ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Cold War Debates on the Organization of Science in Socialist Yugoslavia (1950-1963)

• In Event: Science, Technology and Politics in the 20th Century

English Abstract

Socialist Yugoslavia’s break with the USSR in 1948 was followed by intense debates among Yugoslav scholars about the organization of scientific work, particularly regarding the appropriate relationship between universities, academies of sciences, and research institutes. Broadly, two main groups emerged: those who argued that the academies should retain a coordinating role in scientific development and continue establishing research institutes, and those who claimed that academy-controlled institutes hindered universities, which should instead become the primary centers of scientific activity.
These discussions show that the Soviet model of organizing scientific work—previously presented in official discourse as an ideal to be emulated—became publicly contested after the Yugoslav–Soviet split. Even when certain elements in the debates, such as scientific planning, were defended without explicitly linking them to the USSR, they were often nonetheless identified and criticized as Soviet principles, particularly by scholars who openly favored what they understood as Western models of scientific organization.
In my talk, I will try to analyze the main arguments articulated in these debates within Yugoslavia’s broader socio-economic and geopolitical setting—especially its gradual shift toward a more decentralized and market-oriented system and its, at least initially, notable turn toward the Western bloc after 1948. These debates reflected not “only” differing views on how science should be structured but also the broader socio-economic and ideological dynamics unfolding in Yugoslavia amid the Cold War.

Author

• Maja Korolija, University of Belgrade - Institute for Multidisciplinary Research, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia