Censorship in Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1952.

Halfway between Stalin and West

January 2012 | #19

by: Mr. Deniver Vukelić
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
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pp: 56
ISSN: 2038-632X

Abstract

This research is based on the fundaments of somewhat nonsystematic historical and culturological investigation of censorship as an important factor in the shaping of cultural identity of people of former Yugoslavia. It starts from the past studies conducted in the fields of book history, archivistics and journalism. It takes Croatia and Serbia for referent countries as base fields for explaining censorship methodologies in the period of Yugoslav WWII aftermath, through the year of IB resolution in 1948 until 1952 and slowly coming out from so called Agitprop cultural period of Yugoslavia.

The gap which is to be filled is one with objective approach to both sides, the winning and the losing side in the WWII, especially because the winning side had lack of will and expertise to have a better insight in methodology of cultural inheritance which it finds, it destroys or forbids its artifacts, from artwork to everyday specimens of low culture. Also, in this work there is a closer insight to the way of how winner’s propaganda and winner’s authorities deal with propaganda of the enemy, including absolute censorship, destruction, sometimes literal and complete, as damnatio memoriae of everything what previous period was and had as its cultural attributes. In that way there can be shaped a new, artificial cultural identity, identified as a Stalinist and totalitarian model of that time which in this work was tried to be recognized and analyzed.

Keywords

Yugoslavia, Croatia, Serbia, censorship, Stalinism, Agitprop, propaganda apparatus of NDH, libraries, forbidden books, forbidden magazines, culture, press workers censorship, 1948, Cominform and Yugoslavia

Table of contents

Abstract
Keywords
1. Introduction
1.1. Guidelines
1.2. Censorship concepts
1.3. Sources, literature and methodology
2. Agitprop
3. Yugoslav press laws and the internal referrals in 1945 – 1948
4. The situation in Croatia at the very end and after the Second World War
4.1. State Commission for establishing the crimes of the occupying forces and their supporters (Zemaljska komisija za utvrđivanje zločina okupatora i njihovih pomagača) and the Survey Committee for investigation of the crime of cultural cooperation with the enemy (Anketna komisija za utvrđivanje zločina kulturnom suradnjom s neprijateljem)
4.2. Confrontation with journalists of Independent state of Croatia
4.3. The prohibition of books and/or writers and the condition in bookstores and libraries
4.4. Examples of censorship of music and film
5. The situation in Serbia
6. The cultural relationship with the Soviet Union before and after 1948
7. Conclusion
8. Sources and literature
8.1. Sources
8.2. Literature
9. Appendix
9.1. List of NDH journalist who were forever banned to practice writing, publishing and other journalist work
9.1. List of “Books that we should immediately prohibit and prevent their further circulation” (“Knjige koje treba hitno zabraniti i onemogućiti njihovo dalje širenje”)

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About the author

Deniver Vukelić is Ph. D. student of Croatian Culture, (with M. A. in History and Croatian Language and Literature) at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. Among his recent publications are “Influence of Roman Catholic Church on civil witchcraft trials in Zagreb during the Early Modern Period “, “Witch hunts in Zagreb”, “At the strike of maul”. He is currently writing his Ph. D. thesis “Influence of magical conceptions and patterns on shaping of Croatian cultural identity”. He works at the Ministry of Justice of Republic of Croatia in Zagreb, as Croatian language expert and media analyst.

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