Od krivičnog zakona do memoranduma: upotrebe pojma „genocid“ u komunističkoj Jugoslaviji
From The Penal Law To Memorandum: The Use Of Term Genocide In Communist Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: During the 1980’s, the memories of the Second World War were employed to foster mutual fears and hostilities in Yugoslavia. Also, the Serb nationalists labelled as genocide not only massacres committed by Croatian ustasha between 1941-1945, but also the situation in which Serbs found themselves in Kosovo. This manipulation with the use of term genocide cannot be understood without reference to the way it had been defined and used in previous decades. This perspective helps us not only to identify the origins of semantic inconsistencies, but also to understand legal and historiographical logic at work in the Yugoslav case as well as the unfolding of historical processes inherent to the Yugoslav milieu and to the european continent as a whole. The article starts with the examination of Yugoslavia’s official legal definition of genocide in the first decade after the war and proceeds with the concept’s usage by Vladimir Dedijer and his Committee for the investigation of materials on the genocide over the Serbs and other Yugoslavia’s nations. It then discusses the way representatives of the Serbian orthodox Church employed the concept of genocide as well as its broader usage by Serb nationalist circles in the late 1980’s.

• Details
• Contents