PETRCANE, Sept 26 (Hina) - The 8th seminar of Croatian and Serbian historians, focusing on the break-up of Yugoslavia in the wider historical context of the twentieth century, started in Petrcane near Zadar on Friday. The three-day
event was organised by the German liberal foundation "Friedrich Naumann".
PETRCANE, Sept 26 (Hina) - The 8th seminar of Croatian and Serbian
historians, focusing on the break-up of Yugoslavia in the wider
historical context of the twentieth century, started in Petrcane
near Zadar on Friday. The three-day event was organised by the
German liberal foundation "Friedrich Naumann". #L#
Attending are historians from Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro and
other countries.
Greeting the participants, the head of the "Friedrich Naumann"
foundation's office in Zagreb, Dr. Hans Georg Fleck, said the
seminar was exclusively a scientific and not a political dialogue.
Six months ago, the foundation offered Zadar University to organise
the seminar, but its History Department refused the offer,
considering it primarily a political meeting.
Dunja Melcic, a historian who lives in France and works in Germany,
spoke about the break-up of Yugoslavia in the wider historical
context of the 20th century. The end of the last century was the end
of an era, which politicians in former Yugoslavia, as well as those
in the West, were not aware of, she said.
Yugoslavia ceased to exist because it was an incomplete state and
its history shows that it was an alliance forged out of necessity,
Melcic said.
Speaking about whether Yugoslavia could have survived, Dr. Ivo
Goldstein from Croatia said that the differences that emerged in
Yugoslavia in the 1980's were irreconcilable. A multiethnic
community can exist only if it has democratic institutions, which
Tito's Yugoslavia did not have, nor did Tito want them, Goldstein
said.
(hina) rml