefebvre’s concept of ‘right to the city’ as a potential guidance for answering the social contradictions and public denouncements, which the Yugoslav modernist architecture, faced in the 1980s.

Key Words: self-management, urban planning, urban politics, socialism, New Belgrade, Yugoslavia, architecture, housing, buildings, social movements

I hold that the history of architecture and constructed urban artifacts is always the history of the ruling classes; it remains to be seen what kind of limitations and concrete successes were brought about by the era of revo-lutions and their alternative conceptions of the city (Rossi 1982, 23).

Aldo Rossi In an effort to distinguish the experi-ence of the socialist city from the cities in the West, Michael Harloe points out to numerous diffi culties the planned economies were facing in their urban poli-

Review article

Goran Musić, European University Institute,

[email protected]

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cies. Th e most obvious ones emerge out of the painful contradictions between the stated revolutionary ideals and everyday practices. Like other state policies, deci-sion making in urban planning was far detached from the infl uence of the ordi-nary inhabitants of the socialist cities. Th e absence of the market was supposed to place the equality and well-being of the citizens over profi t. In reality, the drive for rapid industrialization and economic effi ciency oft en mirrored the alienating spa-tial logic of the market. At the time when many Western metropolises were going through a process of de-urbanization, socialist regimes were still struggling to keep the rate of investments in urban housing in pace with the infl ux of migrants from the countryside. Th e failure to do so resulted in the situation where a large section of the blue-collar working class lived in improvised or rural settlements (Harloe 1996, 14). Th e decaying facades of the socialist cities presented glaring proofs that something went wrong. Th e writing was on the wall and no amount of agitprop makeup could mask it. Th e feeling that the socialist countries were losing the battle for modernity with the West came to be a menacing fact for the nomenclature and the population eventually leading to demoralization and outright abandonment of the socialist project as a whole.

On the other hand, a number of authors choose to focus on the positive dif-ferences which the city in a non-market environment either accomplished or tried to achieve in contrast to the urban environments trapped in mortgage loans and real estate. According to Ivan Szelenyi, the central planning, along with the state ownership of the land, meant that urban development could be subjected to a much greater control and more ambitious visions than under capitalism. Free from the constraints of the land prices, socialist planners had freedom to use space gen-erously and pay more attention to aesthetics rather than narrow economic consid-erations in urban design (Szelenyi 1996, 302). Th ese cities showcased the potential for distributing collective consumption on an equal basis and massive scale. Th e free public provision of housing, symbolized by the apartment blocks, which came to dominate the landscape of socialism, was one of the most important means for rising and egalitarian living standards, thus enabling the avoidance of many ills as-sociated with rapid urbanization processes in developing countries.

In their own unique way, the urban policies inside socialist Yugoslavia encap-sulated all of the contradictions mentioned above. Brigitte Le Normand correctly identifi es two main goals coming out of the Yugoslav socialist revolution. Th e fi rst one was to create an egalitarian workers’ state governed by the principles of self-management. Th e second was the rapid industrialization and economic growth necessary to create the preconditions for such a new state (Le Normand 2008a, 4). Th e negotiation between these two tasks, which were increasingly being seen as mutually excluding by the authorities, marked the entire lifespan of socialist Yugoslavia. Conveyed into the housing policy, these goals implied the process of


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integration of peasants from diff erent backgrounds into an urban environment, as well as their transformation into socialist citizens capable of participating in the newly created self-management structures. Most of the urban planning was therefore oriented towards facilitating good neighborly relations and organization of space in accordance with the demands of new political and economic order. Th e vision of a creative socialist habitat soon came into collision with the need for a fast build up of the housing stock and the malfunctioning of self-management institutions.

One of the fi rst urban policies of the post-World War Two authorities was the restraint of the housing market mechanisms. Beside the real-estate confi scated from the fascist collaborators, socialist authorities did not proceed with full scale nationalization of the entire housing stock but set strong limits to the extent of property rights and the ability to extract rent from them instead. Formally, each Yugoslav citizen kept the right to own and occupy a building containing maximum of two large apartments, or three smaller ones, however, rent seeking from this property was practically abolished. It is estimated that a working class family of four was spending 33.6 percent of its income on rent in 1938, while in 1946 this share fell to 5.3 percent and further down to 2.4 percent in 1958 (Le Normand 2008a, 5).

Th e new infl ow of migrants from the countryside was supposed to be ac-commodated through the construction of state owned housing whose allocation would promote equality and fairness with need, the size of the household and seniority in workplace as the only criteria for distribution. However, the housing stock grew slow within fi rst fi ve year plan as the priority was given to investments in heavy industry and the military. Th e centralized allocation of the new fl ats con-centrated extensive power in the hands of housing authorities and gave them the opportunity to discriminate and duplicate hierarchical state relations within hous-ing distribution.

Th e break of Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union in 1948 opened up the door for a re-evaluation and search for the new solutions in the realm of politics, econ-omy, territorial organization, philosophy and art; including architecture and urban planning. Th e idea of workers’ self management, according to which the direct producers should have the right to run the enterprises themselves through elected councils, was supposed to be applied in other non-economic sectors as well, such as: schools, hospitals, scientifi c institutions and urban neighborhoods.

Th e increase of consumption and democratization associated with this turn was perceived by the authorities as being possible only together with the intro-duction of the market incentives, decentralization and the increasing autonomy of companies in their economic decisions. Th e construction of new housing was relocated to locally-based Funds for Housing Construction, which collected a per-

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centage of workers earnings in order to reinvest them into new urban projects. In-dividual fi rms and the city authorities were encouraged to take initiative and invest income in local housing projects, a measure which was hoped to raise productivity and economic initiative. In a country with deep inherited structural inequalities and diff erent regional levels of development these measures would prove to have contrasting outcomes.

Th e thinking of architects and urban planners was profoundly infl uenced by the intellectual opening and freedom for experimentation which came with de-stalinization. As the editor of the newly established Yugoslav jornal Arhitektura, Neven Šegić, proclaimed in 1950:

“Th e fact that the character of socialist architecture is very much diff erent from the capitalist architecture does not in any case imply that it should isolate itself from the general development of architecture today…Our architecture po-sitioned itself critically from the very beginning to the totality of architectural creation by taking advantage of all progressive, active moments of contemporary architecture” (Blagojević 2005, 89).

Gone was the Stalinesque aesthetic of monumentalism coupled with pre-fab-ricated fi ve-story buildings one could fi nd in the cities like Nowa Huta or Eisen-hüttenstadt (Hamilton 1979, 236). Following the credo that the implementation of the principles of Western modernist architecture on a grand scale was possible only under socialism, the Yugoslav architects and urban planners embraced the functionalist ideas of the International Modernist Movement and the legacy of Le Corbusier with all their might. Th e building of New Belgrade presented an op-portunity for the construction of a new city whose organization and style would refl ect the exceptionality of the Titoist socio-political and ideological project. For many, the switch from the avant-garde to neo-classicism in the Soviet Union, in the early 1930s, symbolized the passage to the Th ermidorian stage of the October Revolution. Now, ostracized from the mainstream of world communism, Yugosla-via was set to prove its revolutionary credentials by revitalizing the radical modern-ist edge of socialist architecture.

Socialist Skyscrapers

Th e uniformity of the units that compose the picture throws into relief the fi rm lines on which the far-fl ung masses are constructed. Th eir outlines soft ened by distance, the skyscrapers raise immense geographical facades all of glass, and in them is refl ected the blue glory of the sky. An overwhelming sensation. Immense but radiant prisms (Le Corbusier 2003, 319–324).

Le Corbusier


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Th e swampy, terrain spreading between the Austro-Hungarian city of Semlin and the Kalemegdan fortress cliff − the last base for the Ottoman troops inside Bel-grade− was a no man’s land for centuries, a suspended space bordering the Occident and the Orient. Ljiljana Blagojević notes that this tabula rasa quality turned it into a perfect space for the urbanist fantasies and ideological projections. Inherited old city centers in Eastern Europe presented a challenge for the urban planners as they unavoidably maintained much of the pre-socialist spatial and functional structure, physical appearance and marked interzonal diff erentiation (Hamilton 1979, 227). For this reason, the concept of new cities carried great appeal for the socialist au-thorities. In the Yugoslav case, the uninhabited plane, just outside of Belgrade, had an additional implicit political value of extraterritoriality. Its neutrality in relation to the old historical centers, cultural diversities and national divisions inside the new federal state made it a suitable point for the projection of New Belgrade− the capital of multinational socialist Yugoslavia (Blagojević 2005, 248).

In the fi rst post-war years, there was nothing unusual or dissenting about the concept of New Belgrade inside the country and the regime seen as one of the most loyal adherent of the Moscow line. Th e new capital was envisioned as a representative center for the federal organs with all appropriate infrastructures and a diplomatic quarter. Th e only two buildings which were explicitly named in the government’s public competition for the urban plan of New Belgrade in 1947 were the headquarters of the Communist Party and the Presidency of the new federation. Th e main project of the Serbian Institute for Urbanism suggested hi-erarchical circles of buildings, intersected with traffi c arteries radiating around the main governmental building, and a large circular square in the center ornamented with a fi ve-pointed star. Th e monumental character of the project was matched by the usage of unqualifi ed voluntary work brigades as the main force for socialist construction works. It is calculated that in the fi rst post-war years, between 1946 and 1952, some million men and women, from all regions of Yugoslavia, partici-pated in these eff orts to make up for the mechanical defi cits with revolutionary élan (Blagojević 2005, 73–85).

Th e fact that this model was highly criticized by the architectural community and fi nally rejected, one year before the formal break of Yugoslav communists with the Cominform, shows the strong resistance the dogma of social-realism faced in-side the country from the very beginning. Th e year 1948 fi nally brought the strong cleavages brewing inside the architectural community to the open along with the political changes in the country. Arhitektura carried strong exchange of words be-tween the advocates of modernism and social-realism with the latter usually end-ing up in minority. Former modernist Branko Maksimović, for instance, negated the revolutionarily nature of modernism, equating it with the system of rotting capitalism. On the other side, Andrija Mohorovičić reminded his colleagues that

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the radical Yugoslav architects always stood against the historical styles and acade-mism of the 19th century. In the context of the time, these words clearly implied a refusal to compromise and incorporate the so-called progressive styles of the past (see: Maksimović 1948, 80; Mohorovičić 1948, 6–7).

Th e outcome of the discord was clear by 1950, when, on the pages of Arhi-tektura, one of Tito’s most trusted cadres in the fi eld of culture and art, Vladislav S. Ribnikar, criticized the housing units built up to that point as ‘ugly, dreary and heavy’. Instead he called for:

Housing buildings made for the life of people…optimistic, light and luminous, expressing the joy of life, optimism and happiness of the working man, a socialist man for whom they are meant for (Ribnikar 1950, 22).

With the change in the political nature of socialist Yugoslavia, the concept of New Belgrade switched dramatically. Th e idea of a centralized symbol of the state and the party was abandoned and new plans now gave priority to the cre-ation of communal living spaces and integration with the old city center. Th e de-mand for a monumental touch remained, however, it was now about to fi nd its expression in high modernism of the skyscrapers and geometric abstractions. Th e new plans were adjusted to the administrative organization of self government in smaller units. Th e living space was broken into regions and micro-regions, each with its own set of public infrastructure such as: primary schools, kindergartens, playground, library, restaurant, ambulance and spaces for social and political meet-ings. Th is functional micro-unit (popularly known as ‘the block’) was envisioned as a community of citizens set up to govern and develop social work and everyday life in the spirit of self-management (Blagojević 2005, 136).

New Belgrade served as a laboratory for diff erent ideas about self-man-agement system which would eventually be implemented in the whole country.


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Th e constitutional changes in the following decades attempted to establish the local community as the locus of socio-political organizing. Th e 1974 constitu-tion theoretically diminished the power and functions of the traditional state and political apparatuses by transferring executive competencies to non-professional self-management communes. In this way, the local community (opština), divided into neighborhoods (mesna zajednica or blok in the case of New Belgrade), repre-sented the basic political and territorial organization of self-management. Th e self management institutions− each consisting of chambers with delegates from the communities, work organizations and socio-political organizations−were elect-ed on the level of local communities and the city level (Leonardson and Mirčev 1979, 192).

Th e local city assemblies therefore represented a complex network of institu-tions for self-management and local governance with wide jurisdictions (including town planning), fi lled with delegates mandated by various functional constituen-cies. Th is corporatist structure was maintained by three separate chambers at each government level which then formed joint executive councils and city administra-tion bodies. Th e delegates in the chamber of citizens were elected directly and secretly by all residents of the neighborhood districts. Being the crucial social force for the creation of socialism, the working class enjoyed its own chamber consti-tuted through workers’ councils inside the work organizations. Th e third function from which the delegates were drawn were socio-political organizations such as: the Trade Union Federation, Union of Socialist Youth, Association of National Liberation War veterans, the League of Communists etc. A further addition to these delegate institutions were the ad-hoc elected ‘self management interest com-munities’, consisting of delegations from the interested parties in diff erent sphere of social life, deciding on how to carry out the decisions brought by the assemblies (Leonardson and Mirčev 1979, 199).

Th e modernist view of a functional city divided into self-suffi cient zones of regulation and consumption went hand in hand with the growing tendency inside Yugoslavia to equate self-management with decentralization and the market; an idea of integration of various social interests through an all embracing network of self-management bodies.

By the mid-1960s, the gap between theoretical model and daily practice of self-management inside the cities became painfully obvious. Th e system of lais-sez-faire socialism created a situation where the economic power was withdrawn from the local bodies with banks, import-export companies and other powerful instances withholding much of the social capital under their control. Bureaucratic and technocratic circles occupied the self-management organs with little or no contact with the voters. Th e agencies with salaried offi cials, formed by the Com-mune Assembly, took a life of their own. Single individuals rotated functions or

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COMMUNE

Social Movements in Belgrade, 1968…1988

CITIZENS IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES

WORKERS IN SELF-MANAGEMENT

COUNCILS

MEMBERSHIP OF BASIC SOCIO-POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

SELF-MANAGEMET INTEREST

COMMUNITIES

DELEGATIONS OF CITIZENS AND WORKERS

LOCAL COMMUNITIES

ORGANISATIONS OF ASSOCIATED LABOR

SOCIO-POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS

ASSEMBLIES OF THE CITY COMMUNES – EACH WITH THREE CHAMBERS

COMMUNE 2

COMMUNE 1

COMMUNE 3

COMMUNE 4

COMMUNE N

THE CITY ASSEMBLY OF DELEGATES

CHAMBER OF CITIZENS

CHAMBER OF ASSOCIATED LABOR

SOCIO-POLITICAL CHAMBER

CITY ADMINISTRATION

BODIES

THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

THE EXECUTIVE COUNCILS

THE COMMUNITIES ADMINISTRATIVE

BODIES

Th e City Self-Management Scheme

kept positions in various bodies, re-appearing from one election to the other. From 1963 to 1969 the numbers of women and youth serving in the Commune Assem-blies declined sharply while the education level needed to perform these functions rose signifi cantly. Th is atmosphere discouraged direct participation and awoke the tendency to rely on the specialists and well positioned people with connections for problem solving in the community and the work place (Leonardson and Mirčev 1979, 194).

Th e urban planning policies performed by these bodies were also increasingly being seen as being ineff ective in the creation of new fl ats and weak in application of need and precedence as the sole criteria for distribution. It is interesting to note that in almost fi ft y years the planned goals for the growth of the housing stock


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were not achieved in any single year. Th e introduction of fi rm competition on the market and the rising complexity of the production process motivated workers’ councils to attract specialists and skilled labor. Th is was oft en done with the help of exclusive apartments built by the companies to lure in professionals. A telling example was the situation inside one of the country’s largest construction compa-nies, Trudbenik, where by the mid-1980s, over thousand workers were still on the waiting list for their own fl at aft er twenty years of employment even though in this time they constructed millions of housing square meters all over Yugoslavia (Nikolić 1986, 11).

Th e idea of tying the housing policy more closely to the level of productiv-ity of a respective political-territorial unit and boosting of construction eff orts through consumption-driven growth created great inequalities. Employees in the more profi table economic sectors enjoyed access to more housing funding than their colleagues in less profi table sectors and underdeveloped regions. Some fi rms contributed much larger sums to the funds for housing construction than they re-ceived, while other fi rms, in politically favored branches, had no such problems (Le Normand 2008a, 9–11). Th e shortage of public fl ats, available for the rising infl ux of workforce from the countryside, forced the authorities to partly abandon the idea of mass produced standardized housing and introduce incentives for private house-building. Far from resolving the crisis of urban planning, these measures added to the problem with rings of wild settlements with semi-fi nished houses around the big cities (Simmie 1989, 283). By the mid 1980s, the Belgrade neigh-borhood of Kaluđerica, became one of the largest wild settlements in Europe with 6.000 houses and more than 26.000 inhabitants ( Jelačić 1986, 17). New Belgrade was increasingly becoming an area for upper middle classes and bureaucrats, while majority of the unskilled workers lived in improvised housing.

It was around 1965 that someone defi ned Belgrade as the only communist capital with a parking problem (Rusinow 1977, 139). Th e distribution of subsi-dized state housing to higher income employees left space for further conspicu-ous consumption among the professionals and party bureaucracy. Th e construc-tion companies were now even seeking to create demand by advertising luxury apartments to the public. As Brigitte Le Normand notes, one such project of an exclusive block planed in New Belgrade triggered a wave of outrage from the com-munities and the media in the summer of 1968, posing the question who are the citizens able to purchase such high price fl ats? (Le Normand 2008a, 16) Th e feel-ing that socialist Yugoslavia was betraying its promise of egalitarianism was be-coming widespread. Th e resistance to what was popularly labeled as ‘enrichment through un-socialist methods’ did not stop at the level of dissatisfaction and pas-sive criticism.

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In the summer of 1968, the main boulevard of New Belgrade proved to be the place of a violent encounter between the protesting students and the police, marking the fi rst instance of public use of violence by the Titoist authorities against the population. Th e break-up of the student march from New Belgrade dormi-tories towards the city center sparked a seven day occupation of the philosophy faculty building in downtown Belgrade, involving more than 60.000 participants. What started as a local protest over living conditions of 5.000 students in New Belgrade soon evolved into one of the most serious political crisis the communist party faced in the post war society (see: Rusinow 1977, 222–224). Th e students condemned the existence of strong bureaucratic forces and the emergence of great social inequalities in society, demanding democratization of socio-political institu-tions and systematic application of socialist principles of distribution ( Jun-Lipanj 1968: Dokumenti 1971, 62). If we follow Fran Tonkiss, in his argument that urban spaces provide sites for political action and are themselves politicized in contests over access, control and representation, two moments in Belgrade’s student mobi-lizations of 1968 deserve to be highlighted (Tonkiss 2005, 59).

Firstly, the initial incident which motivated the students to protest was a fi ght with the security, braking out at the entrance gate of a pop concert organized across the street from the dormitories in honor of the guest volunteer work brigade engaged in the building of New Belgrade. Not being part of the work brigade, a group of students were denied entrance and beaten by the police. Concerts of this type, or any other manifestations for that matter, rarely took place in the ‘func-tional city’. Th e incident was just an indicator of a much larger problem of urban living. A survey, conducted among the New Belgrade residents in 1974, by the Yu-goslav Institute for Town Planning and Housing, revealed a whole series of defects concerning the arrangement and use of space in the neighborhoods. Residents of blokovi complained that the fl ats were too small with individual rooms frequently performing several functions. Almost two-thirds of the residents complained of noise. Th e majority also considered the neighborhood services to be unsatisfactory or non-existing when it comes to children facilities, shops, cultural amenities etc. -forcing the people to journey to the center of Belgrade for their needs (Hamilton 1974, 244).

Secondly, the police intervened and dispersed the student march once it ap-proached the bridge and threatened to leave New Belgrade and reach the symbols of power in the old city center. Th is shows the failure of the Titoist authorities to create a new political space on the other side of the river. Despite the grand initial plans, New Belgrade failed to establish an alternative city center and the majority of the government institutions remained located in the buildings built up in the bourgeois Yugoslavia. A peaceful continuation of the student strike was permitted by the city authorities under a single condition; that the students remain inside the


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occupied campus of the Philosophy faculty and do not take their protests to the central squares. Th e students were therefore forced to create a counter-space, where dominant organization of space and politics was challenged through innovative practices such as the democratic Assemblies and the Convent.1 Th e squares in front of the government buildings remained reserved for staged events, obviously con-sidered dangerous as the symbol of common political belonging and expression of mass political action.

Two decades later, a new social movement managed to conquer this sym-bolic space. Th e number of labor strikes in the country rose steadily in the 1980s, reaching 1.851 factory stoppages involving more than 380.000 workers in 1988. Th e best organized strikes oft en rallied in front of the Federal Parliament build-ing in downtown Belgrade defying limitations set by the police. In the summer of 1988, workers from the shoe factory Borovo stormed the Federal Parliament, demanding immediate resolution of the severe political and economic crises. If one recalls the defi nition given to urban social movements by Manuel Castells, imply-ing the transgression the sphere of work and production and circumvention of traditional political parties and trade unions, the Yugoslav labor movement could hardly be labeled as one of them (Castells 1977). At a rally commemorating the protest in front of the Federal Assembly in 1989, the president of strike commit-tee from the metal factory, situated in the working class Belgrade neighborhood of Rakovica, Milinko Jovanović, proposed the forming of strike committees on the

1 Th e convent was an open discussion forum in which a speaker would engage in a free, question and answer, spontaneous communication with the crowd. Free from all formality and taboos, these sessions could go on for hours debating everything from philosophy and culture to current political themes.

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neighborhood (opština), republican and federal level. Th is idea was never tried out in practice ( Jovanović 1989, Rad br. 2918).

Nevertheless, if one looks at the strike demands in those years, disputes over housing emerge as the main object of contention, next to the wages and produc-tion. Th e longest strike in the Yugoslav history, staged by the migrant mine work-ers in the Croatian city of Labin in 1987, went directly against the policy of tying the housing to the work territory by demanding house-building credits for their home towns in other republics (Tarlo 1987, Rad 53). Th at same year, workers from a textile factory in the Serbian city Prijepolje went into strike demanding larger infl uence over the housing policy in their community and investigation over machinations in the local housing funds by the company management ( Jovanović 1987, Rad 56). In an interview given to the Serbian trade union paper Rad, one striking worker in Split furiously explained that his decision to leave the commu-nist party aft er twenty-fi ve years of membership was motivated by the fact that an average waiting period for workers’ fl ats inside his factory was twenty-fi ve years, while in contrast the waiting period for managers was three to four years ( Juraga 1987, Rad 64).

Th e self-management housing policy was therefore taking shape not solely over the drawing boards presented by architects and urban planners to communist politicians, but also in the media, on the streets, inside the student dormitories and the factory halls All of the places where the citizens contested the existing solu-tions and proposed alternative visions.

Lefebvre in Yugoslavia

Th e mobilizations from below managed to initiate greater changes inside the socialist city than one would expect. As Brigitte Le Normand notes, the anger at social inequality eventually lead to an abandonment of building luxury houses as the poles of economic growth (Le Normand 2008a, 17). Th e student strikes of 1968 resulted in the release of space in downtown Belgrade, formerly occupied by the military, for the purpose of a student culture center (SKC). It was exactly in the ateliers of SKC where some of the most innovative architectural solutions in the following years were conceived. Th e younger architects rebelled against the uncritical imitation of modernist models from the West and developed a distinct ‘Belgrade school of living’ (beogradska škola stanovanja) with original concepts drawn from experiences in the building of New Belgrade blocks and the infl uence of the Scandinavian architecture. Th ere existed an active search for new, more hu-mane and intimate use of space, for a critical modernist urban planning.

However, by the 1980s, when the labor movement appeared on the streets, these sentiments were gone. Th e global turn toward post-modern architecture


149

rejected the grand narratives and emancipating spirit of traditional modernism and reintroduced historicism and ornament. In Yugoslavia, this trend developed parallel with the rising nationalist mobilizations and neo-traditionalism. Surveys showed that the majority of people preferred to live in single family houses instead of communal buildings. Th e majority opinion in the architectural circles turned against high-rises as inhumane and alienating. In addition, the critics went over-board, blaming New Belgrade architecture for all kinds of health problems and social ills. For instance, it was claimed that apartment towers create negative eff ects on the peoples’ psyche through fear of heights, wind noises and dizziness. Living at great heights was even held responsible for bone and lung disease in children (Le Normand 2008b, 149). By the late 1980s, New Belgrade was not any lon-ger a symbol of new Yugoslavia or self-management communal relations, but of yet another failed socialist project. Th e anti-communist dissidents oft en used the metaphor of a ‘grand concrete sleeping room’ to discredit Titoist urban policies. Most of the Yugoslav architects and urban planners turned away from New Bel-grade and focused on the restoration of the central city quarters and legalization of wild settlements.

Unexpectedly, the new interest came from abroad. In 1986, the French team of architects and sociologists, headed by Henri Lefebvre participated in the Inter-national Competition for New Belgrade Urban Structure Improvement.2 Lefebvre’s critique of New Belgrade was equally harsh as the ones delivered by the Yugoslav architects hostile to the socialist legacy, if not more so. What distinguishes his anal-ysis is the location of causes and the proposed solutions to the urban problems.

For Ljiljana Blagojević today, the root of the failure of New Belgrade to be-come a dynamic city fi lled with social content and service, lies in what she calls the ‘functionalism of the free apartment’. Refl ecting a widespread belief, she states that an ideology, according to which use-value should dominate over exchange-value in housing, is responsible for the loss of economic dynamics. For Blagojević, if the fl ats do not refl ect the market value, the city cannot be truly modern. Th e key problem therefore is not the alienation and lack of communal voice but the social-ist concept of ‘free apartments for everyone’ (Blagojević 2005, 209).

For Lefebvre, who developed his critique in the West, the problem is the practice of fragmentary urban planning divorced from the citizens. Far from help-ing to create urban life, the market and exchange value decentralize and destroy the city. Th e urban planning under capitalism comes down to providing as quickly as

2 Interestingly enough, unlike the English speaking scholars who ‘discovered’ his writings relatively late, Lefebvre was well known inside socialist Yugoslavia. His books were translated as early as the 1950s and he even visited the Croatian Island of Korčula for the summer schools organized by the Yugoslav Marxist journal Praxis. Lefebvre has described his Korčula experience as ‘Dionysian Socialism’. (See: Erić 2009, 17).

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possible, at the least cost, the greatest number of housing units and usually ends up in market speculation (Kofman and Lebas 1996, 86–94). Th e exit from the urban crisis in New Belgrade, according to Lefebvre and his team, is connected to what they call the ‘right to the city’. Th is should not be understood in the same key as the general human rights, but as the right of the citizen to control the space he inhabits as a homo politicus. Th erefore, when Lefebvre states in 1986 that Yugoslavia today is one of the rare countries able to pose the problem of a New Urban (Bitter & Weber 2009), it is not because he is fl attering the hosts, but precisely because he is able to appreciate the delicate heritage of urban self-management, something that many Yugoslav planners and architects themselves were unable to do.

Bibliography:Bitter S. & Weber, H. 2009. Autogestion, or Henri Lefebvre in New Belgrade. Berlin: Sternberg

Press.Blagojević, Lj. 2005. Novi Beograd: Osporeni Modernizam. Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike.Castells, M. 1977. Th e Urban Question. London: Arnold.Erić, Z. 2009, “Diff erentiated Neighborhoods of New Belgrade“. A Prior magazine 17.

http://www.aprior.org/articles/10 Accessed December 9.Hamilton, F.E. I. 1979 “Spatial Structure in East European Citie.” In Th e Socialist City: Spatial

Structure and Urban Policy, edited by R.A. French and F.E. Ian Hamilton. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Harloe, H. 1996. “Cities in Transition.” In Cities Aft er Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Confl ict in Post-Socialist Societies, edited by Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Jovanović M. 1987. „Probudila ih članarina“, Rad, 56.Juraga J. 1987. „Tko to tamo samoupravlja“, Rad, 64.Kofman E. and Lebas E. eds. 1996. Writings on Cities: Henri Lefebvre. Oxford: Blackwell

Publishers Ltd.Le Corbusier, 2003. “A Contemporary City.” In Th e City Reader, edited by Richard T. Le

Gates and Frederic Stout, 319–324. London: Routledge.Le Normand, B. 2008. “Th e House that Market Socialism Built: Reform, Consumption and

Inequality in Socialist Yugoslavia”. EUI Working Paper 33.Le Normand, B. 2008. “Th e Modernist City Reconsidered: Changing Attitudes of Social

Scientists and Urban Designers in 1960s Yugoslavia.” Tokovi Istorije 3–4: 141–159.Leonardson, G. S. and Mirčev, D. 1979. “A Structure for Participative Democracy in the Lo-

cal Community: Th e Yugoslav Constitution of 1974.” In Comparative Politics, 11(2): 189–203.

Maksimović, B. 1948. „Ka diskusiji o o aktuelnim problemima naše arhitekture.” In Arhitek-tura 8–10.


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Mohorovičić, A. 1948. „Teoretska analiza arhitektonskog oblikovanja”, Arhitektura 8–10.Praxis Editorial Board (ed.) 1971. Jun–Lipanj 1968: Dokumenti. Zagreb.Ribnikar, V. 1950. “Problem stambenih zgrada.” Arhitektura: 11–12.Rossi, A 1982. Th e Architectutre of the City. Cambridge Massachusets: MIT Press.Rusinow, D. 1977. Th e Yugoslav Experiment 1948–1974. London: Billing & Sons Limited.Simmie, J. “Self-Management and Town Planning in Yugoslavia.” In Th e Town Planning Re-

view 60 (3): 271–286.Szelenyi, I. 1996. “Cities under Socialism-and Aft er.” In Cities Aft er Socialism: Urban and

Regional Change and Confl ict in Post-Socialist Societies, edited by Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Tarlo, Z. 1987. „Krah papirnate politike: pouke i poruke labinskog štrajka.” Rad, 53.Tonkiss, F. 2005. Space, the city and Social Th eory: Social Relations and Urban Forms. Cam-

bridge: Polity Press.


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UDK: 050.486:72АРХИТЕКТУРА - УРБАНИЗАМ; 050.486:71УРБАНИЗАМ БЕОГРАДА

BELGRADE INTERNATIONAL:Tracing the Channels of Architectural Exchange and Promotion

Abstract: During the Cold War capital cities on both sides of the Iron Curtain were important transmitters and mediators of architectural and planning practice. Perceived as an expression of offi cial politics, built environment and its transformations were strongly supported by public authorities and used on two diff erent levels – as a unique display of ‘state-approved’ aesthetic and/or a stage for events and meetings which facilitated professional exchange between institutions, societies and scholars. Belgrade, the capital of ex-Yugoslavia and Serbia, represents an interesting example infl uenced by a specifi c geo-strategic position of the country during the Cold War. Stimulated by self-management socialism and backed by a proclaimed cosmopolitan atmosphere, the Yugoslav architectural and planning practice was opened to both Western and Eastern infl uences which shaped an anticipated urban identity and refl ected the ambitions of President Tito. Considering all these elements, the article will present and analyze offi cial and unoffi cial fl ows of professional dissemination focusing on the period between 1960s and 1970s, which was an intensive phase for the Yugoslav professionals.

Key Words: Cold War, Yugoslavia, architecture, planning, international exchange, infl uences


Aleksandra STUPAR*, Faculty of Architecture, Serbiastupar@afr odita.rcub.bg.ac.rs

* Th e author is currently a member of the research project ‘Cities and Transnational Interaction. Th e Cultural Contacts between West and East European Urban Centres during and beyond the Cold War’, located at the University of Tampere and funded by the Academy of Finland.

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Introduction – Architecture vs. Cold War

The numerous changes generated by the turbulent 20th century had a signifi cant impact on cities, their structure, archi-tecture and society. Th e period between the mid-1940s and the end of the 1990s introduced a number of diff erent and oft en opposed architectural concepts which directly or indirectly aff ected the appearance of cities all over the world. According to Frampton (2002), modern architecture aft er the Enlightenment has followed two directions – the utopianism of the avant-garde and anti-rational/anti-utilitar-ian attitude. Th e professionals aft er the Second World War have also accepted the similar division inspired by the increased industrial production.

Th e architectural journals, international competitions, architectural and planning congresses organised by international societies (IFHP/International Fed-eration for Housing and Planning, UIA/International Union of Architects) cer-tainly enabled the intensive diff usion of ideas on the European and global level. At the same time, exhibitions – such as EXPO – played an important role in global professional/architectural exchange, simultaneously providing an opportunity for a presentation of critical regionalism, various local practices and – ideological dif-ferences.

Th e fi rst signifi cant architectural divergence between the East and the West occurred in 1948, when the administration of Berlin was divided. Th e new social-ist vision of urban space was created in consultation with Moscow and transmitted throughout the Eastern bloc. However, during the period of Khrushchev, these dif-ferences became less visible and the International style (or its regional/local emana-tions) was embraced by two opposing ideologies. Furthermore, from the late 1950s architects and urban planners from Eastern Europe intensifi ed their presence in international associations – as members of executive bodies and national delega-tions, but also as participants and organisers of numerous professional events.

For example, Th e International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP), which was also active between two wars, discussed a number of planning themes interesting for both sides.

Simultaneously, Th e International Union of Architects/Union Internation-ale des Architectes (founded in 1948) successfully attracted members from both Eastern and Western bloc stimulating their equal participation and promotion – through the Executive Committee, congresses, assemblies and meetings. Th e rhythm of well-balanced ‘east’ and ‘west’ conferences lasted until the end of the Cold War1, when it lost its ‘diplomatic’ purpose and was directed by new, global challenges of architectural profession.

1 ’East’ host cities – Moscow (1958), Havana (1963), Prague (1967), Varna (1972), Warsaw (1981) and ’non-aligned’ – Cairo (1985).

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Belgrade – bridging the gap

During the initial post-war period of communist dictatorship in Yugoslavia (until 1948) Socialist Realism did not leave signifi cant traces in Serbian architec-ture. Tito’s confl ict with Stalin initiated a new phase of self-management socialism, which was mostly fi nanced by the West. Aft er two decades (in the mid 1960s) the process of reforms transformed the socialist regime into an economy comprising both socialist and capitalist elements. Consequently, living standard in Yugoslavia was much higher than other East European countries and its cultural connections with the West were much stronger and intensive. Th e Yugoslav professionals were able to travel freely and they actively participated in western architectural forums and congresses.2 Belgrade, as the capital of Yugoslavia, also became an important centre of the Non-aligned movement, underlining its cosmopolitan spirit and in-ternational orientation.

Th e exposure to ambivalent infl uences created in Yugoslav culture a specifi c concept of Socialist Aestheticism which could be identifi ed in architecture as well, even until the end of Titoism (the mid-1980s). Th is concept, especially in archi-tecture, served to create an image of a tolerant, modern and progressive society – with intensive and extensive housing development, new settlements (especially New Belgrade) and public buildings which represented the power of political elite and the State. However, the Serbian architectural scene also had its parallel streams which produced some of the greatest works. It consisted of architects of pre-war reputation (Nikola Dobrović, Milorad Pantović) and those who made their fi rst important woks during the 1950s (Aleksej Brkić, Bogdan Bogdanović, Mihajlo Mitrović, Ivan Antić), but all of them accepted various international trends. In some cases, the ‘contemporary European currents’ were also requested by the po-litical elite, as an expression of progress and openness of the State. Th e 1960s and 1970s brought the elements of Brutalism and critical regionalism, while some im-portant buildings – like the Museum of Contemporary Art (1965 – Ivan Antić, Ivanka Raspopović), were internationally recognized.

Th e most intensive period of international exchange for Yugoslav architects started during the 1960s. Th e pace and content of various professional activities could be best followed through articles in domestic journals, such as Arhitektura/Urbanizam (Architecture/Urbanism – published from 1960 to 1987) and Ur-banizam Beograda (Urbanism of Belgrade – 1969 to 1981). Th e fi rst one was an important transmitter of new architectural and planning ideas, as well as a source of up-to-date professional news. Th e second one – as a publication of the Town

2 It is important to mention that the 10th Congress of CIAM was held in Dubrovnik, while some of the most prominent Yugoslav architects (Nikola Dobrović, Dragiša Brešovan) were honorary members of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

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Planning Institute of Belgrade, represents a unique document about activities of an institution which has had a leading role in the urban development of Belgrade.

Knowledge exchange – congresses

Th e numerous fl ows of architectural exchange and diff usion, which con-nected professionals from Yugoslavia and other countries, are documented in 98 issues of Arhitektura/Urbanizam. For example, during 1960, the journal had its representatives at the 6th UIA Assembly, the 12th Triennale in Milano and its International Congress of School Building. Th e 6th UIA congress (London, 1961) was attended by 200 participants from Yugoslavia and during the same year Bel-grade and Zagreb hosted an international event organized by UIA (7th Assembly of the Housing Committee).

In 1962, the list of attended events included the 26th IFHP Congress in Par-is, the UIA assemblies in Madrid and Sao Paolo and the 2nd International Seminar of Industrial Architecture in Rio de Janeiro. Moscow was a new congress spot, fol-lowed by Havana, where the 7th UIA Congress was organized. Th e Yugoslav del-egation consisted of fi ve architects and was represented in the published material and on the exhibition ‘Th e Architecture of Developing Countries’ (Divac 1963).

Th e journal informed about the fi rst conference of architects from Balkan countries organized in Sofi a (Bulgaria) in May 1966. During the same year Bel-grade was a host of the second UIA colloquium about the industrialisation of construction. Th e organizer of this international event was the Institute of Ar-chitecture and Urbanism of Serbia and it was attended by 45 delegates from 15 European countries.3

During 1970 the journal presented news from the 30th IFHP International congress (Barcelona, 1970) summarizing all the important topics and exhibition projects which were discussed during the event. EXPO 70 and its architecture and spatial concept were emphasised in an article by Ranko Radović (1970). In 1973 Arhitektura/Urbanizam announced the fi rst UIA International Seminar on Per-manent Education of Architects, planned for October 1974 and jointly organized by UIA and the Society of Yugoslav Associations of Architects in Belgrade.

It is noticeable that during the 1960s international news and events occupied more space and caused more attention of the editorial board because international cooperation needed some additional stimulation and advertisement. In contrast, the 1970s brought an increased number of free fl ows, projects and opportuni-ties traced by already established channels and more personalized contacts among professionals.

3 Arhitektura/Urbanizam 43 (1967, 43).


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International recognition – exhibitions

Among numerous events related to architecture and art, several exhibitions were particularly underlined and presented in the journal Arhitektura/Urbanizam. Th e fi rst one, as an important signpost for the next decade of Yugoslav architecture, was the exhibition of Swedish architecture which visited Belgrade (29 September – 8 October 1959), Zagreb (20 October – 30 October 1959) and Ljubljana (10 November – 22 November 1959) – (Kovačević 1960). Additionally, in December 1960 the Commission for International Cultural Relations organised the Exhi-bition of Romanian architecture, which displayed architectural heritage, typical traditional houses and, in contrast, new tendencies in planning and architecture.

At the same time, the Exhibition of Contemporary Yugoslav Architecture, organized by the Society of Yugoslav Associations of Architecture in 1959 and 1960, visited several European cities – Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Warsaw, London, Glasgow and Liverpool. More than 150 projects presented the buildings from the post-war period, but some of the masterpieces from the 1932–1945 were also included. Th e importance of international cooperation and cultural contacts among states, professionals and non-professionals was especially emphasised in the case of Denmark and England, while colleagues from Poland considered this event as a new chance for professional exchange (“Izložba savremene arhitekture Jugo-slavije u inostranstvu” 1960). Obviously, in this case architecture was a promoter of the state and its ideology, as well as a unique medium of communication among politicians, architects and planners. Maybe the best description of Yugoslav society (via architectural refl ection) was given by observers who noticed the ‘International’ features of architectural production, without local/traditional elements.

Th e Contemporary Danish architecture was presented in Belgrade in 1962 and although it mainly displayed buildings from the 1950s it off ered an insight into Danish practice and was well accepted by professionals. During the same year, in December, the British Council and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) organised an exhibition of contemporary British architecture which in-cluded about 50 examples of modern buildings designed in functionalist manner.

In 1964 the Exhibition of the Contemporary Soviet Architecture was orga-nized in Belgrade, off ering valuable information related to the building construc-tion in USSR and presenting recent projects of various building types (Vuković 1964).

Th e Gallery of Belgrade Cultural Centre hosted in 1967 a new international exhibition – ‘Polish Architects in International Competitions’. It was organized by the Commission for International Cultural Relations and the Yugoslav Associa-tion of Architects in order to show a sophisticated approach of Polish colleagues and to present numerous successful and awarded architectural and urban proj-

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ects.4 During the same year, Belgrade hosted the exhibition of the city of Vienna, which was a part of the manifestation ‘A week of Vienna’, organized in Zagreb, too. Considering the similarities of two cities – especially related to their position on the river banks of Danube – this event was highly evaluated as the fi rst step in an inter-city cooperation.

One of the most interesting initiatives was related to the Museum of Con-temporary Art, which organized a series of exhibitions related to the Finnish art and architecture. Th e exhibition of the Finnish design was held in 1975, the exhi-bition of Finnish architecture ‘Tradition and Identity’ in 1980 and the representa-tive exhibition of Alvar Alto in 1987.

Professional openness – competitions

Th e journal Arhitektura/Urbanizam also announced numerous international competitions. For example, the fi rst one was a competition for university build-ings in Dublin (1963), followed by the competition for a post offi ce in Adis Abe-ba (1963) in which a Yugoslav team of architects (Zdravko Kovačević and Ivan Štraus) won the fi rst price.

Th e issue 30 (1964) informed architects about the competition for a design of National theatre in Budapest, inviting only architects from socialist European countries. During the same year the international competition for a project of urban reconstruction of the central area of Skopje (destroyed in earthquake in 1963) was launched, with the support of a special fund of UN, the government of SFRY, General Agency for Reconstruction and Building of Skopje, UIA and the Yugoslav Association of Urban Planners. Th e program and general conditions were approved by UIA in Paris, the competition started in January 1965 and there were eight invited architects/participants – Kenzo Tange ( Japan), J. H. van den Broek (Th e Netherlands), Luigi Piccinato (Italy), Maurice Rotival (USA), Aleksandar Djordjević (Town Planning Institute, Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Radovan Miščević and Fedor Wenzler (Town Planning Institute of Croatia, Zagreb, Yugoslavia), Ed-vard Ravnikar (Institute for Building, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia) and Slavko Brezovski (‘Makedonijaprojekt’, Skopje, Yugoslavia). Th e jury consisted of 10 members – rep-resentatives of UN, local government and international and Yugoslav professional associations, and the author of the best project was Kenzo Tange.

During 1965 the journal invited authors to participate in two competitions – for the design of central area of Varna (Bulgaria), which was open to all members of UIA national sections, and an international competition for the housing unit

4 According to the article, the Polish architects participated in 29 international competitions be-tween 1959 and 1965, winning more than 40 awards and special mentions (Radojević 1967).


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of the European community for coal and steel in Luxemburg. In 1966, Arhitek-tura/Urbanizam also announced a competition organized by the city of Bratislava (Czechoslovakia) which was supported by UIA and accessible to all members of UIA and IFHP. Th e jury consisted of seven members – 3 from ČSSR and guests from USSR, Yugoslavia, UK and France.

During 1970 the journal underlined two interesting events – an international competition organized by the city of Vienna5 and an international competition for the Belgrade Opera House. Th e second one (Belgrade Opera House) attracted at-tention of 26 countries, 140 projects were received and the results were presented during 1971. Th e jury consisted of members from Yugoslavia (3), UK (1), France (1), Denmark (1), Italy (1) and Poland (1) and the best entry was the project of Danish architects Hans Dall and Torben Lindhardtsten.

In 1973 the Yugoslav professionals were notifi ed about a new international success of Yugoslav architects – the fi rst price for the project of a new National Op-era in Sofi a (Bulgaria) which was awarded to the team from Sarajevo (Ivan Štraus and Halid Muhasilović). Th e Belgrade team (Milan Lojanica and Petar Cagić) won the fi rst price at the International seminar and competition ‘Goclaw 72’, while the similar event entitled ‘Confrontations – Warsaw 75’ was announced inviting teams from both the East and the West. During the 1973 UIA also planned a competi-tion for students of architecture in the occasion of the 12th UIA World Congress in Madrid, scheduled for May 1975. Teams from the faculties of architecture in Belgrade (3), Zagreb (2) and Sarajevo (2) were included in this event6.

Networking via urban planning

During the 1960s and 1970s, Belgrade was also an interesting place for in-ternational experts related to the fi eld of urban planning and design. Due to its signifi cant position, Town Planning Institute of Belgrade represented a specifi c multi-modal node of professional fl ows and ideological preferences, embedded in numerous plans which have shaped the capital of Yugoslavia and Serbia.

According to the data presented in the journal Urbanizam Beograda (pub-lished by the Institute from 1968 to 1981), knowledge was transmitted and mod-erated mainly through professional visits to European cities and their institutions, numerous international conferences and exhibitions. Th e list of visited countries (from Austria, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Th e Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Ire-land, UK to USSR, Hungary etc.) demonstrates mostly focus on western experi-ences, as well as an apparent networking with western colleagues. Th e visits to the

5 Th e aim of this competition was the south area of the outer city ring and its expansions.6 Arhitektura/Urbanizam 70/72 (1973, 135).

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Institute included practicing architects and planners, academicians and politicians from USA, Sweden, Austria, Italy, France, Finland, Norway, Japan, India, Canada, USSR, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Philippines, Australia, Cuba and Libya. Th ey were interested in a number of topics such as new Belgrade settlements, urban and regional economy, activities and zones of the master plan, urban development, transformations and architecture, planning procedures, organization and structure of planning institutions, as well as a comprehensive overview of the planning situ-ation in Belgrade.

Conclusion

Although exposed and subordinated to the rules and limitations of the Cold War, the international architectural and planning practice established its own chan-nels of communication and exchange. Th e period during the 1960s and 1970s was especially interesting for the Yugoslav architectural/planning scene, which used its unique and privileged position between two ideological blocks. Supported by suffi cient fi nancial and intellectual resources, the Yugoslav architects and planners enabled a signifi cant ideological promotion and refl ection of the system (especially in the capital – Belgrade), but they were mainly oriented towards western models, allowing the infl ux of eastern experiences. Th erefore, it is not surprising that the professional institutions and urban space(s) represented an important professional magnet for colleagues from both ideological and professional poles.

Belgrade and its ideological/architectural off spring New Belgrade had an im-portant mission, too. Th e uniqueness of the built environment, development and radical historical transformations were considered as a symbol of national progress and identity, but also as a signpost for the future to come. Unfortunately, the be-ginning of the 1990s closed a window of opportunity for Yugoslavia, setting a stage for new challenges and ideological shift s which generated numerous problems and blurred a purity of the inherited modernist expression.

List of references“II Međunarodni kolokvijum o industrijalizaciji gradjenja” 1967. Arhitektura/Urbanizam 43:

43.“Međunarodno takmičenje studenata nastavnih ustanova u oblasti arhitekture prilikom XII

svetskog kongresa UIA, Madrid, maj 1975. Nagrada Unesco.” 1973. Arhitektura/Ur-banizam 70–72: 135.

Abramović Miletić, Lj. 2007. Paralele i kontrasti – Srpska arhitektura 1980–2005 (Parallels and Contrasts – Serbian Architecture 1980–2005) – exhibition catalogue. Belgrade: Museum of Applied Arts.


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Divac, O. 1963. “Sedmi međunarodni kongres arhitekata u Havani”. Arhitektura/Urbanizam 24: 50.

Frampton, Kenneth. 2002. Modern Architecture – A Critical History. London, NY: Th ames & Hudson.

Fraser, Murray. 2010. “Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970.” Th e Journal of Architecture 15 (1): 124–127.

Glendinning, M. 2009. “Cold-War conciliation: international architectural congresses in the late 1950s and early 1960s.” Th e Journal of Architecture 14 (2): 197–217.

Kovačević, N. 1960. “Izložba švedske arhitekture.” Arhitektura/Urbanizam 1: 30.Perović, M. 2003. Serbian 20th Century Architecture – fr om historicism to second modernism.

Belgrade: Faculty of Architecture University of Belgrade.Radojević A. 1967. “Izložba ‘Poljski arhitekti na međunarodnim konkursima.’” Arhitektura/

Urbanizam 43: 51.Radović, R. 1970. “EXPO 70”. Arhitektura/Urbanizam 61/62: 117–124.S. S. 1960. “Izložba savremene arhitekture Jugoslavije u inostranstvu.” Arhitektura/Urbanizam

1: 31.Stojanović, B. and Martinović, U. 1978. Beograd 1945–1975, Urbanizam – Arhitektura.

Beograd: Tehnička knjiga.T. J. 1971. “Međunarodni konkurs za rešenje zgrade beogradske Opere.” Arhitektura/Urba-

nizam 63: 3.Vuković, S. 1964. “Savremena sovjetska arhitektura.” Arhitektura/Urbanizam 25: 42.Weston, N. 2009. “Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970.” Craft Arts International 75:

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NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Th e journal LIMESplus publishes theoretical papers, review papers, original research papers, professional papers and book reviews from all fi elds of geopolitics, humanities and social sciences, not previously published elsewhere and not already under concurrent consideration for publication in another journal. Manuscripts should comply with the standards of the journal LIMESplus. Th e papers that are not adequately prepared will not be reviewed. Manuscripts should be submitted via e-mail to: [email protected]

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Th e journal publishes papers in Serbian and English.Paper title should be as concise as possible. Author’s full name and affi liation

should follow the title. Th e footnote containing the e-mail address of the author should be inserted aft er the full name of the fi rst author. Th e positions of authors should not be cited.

Abstract ranging between 150 and 250 words should be submitted at the beginning of the paper. It must include research goal, method, results and conclu-sion. As a rule, summary must not contain references. If the paper is written in Serbian, summary and key words should be submitted in English as well at the end of the work below References.

Up to 10 key words must be supplied at the end of the summary. When choosing key words, it is desirable to opt for those concepts that are oft en used in searching journals.

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