Радови о учешћу совјетских трупа у ослобођењу Југославије у часопису Војноисторијски гласник
Papers on the Participation of Soviet Troops in the Liberation of Yugoslavia in the Journal Vojnoistorijski Glasnik

Author(s): Dalibor Denda
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, International relations/trade, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949)
Published by: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije
Keywords: Red Army; Yugoslavia; The Second World War; liberation; military; Vojnoistorijski glasnik; journal;
Summary/Abstract: Since the journal of the Institute for Military History, Vojnoistorijski glasnik had been started in 1950, 23 articles touching directly or indirectly on the participation of Soviet troops in the battles for liberation of Serbia in the late phase of WWII were published in it. Papers with such topics usually appeared at the time of anniversaries of the liberation of Belgrade or of the victory over Fascism. First articles with that topic were published in 1955. In most cases their authors were high-ranking military and state officials or scholars and researchers of the Institute for Military History of Yugoslav People’s Army. They were usually written with no footnotes and they represented the official views of the Yugoslav authorities on events from the common past of the Yugoslav and the Soviet peoples, which (views) changed according to ups and downs of Yugoslav-Soviet relations, rather than evaluating judgment of historians who had reached them in keeping with the standards of historical science. Their main feature is stressing of the authenticity of the Yugoslav revolution and the decisive role of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (PLAY) in the operations for final liberation of the country, however without denying the help of the Soviet forces. In that context, PLAY was depicted as a regular military power capable of fighting on equal footing alongside with the Soviet forces against the common foe. The main evidence of the Yugoslav side are the „famous“ TASS report of September 28, 1944, comparison between the number of the Red Army soldiers fallen in Yugoslavia and in other East-European socialist countries, as well as pointing out to the casualties suffered by the Yugoslav peoples during the war. A gradual scholarly and expert „liberation“ of historians writing about this topic started after 1980 as ideological straight-jacket was loosened, so that historical sources could be more fully appreciated. The scholarly approach culminated in Branko Petranović’s „Policy of Compromise and Serbia 1944“ in the issue 2/1988. The last article with this topic was published in 1995. After that the polemic which side played the decisive role in the liberation of Serbia found no place on the pages of Vojnoistorijski glasnik.

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