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A CONTRIBUTION TO THE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SERB CULTURAL ASSOCIATION “PROSVJETA”: THE BRANKO RADIČEVIĆ SUB-COMMITTEE IN SLAVONSKI BROD
Mladen Barać
Sažetak
In this paper the author, using primarily fragmentary archive sources and periodicals of that time, has in large part reconstructed the activities of the Branko Radičević sub-committee in Slavonski Brod of the Serb Cultural Association “Prosvjeta” in the period of 1990-1991. The overall democratization of Croatian society after the first free multiparty elections in 1990 enabled a reaffirmation of cultural activities of various ethnic entities that had been suppressed by the Yugoslav one-party system. At the Slavonski Brod local level a valuable example was offered by the Branko Radičević sub-committee of the “Prosvjeta” cultural association which, during the short period of its existence, tried to develop systematic cultural and educational activities with the objective of publicizing and preserving the identity of the Serb national minority in the Brod area. It is important to point out that the activities of the sub-committee took place during a period in which intercommunal relations deteriorated as a result of public pronouncements by the local branch president of the Serbian Democratic Party and as a result of the political situation at the republican level, which was exacerbated by the political confrontation (subsequently also the beginning of the aggression by the armed forces) between the Serbian political leaders, the leadership of rebel Croatian Serbs and the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Croatian government. Lack of knowledge of certain circumstances and the cause for the decision to terminate further activities of the sub-committee limits the possibilities of an overall conclusion in regard to its activities. Thus, the given reconstruction, covering the period of the establishment of the sub-committee to the point of the termination of its activities, provides an insight into its basic characteristics allowing only a limited estimation of the functioning of the sub-committee within the cultural life of the municipality of Slavonski Brod. It is obvious that the chief motives for the establishment of the sub-committee were shaped by the need to escape the decades-long restrictive frame of cultural activities that had typified the Yugoslav communist society, in which various national identity factors were unacceptable. The dynamics of political and accordingly of inter-ethnic relations in the municipality Slavonski Brod represented a second motive, all the more in regard to the need for the existence of a Serbian cultural association, recognized by its founders. This association would not separate but rather bring closer together various ethnic groups of this territory and provide a counterbalance to the rhetoric and public activities of the Brod fraction of SDS (Serb Democratic Party). The most persuasive evidence of this statement is given in a review of cultural events organized by this sub-committee during its four months of active work.
Ključne riječi
Serb Cultural Association “Prosvjeta”; Slavonski Brod; Serb national minority; culture; 1990-1991
Hrčak ID:
116626
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.10.2013.
Posjeta: 1.333 *