Informbiroovska emigracija u jugoslovensko- čehoslovačkim odnosima
The Cominformist Emigration in Yugoslav-Czechoslovak Relations

The Political and National Identity of Yugoslav Cominformists in Czechoslovakia

Author(s): Ondřej Vojtěchovský
Subject(s): Diplomatic history, Political history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism, Cold-War History
Published by: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije
Keywords: Czechoslovakia; Yugoslavia; Yugoslav Cominformists in Czechoslovakia; Prague; Nova borba
Summary/Abstract: The group of Yugoslav political emigration in Czechoslovakia, which was established in 1948 after the split between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and other „people’s democracies”, numbered around 180 persons. Prague archives contain abundance of materials originating from émigrés’ organisation, as well as from the Czechoslovak political and security authorities, all of which to some extent and in a specific way document the activity and life of this emigration. Among other things, these archive funds contain personal materials of most of the people who claimed to be anti-Titoist emigrants in Czechoslovakia. The personal cards and personnel questionnaires, autobiographies, Czechoslovak police records on private talks, correspondence etc. are sources which offer the opportunity to map national, social, vocational and age structure of the emigration and show how these categories were projected on political opinions of an individual and the whole collective. Our task is to cover the different levels of the identity of this group. Judging from the presently known facts about the circumstances of the formation of the cominformist emigration in Czechoslovakia, the Prague group can be viewed as a certain representative sample of the post-war Communist party of Yugoslavia. The political culture, behaviour patterns and the approach to ideology and political practice in this part of the pro-soviet emigration were at the time of the Soviet-Yugoslav rupture basically the same as of the membership of Yugoslav party which stayed loyal to Tito’s leadership. Nevertheless, the specifi cs resulting from the tradition of the radical leftist movement in Yugoslavia were different from the conditions in Czechoslovakia and its communist party, which produced misunderstanding and clashes in relations between the emigrants and their Czech hosts.

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