The Memorandum Revolution

Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) General Secretary academician Dejan Medakovic informed the public in late July that the SANU presidency had decided to publish a critical edition of the 1986 Memorandum. ``This decision alters SANU's earlier stand, and it does not recognize the existing, incomplete text as its own,'' said Medakovic who believes that the new publication of the Memorandum is aimed at removing criticism that its creators include those responsible for the war. With regard to this, academician Vasilije Krestic wrote in the Belgrade daily ``Politika'' that ``the authors of the Memorandum wished to stop the insolent pressures on the Serbian people, to prevent its disintegration, assimilation, its hiding behind the name of Yugoslavia and the flight from its centuries-old hearths.'' Antonije Isakovic attacked intellectuals gathered around VREME as ``seeking strongholds abroad.'' Kosta Mihajlovic said a few words about the Memorandum's role in stopping Serbia's economic lagging in Yugoslavia (that Yugoslavia in which wages stood at 1,000 DM per month, not the present day Yugoslavia where, thanks to his advisory contributions, wages now stand at 30 DM).

A re-reading of the 1986 SANU Memorandum has no political significance any more. This inconsistent text and state to which it referred have vanished in the war. It would seem that a critical edition of the Memorandum is being prepared above all to offer a subsequent justification of the roles played by certain individuals currently in power.

The ``Committee for the preparation of a Memorandum on current social issues'' consisted of 16 members: Pavle Ivic, Antonije Isakovic, Dusan Kanazir, Mihailo Markovic, Milos Macura, Dejan Medakovic, Miroslav Pantic, Nikola Pantic, Ljubisa Rakic, Radovan Samardzic, Miomir Vukobratovic, Vasilije Krestic, Ivan Maksimovic, Kosta Mihajlovic, Stojan Celic and Nikola Cobeljic. According to one testimony, former Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and Ljuba Tadic were purposely excluded from the drawing up of the Memorandum, in order to decrease the anxiety of the authorities at the time. In ``A Man in His Time'' by Slavoljub Djukic, Cosic says: ``I participated at the last meetings of the Committee, when the editing of the draft Memorandum had started.'' According to Djukic's testimony, the result of this participation was 16 pages of text containing Cosic's criticism regarding the Memorandum. Of the group, Antonije Isakovic and Mihailo Markovic were directly included in Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's nomenclature. The first as the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) ideologue, the second as a member of parliament. Kosta Mihajlovic and Ivan Maksimovic were advisors of Serbian Prime Ministers Zelenovic and Radoman Bozovic. Cosic, and later Rakic, tried a sort of coup in 1992, with the idea of wresting power from Milosevic...

This summer, writer Milo Dor criticized Mihailo Markovic in an open letter for using his authority to cover up the catastrophic results of the policy conducted by the so-called Socialist Party: the opening of the door to fascism, the subjugation of the ethnic Albanian population, the destruction of towns such Dubrovnik, Vukovar, Mostar and Sarajevo as symbols of civilization, and the expulsion of young intellectuals, because of which ``Serbia will be deprived of that part of its intelligentsia which could pull us out of the backwardness which has resulted from your insane activities.''

Markovic's nonchalant reply to Dor was that ``our ship has not run aground,'' and that it had seemed to our compatriots in 1915 and 1941 that our ship had not only been shipwrecked, but had also floundered, but that the people had stayed in the country; that Dubrovnik was not demolished; and that he could compare Vukovar and Dubrovnik to Hiroshima, Dresden or Baghdad (!); that the intelligentsia would return, and that if they didn't it didn't matter much as we had produced a great surplus of highly educated intellectuals over the years.

Belgrade's intellectual elite was, for a time, religiously fascinated by Milosevic's decisiveness, overlooking and disregarding all his faults. Mica Popovic admitted twice this summer that he had painted the Last Supper without the Redeemer: ``I thought that the empty chair was reserved for a living man from our environment.'' In 1986 the majority of academicians probably didn't see the greying aparatchik in such a light, even though they were yearning for someone of authority. Critics of the Memorandum were opposed unanimously, either out of intellectual solidarity, or from an opposition stand, or because of nationalist fervour. In the meantime a lot of things have changed, including the results of the operation and the condition of the patient. During the first years of Milosevic's rule there was an impression that he enjoyed SANU's undivided support. This, however, is not quite the situation today.

The drawing up of a new Memorandum was abandoned in 1990 (see text by Slobodan Selenic) because of critical comments concerning the old one. Many questions linked to SANU's relationship with Milosevic and the creation of DEPOS (Democratic Movement of Serbia) have shown that SANU is not a politically monolithic body.

In the winter of 1992 a larger group of academicians published an anti-war declaration: ``If by today, the goals of those who started the war have not become clear, its consequences are becoming increasingly so. As far as Serbia is concerned, the war's achievements so far are as follows: a devastated economy; victims of violence and injustice who have been branded throughout the world as aggressors and Bolsheviks; for the first time in its history Serbia is without a single ally; a great and practically unredeemable blunder concerning the national, social and moral aspects has been made, including the rapid promotion of aggressive individuals to national leaders and war heros; the appearance of the armed underworld on city streets; and the most horrendous consequence of the war--hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed people, the majority of whom do not know why they died or became invalids.

We do not believe in the purposefulness of this war. We do not believe in those conducting it. We do not believe in those who consciously or unconsciously are inflaming it. We do not believe in victories which lead to new wars.'' The signatories of this appeal made in spring 1992 were SANU members: Radoslav Andjus, Ivan Antic, Milutin Garasanin, Miroslav Gasic, Miodrag Pavlovic, Predrag Palavestra, Miroslav Pantic, Borislav Pekic, Branko Popovic, Stanojlo Rajacic, Budimir Reljic, Slobodan Selenic, Miroslav Simic, Ljubomir Simovic, Mladen Srbinovic, Dragoslav Srejovic, Dimitrije Stefanovic and Nikola Tasic.

The SANU leadership said on the occasion that the condemnation of war was the ``individual matter of its members.'' This stand was repeated by SANU general secretary Dejan Medakovic who told the public that the Academy Presidency had ``not been informed,'' while Isakovic made insulting remarks on account of the signatories. The fact that this appeal did not have any influence on the abandoning of the war policy was confirmed when the war in Bosnia escalated and raged at a time when a battle was being fought in Serbia for a change of regime. Before the start of the war in Bosnia, among those intellectuals who recommended a division of Bosnia were several academicians (Ljuba Tadic, Dobrica Cosic...). Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic did not rely just on their approval at the beginning, but made it clear several times that the demographic maps of Bosnia-Herzegovina which he cites during negotiations, have been drawn up by SANU. In 1992 the regime survived pressures and remained in power, while the war in Bosnia was conducted from a distance. The country was faced with isolation, misery and contempt. The country protected by the regime was torched and will soon be unhabitable.

At first glance the Memorandum challenged the return to feudalism in Yugoslavia at the time, and urged for a democratic federation. Many, however, believe that this document also marked the end of Serbia's political urging for Yugoslavia and was an announcement of ``Serbia's secessionism.'' The key parts of the Memorandum are inspired with a certain enthusiasm for a state-planned market economy, as in the period prior to 1965. The economic part of the Memorandum says that the growth rates during this period were highest. Serbia's economic subservience is explained with its inferior position in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the time, while Yugoslavia is described as a confederation which was falling apart.

The political authorities in Serbia at the time regarded the Memorandum as a platform of Serbian nationalism, and the policy resulting from it as highly risky, because of an underestimation of the risks involved in such an operation. President of the Serbian Presidency at the time Petar Stambolic said: ``According to the so called Memorandum, there is nothing left to the Serbian people but to ``rise up'' because their brethren allegedly hate them, and because they are allegedly doomed to be losers, and because the Serbian leadership is prepared to make compromises. It follows that Yugoslavia is the Serbian people's Golgotha, in Kosovo, Vojvodina, Croatia, Bosnia, everywhere. In other words, the so-called Memorandum expresses mistrust of the Yugoslav community and does not see the historical interests of the Serbian people in brotherhood, harmony and unity with others, but in quarrelling and the poisoning of relations.'' In the highly charged atmosphere which followed, at a special SANU Assembly session, an outraged Predrag Palavestra opposed what he called ``an unfortunately formulated accusation that SANU had worked, and was working on the breaking up of Yugoslavia's unity and the alleged abandoning of the Yugoslav idea.'' At the time, many of those defending the Memorandum were Yugoslavs by conviction.

In fact, two thirds of the Memorandum consist of Yugoslav terminology. In the part dealing with the economy a return to the economic competencies of a federal, central authority is urged, while the central parts of the document contain a directly formulated demand that the relationship of forces in Yugoslavia be changed in favor of the repressed and blocked Serbian state in the federation at the time, including less clearly defined demands for the unity of the Serbian people. In some passages this takes the form of cultural links such as some `personal autonomies', while in others it is possible to detect that Serbia's state unity is counted on within the framework of Yugoslavia. In the autumn of 1988, a year after the Memorandum affair, and speaking at a meeting organized by Knjizevne Novine (a literary magazine), Cosic spoke of Yugoslavia as a ``country of forsaken expectations and an uncertain future.''

At the end, the Memorandum brings an explicit announcement of Serbia's state independence, and this is probably where the thin line concerning the abandoning of Yugoslavia has been crossed. First it is said that the greatest problem lies in the fact that the Serbian people do not have their state such as all other peoples do. The conclusion follows that the stands of Slovenian and Macedonian politicians at the time and the fundamentally carried out disintegration, lead to the thought that Yugoslavia is threatened with the danger of a further disintegration and that the Serbian people cannot wait for the future peacefully in such uncertainty, and that all must be given the chance of stating their aspirations and aims, and that Serbia should not adopt a passive stand in the matter, waiting to hear what the others will say, as it had done many times before.

Historical studies, or someone's memoirs will disclose how the whole mess was cooked up. A year later a showdown among Serbian Communists took place. The political public, above all in Croatia, but in the other republics too, read the Memorandum carefully and regarded it as a guide followed by Milosevic during the ``awakening of the people.'' Had some of the creators of the Memorandum counted on the introduction of a state of emergency, or on war, as a means of achieving as yet undefined political goals, before war had broken out, is still not quite clear, even though some continued to support Milosevic's war policy wholeheartedly. Even Cosic condemned ``treacherous pacifism'' in an interview given in 1992. Philosopher Ljuba Tadic condemned colleague Miladin Zivotic and all ``professional anti-Serbs.'' Several months before the war broke out academician Milos Macura approved unarmed forms of violence in Kninska Krajina. Mihailo Markovic admonished Serbia's youth for refusing to take part in the war, and for their consumer habits.

SANU President Dusan Kanazir announced again last year that at the meeting ``Serbia today and tomorrow,'' SANU would try to draw up a new document with a national program, one which would replace the 1986 memorandum. The meeting was held in spring 1992, but did not produce a new memorandum, nor anything of the kind as had been announced by Dobrica Cosic at the time. A year before, in April 1991, an attempt to form the Serbian National Council failed, because the opposition had realized that the project was backed by the SPS under the guise of national unity and with the aim of making all Serbs adopt a single stand, one which would lead to disaster, without any protests being voiced.

A survey conducted by VREME included the question: ``What would you write down with regard to the critical edition of the SANU Memorandum?.'' Academician Simo Cirkovic concluded his answer with: ``The Academy will make its greatest contribution in resolving the current problems and will help its people most if it fulfills its leading role in science and the arts.''