WHAT ARE WE TODAY TODAY, a Serbian and a dictator or a translated statesman and the best son of our nations and nationalities?



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Forty years after his death, interpretations on this subject multiply among historians and intellectuals in general, and are divided by his “contemporaries”, those who grew up during or shortly after his rise, those who lived in the “golden seventies” . Finally, those who “hooked” only the fall of Tito’s empire.

The most difficult part of any examination of Jospi Broz’s character and work is clearing the analysis of emotions: there are few who can still speak of him outside the ideological trenches, quite objectively. Finding him would be quite difficult, but not impossible.

Born in Croatia Kumrovec on May 7, 1892, Josip Broz was a revolutionary, communist, statesman, lifelong president of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. Even his biographical notes today are subject to mystification, from his origin and nationality to the exact date of his death.

And his legacy is a special story.

He is not a Serb or a Democrat.

Historian Dejan Ristic takes an objective course and tells Blic that even today, 40 years after his death, the personality of the longtime Yugoslav president and the “best son of our peoples and nationalities” has attracted public attention in the post-Yugoslav space with a constant intensity.

Historian Dejan RisticPhoto: RAS Serbia
Historian Dejan Ristic

– In an infinite multitude of sensational media coverage that, as a general rule, has very few points of contact with the facts, Tito’s personality over time has become one more subject with which we both share and face. Looking at the past through the prism of ‘black and white’, ‘positive-negative’ or ‘yes-‘ne’, always without error, leads to the establishment of erroneous attitudes and impressions. Therefore, we would be wrong to call Tito a bloodthirsty and ‘itchy’ dictator, as much as we would see him as some kind of progressive and democratically oriented leader, Ristic apologizes.

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This middle line of thought about Titus undoubtedly represents an honest and professional approach to the historical figure. But how do you swim between inflamed emotions: hatred and exaltation with your character and part? Even today, we are those whose loved ones have suffered “red terror” or, as children of communism, we have lived almost in idyll, so today’s capitalism is a nightmare for them.

Two boobs: “red terror” and “statesman’s time”

Nor does Titus himself make it easy for interpreters: decades of power have made him a changing man, both in character and in politics. According to Ristic, anyone who, like Tito, has persisted on the public, political, diplomatic and military scene for so long, has passed by several people, who sometimes oppose each other.

– It is very difficult, almost impossible, to compare Tito from the second half of the 1940s, marked by “red terror”, the conflict with Informbiro, as well as other significant events and processes with Tito himself from the period after early seventies of that year. of the same century. What is absolutely certain is the fact that we cannot speak of Titus as a democratically oriented politician and statesman. The fact that he has served as the undisputed leader and undisputed ideologist of socialist Yugoslavia for the past thirty-five years is only one indicator of the extent of his undemocratic nature, says Ristic.

The confrontation with political dissidents, and soon with calls. “The fifth column” within the ranks of the CPY and the state apparatus, represented one of the dominant characteristics of its authoritarian government, according to our interlocutor.

Joseph Broz TitoPhoto: Archive / RAS Serbia
Joseph Broz Tito

– Then, Tito was not a classic dictator, but a very specific politician and, without a doubt, very capable, even a statesman would say, with a pronounced instinct to maintain power. Over time, it turned out that Tito’s love for power and an extremely high opinion of himself represented a kind of “fuel”, a kind of political aphrodisiac that prompted him to rise to the highest level of power and then remain self-sufficient and complacent to him. for the rest of his life, carefully establishing, nurturing and strengthening the cult of his own “demigod” personality – Ristic concludes.

A foreign country for Serbia

And now the second corner. Historian Bojan Dimitrijevic, however, believes that Tito’s rule is not a positive story for the Serbian people.

-Serbia under Titus lost the territories it conquered in the Balkans and the First World War, abolished its monarchy, its dominance in the army and minimized the role of the church. Therefore, that rule for Serbia was foreign. On the other hand, from the 1950s to the 1970s, Tito and Yugoslavia entered the world scene where they played an important political and strategic role. And this is considered the golden age of Yugoslavia. Under the negative influence of the war of the 1990s, many view this period with nostalgia. That’s why a more positive image of that age was created in people’s minds, although there were a lot of bad things at the time, says Dimitrijevic.

Historian Bojan DimitrijevicPhoto: V. Zivojinovic / RAS Serbia
Historian Bojan Dimitrijevic

In fact, Yugoslavia and Tita were mortgaged by the war in the 1990s. Teachers, at least nominally, have put their ideologies to the best of their ability and have completely tarnished them. The first of them is Slobodan Milosevic. But who remembers that Milosevic was a partner before he became a second-class Obilic?

In the end, it is illusory to talk about Yugoslavia’s reputation and its infidels today, Dimitrijevic agrees. Our interlocutor argues that, whatever happens, a parallel cannot be drawn between the old RFSY foreign policy and today’s Serbian diplomacy.

– At that time, Yugoslavia was between two political-military blocks. And today it is only one of the Balkan countries. That is why any comparison is impossible, says Dimitrijevic.

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