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European Studies Cultural Topic BA-Project

A National Reawakening?
The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Nikolaj 20072821 11-06-2010

European Studies Cultural Topic BA-Project

Table of Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 Methodology...................................................................................................................................................... 4 Theory ............................................................................................................................................................... 6 The Reawakening of Serbia............................................................................................................................... 9 The Contents of the Memorandum .................................................................................................................. 12 The Conception of the Memorandum .............................................................................................................. 16 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 17 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 23 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................... 25

The painting on the front page is May 1st, 1985 by Serbian Painter and Academy member Mia Popovi. Based on Jos De Riberas Martyrdom of St. Phililp, the picture depicts Kosovo Albanians crucifying the Serbian farmer Djordje Martinovi. The meaning of the bottle pointing towards him will be made clear in this paper. Source: http://files.myopera.com/arkaim/blog/RaspeceDjM.jpg (accessed June 10th, 2010)

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Introduction
On September 24th, 1986 the Serbian Daily Veernje Novosti published parts of an unfinished document. Drafted by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the unauthorized release of the document, which was to become known simply as the Memorandum sent shockwaves through all of the Yugoslav republics. A highly controversial document at its time, the untimely release of the Memorandum has been considered the precipitating event that reawakened Serbian national consciousness,1 as well as the blueprint for the nationalist ideology which would later be promoted by the Serbian political leadership.2 The Memorandum is a document with two clearly separate parts. The first part blames the political and economical crisis of Yugoslavia on the decentralized nature of the state. The second part focuses on a perceived undermining of the Serbian republic and exploitation of the Serbian people as such. It holds that the Serbian people must act rapidly in order to protect their identity and existence. I will be investigating how the narratives employed in the 1986 Memorandum came to influence Serbian nationalism. In other words, how significant was the role of the Memorandum in forging the new Serbian nationalism that became dominant in the late 1980s and the 1990s? My approach mirrors my major in history as well as the cultural topic. I will start out with a theory section where I introduce nationalism theories as well as other concepts which may be useful tools in the discussion. In order to fully understand the influence of the Memorandum, I believe it is necessary to place it in a historical context, which is why I will include a section dedicated to explaining the prevalent crisis of the Yugoslav society, as well as some of the major concerns of Serbs in the 1980s. There will also be a short section outlining the initial responses to the Memorandum, both by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts which commissioned the document, as well as Yugoslav society in general. To dispel some of the misconceptions of the actual contents of the Memorandum, I will also be including a section dedicated to conducting an analysis of the actual contents of the document. This will be followed by a discussion of the various perspectives put forward by scholars on the field. It is as a part of this discussion that I will be utilizing the nationalism theories. Finally, I will end the paper with a conclusion of my findings.
1

Christina Morus. The SANU Memorandum: Intellectual Authority and the Constitution of an Exclusive Serbian People In Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.(Routledge 2007) 143 2 Svein Mnnesland. Fr Jugoslavia og Etter. (Oslo: Sypress, 2006) p245

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I will be focusing on the arguments presented in various books and articles on the subject. I have found that there is considerable disagreement regarding the exact influence of the Memorandum. I will weigh the arguments presented by the authors against each other, as well as look at the actual contents of the English translation of the Memorandum where it is relevant. Utilizing theories of nationalism I will try to analyze the instruments and mechanics of the nationalism that is being invoked in the Memorandum. Furthermore I will explain what modern Serbian nationalism is about, and how the Memorandum has influenced it. It is my argument that the coupling of ancient myths of Serbian identity such as victimhood, sacrifice, and betrayal with modern problems, as well as the virulent language, that was employed in the Memorandum, had a great impact on the shape of the emerging Serbian nationalism, but that it would be wrong to say that the document was adopted as a nationalist program by the Serbian leadership under Slobodan Miloevi. Hopefully, this paper can help to shed new light on a very controversial document.

Methodology
My point of departure will be the fact that there seem to be considerable disagreement both on the level of influence and the type of influence the Memorandum had in shaping Serbian nationalism. I hope to explain how the Memorandum contributed to the new emerging Serbian nationalism, which was prevalent in the country during the late 1980s and the 1990s. In my paper I will discuss the effects of the Memorandum, based on an analysis of the different arguments and perspectives presented by various scholars on the area. I will try to include some well-known theories of nationalism in this discussion. There are several methodological problems associated with an analysis of the influence of the Memorandum. First of all, the Memorandum was never intended for the public to read. It was a document created by Intellectuals of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and its recipients was supposed to be the communist party top of Serbia and Yugoslavia. 3 When the Memorandum was initially leaked in 1986 only some parts of it was published in Verenje Novosti. The

Tea Sindbk. Det Serbiske Videnskabsakdameis Memorandum: Et Dokuments omskiftelige karriere In Den Jyske Historiker Nr. 97 (rhus ,Den Jyske Historiker, 2002) 148

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majority of people in Yugoslavia never read the Memorandum, although photocopies circulated as Samizdat-literature4 in and outside Serbia. In the months after the release of the document, the Serbian media had daily articles attacking the Serbian Academy for drafting the Memorandum, which created a huge interest in the document, and meant that its nationalist ideas, although denounced, were spread through the media to the public.5 I have chosen to focus mainly on its impact on the political and intellectual scene of Serbia because I believe this is where the Memorandum had the greatest impact. I believe that the ideas of the Memorandum, created and propagated by Serbian intellectuals, helped to create a modern Serbian national identity, which the majority of Serbs would come to adopt.6 Eric Hobsbawm has said that historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin addicts7 because they both provide the essential raw material for the market. I believe this can be extended to intellectuals in general. In addition to this, I also believe that the Serbian exclusivist nationalism that came into being was initially elite-led. This is evident in the fact that there were only few ethnic hostilities (except in Kosovo) before the ethnic leaders of Yugoslavia intentionally stoked the flames, a position supported by Stuart J. Kaufman.8 The actual Memorandum presents a methodological problem in itself. As I have previously mentioned, only bits of the Memorandum was included in the Verenje Novosti article. For a while, photocopies of the draft circulated in intellectual circles. In 1989, after the political climate had changed significantly, the full version was published several times in various Croatian newspapers, where it was portrayed as the ideological basis of Miloevis nationalist policies.9 The first authorized publication of the Memorandum by the Serbian Academy of Science of Arts was released in 1995 in a Serbo-Croatian and English version and is the one I will be using. It is

4 5

Underground litterature in communist countries produced and circulated privately to get around censorship Jasna Dragovid-Soso. Saviours of the Nation Serbias Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism. (London: Hurst, 2002) 188 6 Nick Miller. The Nonconformists: Culture, Politics, and Nationalism in a Serbian Intellectual Circle, 1944-1991. (Budapest: Central European University Press) XIV 7 Eric Hobsbawm. Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe today In Mapping the Nation. Ed. Balakrishnan and Anderson (Verso, 1996) 254 8 Stuart J. Kaufman. Government Jingoism and the Fall of Yugoslavia In Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. (Cornell, 2001) 165 9 Sindbk 150

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edited and commented by economist Kosta Mihailovi and historian Vasilije Kresti, both members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and possible authors of the original document. 10 Jasna Dragovi-Soso has dealt with this problem and has concluded that the Authorized Version is wholly identical with the unauthorized versions.11 I have compared the 1995 publication with excerpts of a 1986 version hosted on The Center for History and New Media, a project by George Mason University.12 I can only conclude that while the texts differ slightly in the wording, they are identical in content. Finally, when analyzing the positions of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Olivera Milosavljevi points out that one must resists the temptation to identify the institution with its members. The official position of the Academy might not coincide with the views of the individual members. To make the analysis easier, I will mostly exclude the views of individual members. Furthermore, most of the views in the Memorandum, as well as the political activities of the institution itself have been further radicalized by individual intellectuals, which confirm the significance of the institution as promulgator of a particular idea. This is also supported by the fact that except for a few members criticizing the Memorandum when it was leaked in 1986 there were no disagreements amongst Academy members engaged in politics before 1991.13

Theory
Considering how the Memorandum has been credited for causing the reawakening of Serbian nationalism, it will be useful to include theories of nationalism in the discussion. In one of the most important theoretical studies of nationalism, Benedict Anderson tries to deconstruct the nation. He defines the nation as An imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.14 He further explains that it is imagined because members of any given nation will never know, meet or even hear of the vast majority of their fellow-members. It is imagined, not in a fictional sense, but in an abstract sense. The nation is limited within a world of
10 11

Ibid. 152 Dragovid-Soso 196 12 Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, "Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) Memorandum, 1986," Making the History of 1989, Item #674, http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/674 (accessed June 10th 2010) 13 Olivera Milosavljevid. The Abuse of the Authority of Science In The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis. (Budapest: Central University Press, 2000) 275 14 Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. (London: Verso 1991) 6

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nations. Nations are restricted to a certain group of people and never universalist in the same way that religions such as Christianity are. The nation is sovereign because it gives the power to the people and it is a community because it is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship of its members. 15 The advent of print capitalism is one of the conditions that make the representation of the Imagined community of the nation possible. Nationalism did not exist before mass publication. Mass publication has made it possible for the same set of ideas to be communicated to a great amount of people.16 Newspapers, as well as modern technology such as the television and the radio have the same function of conveying identical information to a large amount of people. After the publication in the Verenje Novosti, most Serbs only read segments of the Memorandum. However, in spite of the regime condemning the document and criticizing the Serbian Academy of Sciences and arts for creating it, its ideas and the narratives of historic victimization employed were still conveyed to the public through news reports, as well as the public discourse of prominent Serbian intellectuals. The theory of invented traditions put forward by Eric Hobsbawn is also useful in this context. In Hobsbawms own words, invented traditions are a set of practices which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.17 The invention of traditions occurs more frequently in periods of change and has been important in state building in the modern period. Invented traditions legitimized the nation-state and gave it a sense of being primordial. This primordialism provides a sense of continuity with the past in something that essentially a modern creation. Symbols and myths are some examples of invented traditions establishing social cohesion and a sense of belonging in communities.18 Following Hobsbawns theory, it seems reasonable to conclude that the nation is something constructed (albeit real). Modern states piece together a set of invented traditions such as symbols, myths and a specific historic narrative in order to create a national identity for their diverse societies. Anthony D. Smith has another approach to nationalism, which he calls ethno-symbolist. Contrary to Hobsbawn and Anderson, Smith contends that although some elements are created or invented,
15 16

Ibid. 2 Ibid. 33 17 Erik Hobsbawm.Introduction: Inventing Traditions In The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1992) 1 18 Ibid. 5

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nations and nationalism are also the products of a pre-existing heritage. In this way, Smith argues that theories which focus on the construction of nationalism overlook its ethnic and cultural ties. To understand modern political nationalism, one must consider pre-modern ethnic identities and their symbolic value. Furthermore, Smith emphasizes the importance of separating the nation and the state, because the nation is not necessarily an invented product of the state. However, Smith does not rule out that modernity resulted in a transformation of the ethnic community into a political one.19 Building on Hobswarm and Anderson, Thomas Hylland Eriksen holds that nationalism aims to create a sentiment of continuity with the past. What it offers to people is security and perceived stability at a time when life-worlds are fragmented and people are being uprooted. 20 In Yugoslavia in the 1980s the society was in a state of flux. The Yugoslav communist party was functioning poorly and could not agree on an effective politic vis--vis the deepening economic crisis. Further, the crisis of the Yugoslav society seems to have been prevalent on all levels. There was a lack of confidence in the political system in the general population. Even so, the prospect of new solutions created an atmosphere of uncertainty. Yugoslavia experienced, in the words of Pedro Ramet, a period of Apocalypse culture. By apocalypse culture is meant an inward-looking culture, absorbed in the quest for meanings, and prepared to question the fundamental political and social values of the society21 Lack of political and economical security made people look for answers. In an atmosphere of political and economic crisis, the future of a Serb who identified with Yugoslavia was ominous and uncertain. The reasons for the Yugoslav crisis were complex and confusing and with the death of Tito there was no centralizing figure. However, as Christina Morus points out, for a nationalist Serb, the situation was completely different, the root as well as the solution of Serbias problems was clear.22 Fredrik Barth argues that political mobilization to conflict on an ethnic basis, is rarely carried out by the popular sentiment of the general population, but is organized by political entrepreneurs. Political entrepreneurs see constituency in ethnic identities and seek to mobilize them, often by linking these
19

Antony D. Smith & Ernest Gellner The Nation: Real or Imagined? The Warwick Debates on Nationalism In: Nations and Nationalism 2 (3). (ASEN, 1996) 360-361 20 Thomas Hylland Eriksen. Ethnicity and Nationalism. (London: Pluto Press, 1993) 107 21 Apocalypse culture In Yugoslavia in the 1980s (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985) 1 22 Morus 145

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identities to cultural or social grievances or injustices. Further, the ideas formulated by Political entrepreneurs often come as a package deal. Ethnic identities are most often absolutes, it is not possible for people to choose when they want to activate their ethnic identity.23 The linking of social grievances and injustices with an ethnic identity is exactly what the second part of the Memorandum does. The narrative employed in the Memorandum is based on the notion of Serbian victimization, the concept of genocide as well as theories of a conspiracy against the Serbian people orchestrated by the communist party. The mythic battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, the World War 2 Ustae24 massacres of Serbs in Croatia and the perceived social and economic exploitation of Serbia under Tito is coupled together as part of the historical trajectory of the victimized Serbian people.25 Morus argues that the Memorandum is a form of cultural pedagogy. Cultural pedagogy is the way in which authoritative cultural elites can re-educate an audience through narratives and discourses based on elements of history and culture, which is already present in society to some degree. The Memorandum links the grievances of modern Kosovo Serbs with the myth of Kosovo Polje and its themes of the victimized Serbs subjugated and oppressed by the menacing Muslim threat as well as the eventual promise of redemption.26

The Reawakening of Serbia


In order to fully understand the Memorandum, it is necessary to understand the historical context under which it came into being, as well as the actual contents of the document. Since the Yugoslav break with Stalin in 1948, the country had adopted a more liberal course. That is not to say that Yugoslavia had western style freedom of expression, but the Yugoslav regime was more lenient on dissident intellectuals than other communist states in Eastern Europe. The decentralization of Yugoslavia, started in the 1960s and expanded with the 1974 constitution, created a situation where different republics had different levels of repression. The Serbian and

23

Fredrik Barth. Ethnicity and the Concept of Culture. (Paper presented to conference Rethinking Culture. Harvard, 1995) 10 24 The Ustae were Croatian fascists. They controlled the Independent State of Croatia during World War 2 and committed genocide on the Serb, Roma and Jewish population of Croatia 25 Morus 146 26 Morus 147

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Slovenian leadership, tended to be more lenient in its treatment of dissidents than the more hard-line Bosnian leadership.27 However, since the majority of intellectuals were employed by the state and depended on it for access to the public sphere, the regime had a very effective way of controlling intellectuals. Threats of censorship and dismissal from work were some of the ways in which the regime tried to silence regime critics. This was usually combined with police harassment and media slander campaigns. In severe cases prison sentences could be employed.28 With the onset of the 1980s, only a very small minority of intellectuals had clearly nationalist ambitions. The majority of the so called Belgrade critical intellectuals were preoccupied with notions of democracy, freedom of speech and human rights. Since 1968 there had evolved a strong movement for freedom of expression. Political activism groups, such as the Committee for Defense of the Freedom of Thought and Expression, led by the writer Dobrica osi, perhaps the most famous of the Belgrade critical intellectuals, was deeply concerned with human right violations and would often get involved in cases of freedom of speech violations in all of the Yugoslav republics. 29 The 1980s saw the worsening of centrifugal tendencies within the communist party following the death of Tito, the sole uniting figure of Yugoslavia. In an atmosphere of exacerbating system crisis and Apocalypse culture, the intelligentsia engaged in an iconoclastic revision of Yugoslavias historical experience. The Ustae massacres against Serbs in Croatia, the myths of the Partisan wartime struggle, the prosecution of Yugoslav communists following the split with Stalin in 1948, and even criticism of Tito himself were some of the taboos that came under scrutiny by Serbian intellectuals.30 The reevaluation of these historical taboos happened in an increasingly decentralized Yugoslavia, plagued by the regionalism of the federal republics and appearing to be failing for the second time. This fostered the development of a set of radical explanations, which were in the words of Dragovi-Soso: based on notions of a communist stab in the back, betrayal by other Yugoslav

27 28

Dragovid-Soso 14 Ibid. 16 29 Sindbk 154 30 Sindbk 154

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nations, genocide and a destiny of victimization and placed the new historical vision at the centre of the emerging national one.31 After a series of riots and demonstrations by the Albanian population in Kosovo in 1981 and 1983, it became clear that the Tito regime had failed to solve the national question in Yugoslavia. The question about Kosovo and its Serbian minority became an important issue in Serbia. The Serbian and the Yugoslav communist parties admitted that the Kosovo party had been fostering national and separatist sentiments in Kosovo. For the Belgrade intelligentsia, it started as an issue of freedom of speech. If the truth about Kosovo had been repressed; it was their job to make it known. The Kosovo question created an emerging nationalist movement in defense of the Kosovo Serbs and as the 1980s progressed, the rhetoric became increasingly aggressive, nationalist and hostile towards Albanians. However, the Serb intellectuals maintained their principled defense of freedom of speech, even if what they were defending seemed intolerant and undemocratic to other Yugoslavs. It was in this way Kosovo came to link emerging democratic movements, pushing for freedom of speech, with the xenophobic nationalist movement, that was preoccupied with the fate of Serbs in Yugoslavia.32 It was the bizarre case of Djordje Martinovi that really stirred the emotion of Serbs and fixed the attention on Kosovo. On May 1st 1985 a Serbian farmer, Djordje Martinovi, from the town of Gnjilane in Kosovo, was rushed to the hospital with grave internal injuries, caused by the violent insertion of a glass bottle into his rectum. He claimed that he was attacked by two Albanian speaking masked men, while he was working in his field. Medical and police authorities were unable to reach consensus regarding the nature of Martinovi injuries. According to Albanian authorities, Martinovi had admitted that he hurt himself during an act of masturbation, but after an examination in Belgrade, Serbian authorities concluded that the injuries were too severe to be selfinflicted. The official explanation adopted by the regime was that of the Albanian authorities, however, many people in Serbia believed that the authorities had fabricated this story in order to hide the truth about the abuses of Kosovo Serbs. The Serbian press portrayed the incident as a nationalistic motivated attack by violent Albanians against an innocent Kosovo Serb.33 The question of what happened to Martinovi was never adequately explained, which fueled wild speculation. Martinovi quickly became a martyr. His case drew parallels to the Turkish impalement of Serbs
31 32

Dragovid-Soso 11 Miller 260 33 Sindbk 155

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during Ottoman rule. It captured the notion of historical Serbian victimization and his suffering symbolized that of the Kosovo Serbs at the hands of the Albanians. Stories of violence and rape perpetrated by Albanians against Serbs were frequent in the Serbian press already from the early 1980s, but came to receive even more attention after the Martinovi case, which itself figured in the Serbian press well into the 1990s.34 The Belgrade critical intellectuals too became preoccupied with the case of Martinovi. The writer Dobrica osi wrote an appeal to the president of the presidency of the Serbian League of Communist and to the Federal minister of defense, where he requested that the truth about the Martinovi case would be made public. The Serbian Writers Association called on the Serbian Parliamentary Assembly to form a special commission to investigate the Martinovi case, claiming that the official explanation that Martinovi was unsubstantiated. In January 1986, 200 Belgrade intellectuals signed a petition to the Yugoslav and Serbian leadership where it was claimed that Yugoslavia was conducting a policy of gradual surrendering of Kosovo to Albania and that all Kosovo Serbs were now sharing the fate of Martinovi.35 After the Martinovi case, the question about Kosovo became a national obsession in Serbia. In a combination of national myths combined with modern grievances, the Imagined Community of Serbs all over Yugoslavia saw their own historic suffering in the modern suffering of the Kosovo Serbs. The year 1985 and the Martinovi case was a turning point in the activism of Serbian intellectuals, which shifted from the push for democratization to a nationalist movement for truth in which Kosovo took the center place. Although it would not be leaked until more than a year after, it was in this atmosphere that the Memorandum was conceived.36

The Contents of the Memorandum


The actual Memorandum is a document in two clearly separated parts, each about 20 pages long in the Authorized Version. The first part is called The Crisis of the Yugoslav Economy and Society. There are numerous misconceptions about the contents of the Memorandum, for example that it

34 35

Miller 261 Sindbk 155 36 Miller 263

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advocates a Greater Serbia and that it was a Blueprint for ethnic cleansing and the nationalist movement.37 Part one, as the title suggests, deals with the economic, political and moral crisis of the system. It is very critical of the communist regime and of the present political system of Yugoslavia. Specifically the decentralization following the 1974 constitution is criticized, and it is asserted that it has caused the Yugoslav economy to become fragmented, with republics selfishly guarding their own economic interests. Furthermore, its requirement that all major decisions must be made by consensus has transformed the Yugoslav system into a textbook example of inefficiency.38 To solve the problems of Yugoslavia, the Memorandum recommends a form of free elections and a democratization of the country, although it does not specify how this democratization is to be carried out. The most important step in order to change the current situation is to throw off the ideology which lays primary emphasis on ethnic and territorial considerations 39 The second part, The Status of Serbia and the Serbian Nation.40 is paradoxically filled with exactly the kind of ethnic considerations the first part criticizes. It stands in contrast to the more sober arguments and partially legitimate concern of the first part. One of the major themes is the unequal status of Serbia within Yugoslavia. It is claimed that the splitting of Serbia into three parts (Serbia, Vojvodina, and Kosovo) was the result of an anti-Serbian communist ploy, designed to keep the republic weak. It is also claimed that Slovenia and Croatia has come to dominate Yugoslavia and that they are tailoring the country according to their interests at the expense of Serbia.41 It is also this part of the Memorandum that deals with the Kosovo question. It is stressed that the Serbian population of Kosovo are the victims of physical, political, legal, and cultural genocide carried out by Greater Albanian racists wishing to create an Ethnically Pure Kosovo.42 The Serbian leadership is attacked for not taking action because they are always on the defensive and always worried more about what others think of them and their timid overtures at raising the issue
37

Audrey Helfant Budding Systematic Crisis and National Mobilization: The Case of the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy In Cultures and Nations of Central and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of Roman Szporluk (Harvard, 2002) 53 38 Kosta Mihailovid and Vasilije Krestid. Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts: Answers to Criticism. (Belgrade: GIP, 1995) 105 39 Ibid. 105 40 Ibid. 119 41 Ibid. 120 42 Ibid. 129

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of Serbias status than about objective facts affecting the future of the nation whom they lead43 It is claimed that Serbian authorities cover up crimes committed by Albanians in an attempt to hide the true situation in Kosovo from the public. Here, the Memorandum uses the Martinovi case as an example of how the stubborn refusal to let a court of law determine and acknowledge the truth 44 The document goes on to claim that the cultural heritage of Kosovo Serbs was being destroyed and that Serbs had been reduced to second-class citizens. The Memorandum also brought up the question of the Serbs of Croatia, which it was claimed faced extinction by assimilation, Except for the time under the Independent State of Croatia, the Serbs in Croatia have never been as jeopardized as they are today. 45 Towards the end of the document, with references to the historical victimization of Serbs, the Memorandum comes with one of its most important points. In a striking paragraph, which deserves to be quoted in full length, it calls for a cultural renaissance of the Serbian people. In less than fifty years, for two successive generations, the Serbs were twice subjected to physical annihilation, forced assimilation, conversion to a different religion, cultural genocide, ideological indoctrination, denigration and compulsion to renounce their own traditions because of an imposed guilt complex. Intellectually and political [sic] unmanned, the Serbian nation has had to bear trials and tribulations that are too severe not to leave deep scars in their psyche, and at close of this century of great technological feats of the human mind, this fact must not be ignored. If they want to have a future in the family of cultured and civilized nations of the world, the Serbian people must be allowed to find themselves again and become an historical personality in their own right, to regain a sense of their historical and spiritual being, to make a clear assessment of their economic and cultural interests, to devise a modern social and national programme which will inspire present generations and generations to come.46

Serbs were the most dispersed of Yugoslav peoples, 24% lived out of Serbia, and over 40% if one counts the Serbs of the autonomous regions of Vojvodina and Kosovo.47 For this reason, most Serbs had been convinced that they had a special interest in maintaining the Yugoslav state. They believed
43 44

Ibid. 128 Ibid. 129 45 Ibid. 133 46 Ibid. 138 47 By contrast 22% of Croats lived outside Croatia. Budding 51

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in what Belgrade Sociologist Vesna Pesi has called a symbiosis between Serbianism and Yugoslavism.48 This part of the Memorandum is important because the particular call for a new cultural renaissance shows, according to Nick Miller, that the Memorandum advocates that Serbs cast off their Universalist Yugoslav identity and adopt a more, in the words of Anderson, limited Serbian identity.49 Even as Serbian nationalism became endemic of the late 1980s, complete rejection of a Yugoslav state was rare. Audrey Helfant Budding makes the point excellently when she explains that the rise of Serbian nationalism might as well be called the decline of Serbian Yugoslavism.50 The Memorandum does not reject Yugoslavia as a state per say, but it rejects Yugoslavia in its current form.

In spite of the harsh rhetoric of the Memorandum, its actual demands are sober, especially if it is compared to the demands of Serb nationalists just a few years after. The main proposals are a thorough reexamination of the 1974 constitution and the rejection of ethnic egoism and polycentrism and the establishment of a recentralized, democratic, and integrated federal system, in which the principle of autonomy of the parts is in harmony with principle of coordinating the parts within the framework of a single whole.51 Thus, it is clear, that while the Memorandum does advocate a national renaissance of the Serbian people and defend their right to cultural integrity throughout Yugoslavia, there is no call for an independent Greater Serbia or advocating of ethnic cleansing as has been claimed.

The real significance of the Memorandum is the virulent language in which it describes the situation of Serbs living in Kosovo and Croatia, as well as its theories of a communist plot to keep Serbia weak. In this way it reaffirms the status of Serbs as a victim nation. The status of the Kosovo Serbs was already an important issue in Serbia when the Memorandum was leaked, but it did add two new things to the discourse. First of all, taking up the question of the Serbs of Croatia, Memorandum compared the current situation of Croatias Serbs to the greatest suffering of Serbs in the 20th century, the Ustae genocide. Secondly, it put the blame on the policies of the Yugoslav communist

48 49

Quoted in Budding 51 Miller 275 50 Budding 51 51 Mihailovid and Krestid 106

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party, dominated by Edvard Kardelj, a Slovene and Josip Broz Tito, a Croat. 52 This Slovene-Croat coalition continued even after their deaths and systematically plotted to maintain a weak and divided Serbia in order to maintain their own national interests and thereby supported the genocide of the Serbs of Kosovo.

The Conception of the Memorandum


In 1985, after a five year period of the Serbian press reporting horrific stories about the status of Serbs in Kosovo, and shortly after the Martinovi case, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts met in a general session and decided to create a draft Memorandum concerning the problems of Yugoslavia. The Academy was the highest ranking and most prestigious of academic institutions in all of Serbia and partially independent from the regime. Its members were some of Serbias most esteemed intellectuals and system critics. The actual authors of the Memorandum were for a long time unknown, but it was speculated that it was the well-known system critic and writer Dobrica osi who was behind it although this is not true. According to the official release of the document from 1995, the drafting committee created in June 1985 included 16 academy members, each chosen by their respective departments and the chairman was vice-president of the Academy, Antonije Isakovi. However, not all of the 16 members took an active part in writing the Memorandum. Its principle authors are most likely Isakovi himself, philosopher Mihailo Markovi, historian Vasilije Kresti and economist Kosta Mihailovi. The latter two were also behind the official release of the Memorandum in 1995.53 As have been said before, the Memorandum was not intended for public release; rather its recipient was the Serbian government, which needed a critical analysis of the current state of affairs in Yugoslavia and Serbia.54 By September 1986, the group of intellectuals had finished the draft of the Memorandum and the committee began to review it. However, this process was interrupted when the Belgrade newspaper Veernje Novosti on the 24th and 25th September published a two part article called A Proposal for Hopelessness and containing excerpts of draft Memorandum. This was an event that sent shock waves through all of Yugoslavia. The Memorandum was denounced throughout the country by authorities of all the republics, but most of all in Serbia. For almost every
52

Edvard Kardelj was a Communist leader. He was the main architect of the Yugoslav system and the 1974 constitution. Aleksander Pavkovid. The Serb National Idea: A Revival 1986-92 In The Slavonic and East European Review Vol. 72, No. 3.(University College London, 1994) 445. 53 Mihailovid and Krestid 14 54 Ibid. 14

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day in the following months, the Serbian press launched a new attack on the Academy. President of Serbia, Ivan Stamboli called it a stab in the back of Yugoslavia, Serbia, socialism, selfmanagement, equality, brotherhood and unity55 The Serbian authorities threatened with cutting funding in order to pressure the Academy to denounce the authors of the Memorandum. In December 1986 the Academy scheduled an extraordinary assembly on the issue. It was the belief of the Serbian authorities that the Academy would use this occasion to reject the Memorandum. At the assembly, the Serbian government representative made it clear that he expected the Academy to make it announce to the public that the ideas of the Memorandum only represented a small minority of Academy members.56 However, there was strong support for the Academy leadership at the assembly and only three members expressed their concern about the contents of the Memorandum. Several speeches were held in the defense of the Memorandum and it was pointed out how it was unfair to condemn the Academy based on an unfinished document. It was in particular the Academy members who were also members of the Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Thought and Expression such as Dobrica osi that took a defiant stand. He called for Academy members to assert the political independence of their institution and criticized the position of the Serbian government.57 In the end, the demands of the Serbian government were not met; there would be no official rejection of the Memorandum by the Academy. According to Tea Sindbk this had two implications. On one hand, the Academy asserted its independence, freedom of speech and its right to participate in the debate of important political subjects. While on the other hand, the defense of the document meant that the unfinished draft Memorandum, along with all of its content, received a stamp of approval from the Academy.58

Discussion
So far, I have examined the circumstances under which the Memorandum was conceived. I have also provided a thorough analysis of the actual contents of the Memorandum. This part of my paper will be dedicated to discussing an area of contention, the actual impact on the Serbian society.

55 56

Dragovid-Soso 186 Dragovid-Soso 186 57 Ibid. p188 58 Ibid. 150

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Christina Morus argues that the Memorandum is significant for a number of reasons. With its constitutive rhetoric, she claims the Memorandum is essentially a form of cultural pedagogy, which recast Serbian identity as one of subjugation and victimization. It universalized the threat of the Kosovo Serbs to Serbs living all over Yugoslavia, and made themes such as the historic victimization of the Serbian people, the communist conspiracy and the threat of genocide in Kosovo part of the cultural lexicon. The Memorandum is the founding document of the new Serb nationalism that came to dominate the late 1980s and 1990s Morus contends, and its publication marks the coming out of Serbian cultural elite and nationalist intellectuals. This is evident, she claims by the fact that Slobodan Miloevi got the support of Serbs throughout Yugoslavia by adopting the ideas of the Memorandum, and the fact that he later developed a tight relationship with some of the Memorandum committee members. 59 In this context, it is worth nothing that when Miloevi founded the Socialist Party of Serbia in July 1990, Memorandum committee member Mihailo Markovic became the Vice President, three other members were elected to its governing board, and Kosta Mihailovi became one of Miloevis top advisers. This is also what lends support to the perception that the vague national program presented in the Memorandum was a blueprint for Miloevi policies. According to Helfant Budding, this is a false contention; the call for a Serbian nationalist renaissance was something that all major Serbian parties advocated during the period of Yugoslavias dissolution. What Miloevi and the Memorandum shared, was the idea that it was the shape of the Yugoslav state and not the Yugoslav social system itself that was the root of the crisis. The reforms advocated by both the Memorandum and Miloevi were aimed at returning to an earlier and more authentic version of Yugoslav socialism, which was believed to have developed in a special way since the break with Stalin in 1948.60

Sindbk claims that scholars generally tend to ascribe too much influence to the Memorandum. The main points of the Memorandum did not represent anything new she convincingly claims. The denunciation of the 1974 constitution, the preoccupation with the situation of the Kosovo Serbs, and the other points of the Memorandum, were all issues raised by other sides of Serbian society, for
59 60

Morus 160 Budding 59

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example the Serbian press, the Orthodox church as well as intellectuals unaffiliated with the Serbian Academy. When the Memorandum was leaked in 1986, it was by no means certain that nationalist discourse would come to dominate Serbia. Crucial to Serbias orientation towards nationalism was that the Serbian communist party, led by Slobodan Miloevi, took up Serbias national interests as its cause. However, Sindbk claims, there is no proof that the Memorandum was the inspiration for Miloevi policies, as its main points were also raised elsewhere. 61

Sindbk makes another good point when she claims that the tendency to ascribe a lot of meaning to the Memorandum stems from the tendency of scholars to treat the Memorandum in the light of its rerelease in 1989 when the situation in Serbia had changed radically. This is supported by the fact that analysis of the Yugoslav situation made after 1986, but before 1989 pay little attention to the document. The Memorandum at its initial publication in 1986 was a product of a nationalist discourse developing as a response to the prevalent crisis in Yugoslavia, but did not contribute to it in a significant way initially.62 Taking this into consideration, it seems like the Memorandum did not have as significant a role in shaping Miloevi policies as Morus contends.

That many of the Serbian intellectuals from the Memorandum committee came to support Miloevi does not necessarily mean that they were his inspiration. Instead, it is likely that their common nationalist interests, such as the defense of the Kosovo Serbs and the recentralization of Yugoslavia were the main reason for their support even if it meant giving up their demands for democratization in the process. When the Memorandum was released in full length in 1989 and 1995, the climate in Serbia was much more susceptible to nationalism. The situation of the Kosovo and Croatian Serbs were deteriorating and the Memorandum seemed like a prophecy come true. In such an environment it does, however, not seem unlikely that some of the narratives and arguments employed by the document could have become an inspiration of Serbian nationalists. Olivera Milosavljevi argues that it was not so much the Memorandum itself that had a great influence on the revival of nationalism in Serbia as it was the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts as an institution. The significance of the Memorandum was that it defined the public activity of the Academy in the years to come. The Memorandum was mainly an institutional document, and its
61 62

Sindbk 157 Sindbk 158

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untimely release is largely irrelevant. It was the institution that came to have immense influence on the public opinion in Serbia, particularly in regards to defining the need for a Serbian national renaissance and calling for radical measures to be employed to solve the crisis of Yugoslav society. Like Tea Sindbk, Milosavljevi agrees that similar (and more radical) opinions were also being expressed by other groups and individuals in Yugoslav society. However, the opinions presented by the Serbian Academy carried a lot more weight, because they were legitimized by the authority of the greatest names in Serbian science and culture.63 It is my belief that when the Academy presidency in 1989, on many different occasions, voiced their unequivocal support for the policies of the Serbian leadership, it was the fact that the Academy was a renowned scientific and cultural institution that legitimized the policy in the eyes of many Serbs.

Another perspective is being put forth by Karina Aga Sachse. She argues that the publication of the Memorandum caused a drastic paradigm shift. The Memorandum was significant because it rejected the official representation of Yugoslav history, which was something that had not been done elsewhere before. The new national narrative of Serbia as a victim nation, both as the majority in Serbia and as a minority in the other parts of the country, was central to the new nationalist discourse and became canonized with the Memorandum.64

Building on this, I would add that the virulent language employed, in especially the second part of the document was significant and new. While the Memorandum tries to preserve a Yugoslav veneer and through most of the document looks for solutions for Serbia within Yugoslavia, it seems hard to imagine how Serbia would be able to stay in a federation with other Yugoslav nations committing genocide on their Serb minority. In this way, I believe the Memorandum served to poison the debate with its absolutist and extreme language.

Nick Miller brings up an interesting and somewhat different point. He claims that the descent of the Serbian intellectuals into exclusivist and limited nationalism was structurally predetermined. Their form of nationalism was a reactive nationalism (opposed to an essential nationalism), because they responded to the conditions of their society. In other words, their nationalism was a response to what they saw happening in Yugoslavia. Many intellectuals (and most of the Memorandum
63 64

Milosavljevid 298 Karina Aga Sachse. Too much Memory and too much Forgetting: Young urban Serbs and the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. MA Thesis. (University of Copenhagen, 2003) 42

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committee) had been part of the Partisan generation; they had all given communism a chance, but felt betrayed by the Tito regime. The regime had promised to put an end to nationalism in Yugoslavia, but with the Kosovo riots and the 1974 constitution, which was a clear surrender to nationalism, it became clear that it had failed to do so.65 As a response to the conditions, Serbian intellectuals sought to inspire a cultural regeneration within their community, which they believed would strengthen and revitalize it. In spite of what has been said about Serbian nationalism, this was an introspective and not an aggressive process. Although the Serbian movement, like all other nationalist movements, defined itself against an essentialized other, it was primarily involved in essentializing Serbs themselves as degraded by communism and in need of a cultural renaissance. 66 In this regard, it is possible to see the Memorandum as just a part of and product of an evolving Serbian nationalism. That is not to say that the Memorandum was a meaningless document. However, unlike Morus who believes that had the Memorandum not been leaked to the press, the exclusivist notion of Serbian identity might not have come to pass,67 I believe, that the embrace of nationalism was inevitable and would have found another outlet, had the Memorandum not been published.

Did the publication of the Memorandum really recast Serbian identity as have been claimed? Most of the newer studies of Yugoslav disintegration have argued that the nationalism movements that came to be were invented by ethnic leaders, as opposed to being an expression of Ancient Hatred. If we follow Hobsbawns theory of invented traditions, it would be feasible to claim that the Memorandum with its catching symbolism and mythology was a tool in the hands of nationalist intellectuals, who wanted to recast Serbian identity as one of victimization and subjugation. This also means that Serbian nationalism is essentially a modern phenomenon, invented by intellectuals from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and used by Miloevi to gain support. I believe it is a simplistic stance that fails to explain the entire story.

Instead, it seems to me that the Memorandum was part of something that was already there. It was not the Memorandum that cast Serbian identity as one of victimization. This identity has much

65 66

Miller 353 Miller 355 67 Morus 160

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deeper roots; back to the myth of the battle of Kosovo. This is something even Hobsbawm admits. 68 This is why I believe Anthony D. Smith and his ethno-symbolist approach is more useful in explaining the Memorandum. Smith does not rule out that nationalism is a modern ideology, but rejects that identities can be created out of nothing.

While Serbian national identity is imagined, it is not invented. Putting too much emphasis on the fact that 1980s Serbian nationalism was constructed, it is easy to forget that it had deep ties with the past. This is why I will argue that the role of the Memorandum was to reshape Serbian nationalism. Serbian identity was not invented by the Memorandum, it already had a pre-existing heritage. The Memorandum initially had its greatest impact on Serbian intellectuals and they were responsible for the promulgation to the public. Identity cannot be invented out of nothing; the narratives of the Memorandum resonated with Serbs because they drew on Serbian mythology and history. That is not to say that the exclusivist and chauvinist nationalism that came to characterize Serbia in the 1980s and 1990s was somehow predetermined or primordial like some, mostly journalists have claimed.

68

Eric Hobsawm. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1990) 75

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Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that the Memorandum was neither a blueprint for Greater Serbia and ethnic cleansing, nor was it a critical inspiration for the nationalist policies of Slobodan Milosevi as has been proposed. I have also argued that the Memorandum did have a significant impact on the emerging Serbian nationalism. The narratives of victimhood and betrayal that were employed in the Memorandum served to couple modern grievances with ancient myths of Serbian identity.

Initially, the Memorandum did not have a huge influence on the general public. The main percipients were intellectuals, who felt betrayed by the Titoist regime and its promise to put an end to Nationalism in the region. Later these intellectuals were responsible for conveying the ideas to the public. It is my belief that the shift towards nationalism was an inevitable consequence of the discrediting of the Yugoslav idea.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia caused an identity vacuum and prompted Serbs to look elsewhere to fill it. The Memorandum called for Serbs to find themselves again through a new cultural renaissance. With it symbolic narratives of oppression, betrayal and sacrifice, it was successful in recasting an exclusivist Serbian identity. This does not mean the Memorandum invented Serbian nationalism out of nothing; the reason it worked was because these myths and symbols were deeply rooted in Serbian culture.

The Memorandum was not the precipitating event that awakened Serbian nationalism either. Instead, I would ascribe that role to the Kosovo riots in 1981 and 1983. The Memorandum was drafted as a response to the events going on in Kosovo and especially the Martinovi case. If the Memorandum had not been leaked, I believe that Serbia would still have seen the revival of nationalism. It is likely that the language of the Memorandum could have served to push the emerging nationalism into a more exclusivist and xenophobic nationalism. Nevertheless, many of the ideas of the Memorandum were also being propagated by other parts of Serbian society, although not with the same authority and coherence of the Memorandum. It must be made clear that even though I believe the nationalist reawakening of Serbia was inevitable, I do not believe that it was bound to take an exclusivist form. Neither do I believe in the primordialist idea of ancient hatreds, nor do I believe in the modernistic theories that consider people to be moldable clay in the hands of governments and intellectuals. Serbian nationalism was an inevitable consequence of

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Yugoslavias disintegration, but the exclusivist form it took was conditioned by intellectuals and politicians.

One of the central claims of the Memorandum was that Serbia needed a national renaissance in order to join the family of cultured and civilized nations. In order for Serbia to do this now, it needs to shed its exclusivist nationalism and come to terms with its past. The last reevaluation of the past in Serbia led to the ideas of betrayal and victimization, but in my opinion Miller makes an excellent point when he writes the project for the Serbian future is to find traditions, myths, and/or symbols that will allow for a different outcome: a new revival, built on a different but equally legitimate understanding of the Serbian past.69

69

Miller 358

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Milosavljevi, Olivera. The Abuse of the Authority of Science In The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis. Edited by Neboja Popov. pp275-302. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000. Morus, Christina. The SANU Memorandum: Intellectual Authority and the Constitution of an Exclusive Serbian People In Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. pp-142-165. Routledge, 2007. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/14791420701296513 (accessed June 10th, 2010) Mnnesland, Svein. Fr Jugoslavia og Etter. Oslo: Sypress, 2006. Pavkovi, Aleksander. The Serb National Idea: A Revival 1986-92 In The Slavonic and East European Review Vol. 72, No. 3. pp440-455. University College London, 1994. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211551 (accessed June 10th, 2010) Sachse, Karina Aga. Too much Memory and too much Forgetting: Young urban Serbs and the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. MA Thesis., University of Copenhagen, 2003. Ramet, Pedro. Apocalypse culture In Yugoslavia in the 1980s Edited by Pedro Ramet. pp3-26. Boulder: Westview Press, 1985. Sindbk, Tea. Det Serbiske Videnskabsakdameis Memorandum: Et Dokuments omskiftelige karriere In Den Jyske Historiker Nr. 97. pp146-160. rhus, 2002. Smith, Anthony D. & Ernest Gellner. The Nation: Real or Imagined? The Warwick Debates on Nationalism In: Nations and Nationalism 2 (3). pp357-370. Association for the study of Ethnicity & Nationalism, 1996. Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, "Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) Memorandum, 1986," Making the History of 1989, Item #674, http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/674 (accessed June 10th 2010)

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