scholarly journals Producing and Cracking Kosovo Myths. The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Emergence and Critique of a New Ethnonationalism, 1984 – 1990

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 335-354
Author(s):  
Nenad Stefanov

Abstract The author analyses how the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) has gained significance for the new leadership of the League of Communists in Serbia since the mid-1980s. With its authority as a scientific institution, the SANU legitimised the political measures implemented to centralise and consolidate authoritarian rule. The new perception of the Yugoslav crisis, marked by ethnicisation and self-victimisation, used Kosovo as the focus and became the dominant stance on the war and authoritarian rule of the 1990s. However, as the author shows, a critique of these developments needs to be included in the analysis in order to adequately grasp the tense dynamics.

Author(s):  
Evgenii Koloskov

The article is devoted to the formation of the contemporary Vidovdan tradition in the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1985-1991. Beings the key date in modern Serbian national history, 28 June was used to provide commemorative practices by various Serbian forces during the decomposition of centralised power in Yugoslavia in that period. The process of codifying of a new national mythology precipitated by the disintegration processes in the SFRY after the death of Tito, is examined on the background of the political discourse in Serbia. The research uses sources such as the public speeches and writings of leading political figures (above all Slobodan Milosevic), which are openly available, for example the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and which were published in the three most popular newspapers in the Socialist Republic of Serbia: Борба (Struggle), Политика (Politics) and Вечерње новости (Evening News) and the two main newspapers of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo: Rilindja (Revival) and Jeдинство (Unity). The research concludes that it is obvious that the establishing of a tradition of celebrating the anniversary of the Kosovo Battle as an annual public holiday is directly related to the interests of the political forces in SR Serbia.


Author(s):  
Jens Meierhenrich

What for many years was seen as an oxymoron—the notion of an authoritarian rule of law—no longer is. Instead, the phenomenon has become a cutting edge concern in law-and-society research. In this concluding chapter, I situate Fraenkel’s theory of dictatorship in this emerging research program. In the first section, I turn the notion of an authoritarian rule of law into a social science concept. In the second section, I relate this concept to that of the dual state and both to the political science literature on so-called hybrid regimes. Drawing on this synthesis, the third section makes the concept of the dual state usable for comparative-historical analysis. Through a series of empirical vignettes, I demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Fraenkel’s institutional analysis of the Nazi state. I show why it is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the legal origins of dictatorship, then and now.


Author(s):  
Manzoor Naazer ◽  
Amna Mahmood ◽  
Shughla Ashfaq

The paper scrutinizes the political rights situation during the first five years (1999-2004) of Pervaiz Musharraf era. Musharraf had come into power after army had revolted over his dismissal as army chief by the prime minister. He strove to project soft image of his government to get legitimacy within the country and recognition from the outside world, particularly the West. He portrayed himself as a liberal leader and later also propagated his idea of “enlightened moderation” as a panacea for the miseries of the Muslim world. Despite his overtures, the political rights situation became bleak during his military rule and no meaningful change took place even during the first two years after country returned to “democratic rule.” Musharraf government denied people of their political rights to prolong his authoritarian rule. His rule was characterized by: arbitrary arrests and imprisonments of political leaders; repression of political activities; imposition of forced exile; political victimization in the name of accountability; attacks on rights to elect the government; military’s direct grip over affairs of state despite transition to the civilian rule; intimidation of opposition over legal framework order; and limitations on freedom of association.


2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-286
Author(s):  
Temur Aytberov ◽  
Shahban Khapizov

AbstractIt is known that the Qajars had their supporters in Dagestan during the Russo-Persian Wars in the early 19th century. This fact is well documented in Persian chronicles and royal decrees (firmāns), as well as in the materials from the Russian archives. However, the number of historical documents originating from the region itself is drastically few. This paper presents three letters in Arabic, without dates, but definitely from the same period, illustrating the political situation of the time in the mountains of Dagestan and the geographical extent of the Qajar influence in the area. The letters were discovered recently in the Archives of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Dagestan Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences in Makhachkala. The English translation is accompanied by the facsimile reproduction of the original texts, and commentaries.


2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-98
Author(s):  
Bozidar Jaksic

The author?s approach is based on three premises: 1. that Gajo Petrovic?s Praxis was an outstanding phenomenon in Croatian, Yugoslav and European culture, a challenge of freedom in a repressive society; 2. that there has never been such a thing as "Praxis group", "philosophers of practice" or "Praxis philosophers" with a unified philosophical and socio-theoretical orientation; and 3. that political and ideological attacks on Praxis were part of the repressive system that targeted every instance of cultural and scientific dissent. The political leadership of Tito?s regime, its ideological and propaganda apparatus systematically disseminated allegations, denunciations and accusations against Praxis and Gajo Petrovic. The same style has survived through radical historical changes from the appearance of Praxis until today. The attackers have often been the same persons, with the difference that in earlier times they denounced Praxis and Gajo Petrovic as enemies of "socialism" and the "socialist self-management system", and in the changed political fashion as "servants" of Tito?s authoritarian rule. The fate of Praxis in the former regime has been triumphantly interpreted as a "family quarrel". This paper attempts a sociological analysis of the political destiny of Praxis. The analysis is essentially determined not by old and new political and ideological questionings of Praxis, but by Gajo Petrovic?s fundamental belief that there is no freedom without the human or humanity without freedom. .


Author(s):  
Miroslav Jovanovic

The Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade holds three letters that the young writer Milutin Bojic (1892-1917) sent to dramaturge and politician Milan Grol (1876-1952). Bojic wrote to Grol from the island of Corfu, where, together with the Serbian government and the army, he was spending his days in exile. Bojic had a great desire to continue his education and thus to contribute to the Serbian people and the state. These letters are very important historical sources about the life of a young poet who has famously described the suffering of Serbian Army in World War I in his Ode to a Blue Sea Tomb.


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