Latinka
Perovic honoured on her 75th Birthday
Bojan Toncic, e-novine.com, 7 Novembar 2008.
Bosnian Institute, 11 November, 2008
Report translated from the Belgrade-based
e-novine website that highlights the pre-eminent role that Latinka
Perovic has come to play for the critical, democratic opposition in
Serbia
On Friday 7 November in Belgrade, the historian and
long-term political activist celebrated her 75th birthday, in the
presence of numerous NGO representatives and other public figures, with
a promotion of the book Snaga licne odgovornosti ["The Power of Personal
Responsibility"] organised by the publisher, the Helsinki Committee for
Human Rights in Serbia. In addition to an extensive interview with
Latinka Perovic conducted by the historian Olivera Milosavljevic, the
book also includes a number of texts written by eminent Serbian
historians and sociologists.
'Latinka Perovic has achieved something normally
unattainable: to become not only the hero of a drama, but also its
author. To change position and return [from active politics] to academic
work and concentrated rethinking is something that only Latinka Perovic
has done', declared the director of the Centre for Cultural
Decontamination, Borka Pavicevic. The parliamentary deputy and professor
at the faculty of philosophy, Žarko Korac, stressed that 'Latinka
Perovic is exceptional in the attention she pays to the victims of
political conflict in Serbia's modern history'.
He added:
'The creators of our history have found their
protector in the works of someone who has been excommunicated from
public life. Like a modern Gogol, she wished to give them their rightful
place in our historiography. The work is noble but also hard; it can be
accomplished only by someone who has herself experienced political
ostracism. As a result, the sincerity and authenticity that imbue her
work transform her texts into political biographies which, though
written critically and analytically, border upon literature.'
According to the president of the Helsinki Committee,
Sonja Biserko, Latinka Perovic has invested 'much labour and effort into
the interpretation, understanding and broadening of Serbian reality...
This has brought her an authority that few would contest. Though
deliberately forced into a marginal position, she has developed a deep
understanding of the trends that have decided Serbia's orientation. She
understood where Serbia's future lay in the 1970s, and understood too
the key role that Serbia played in Yugoslavia's violent break-up. Her
primary aim has always been the democratisation and modernisation of
Serbian society, and she identified Serbia's territorial expansionism as
a reflection of its inability to fulfil these aims. Latinka Perovic's
research has great relevance for the present day, and remains obligatory
for all who wish to understand Serbian history and politics.'
Latinka Perovic said in response that 'the conflict
between the old and the new is never an easy one', and referred to
international historians who 'have helped our international friends to
understand this and to help us; or, if we remain indifferent, to give up
on us'.
'I thank my Albanian, Croatian and Macedonian
colleagues and friends, as well as those in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who came
to say that they believed in Belgrade and another Serbia, a country for
which so many people worked before us and for which, I trust, people
will work in the future, depending on what we do for them today.'
She added:
'It is most necessary, I think, to invest in the
revival of Serbian society, if it still exists. I think that it does,
that there exist oases which, though disconnected, are nevertheless felt
by the oppressive mode of thought, prompting it to destroy journals,
remove editors, seize the media and scientific institutions.'
Dr Latinka Perovic was born in 1933 at Kragujevac,
Serbia. A graduate of the Belgrade university faculty of philosophy, she
gained her doctorate at the faculty of political science. She was
secretary of the League of Communists of Serbia between 1969 and 1972,
when she was purged - together with Marko Nikezic and other political
collaborators - on the charge of 'liberalism'.
Between 1975 and 1998 she worked at the Institute for
the Workers' Movement, subsequently renamed the Institute for Modern
Serbian History, and since 1993 has been editor-in-chief of the
Institute's journal Tokovi historije [Historical Currents]. She is
editor of the imprint Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. veka
[Serbia in the Modernising Processes of the 19th and 20th Centuries];
also of the CID, Podgorica, imprint Korijeni [Roots]. Her particular
interest is Serbian history of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as
modern Russian history. She has written numerous monographic books,
essays and scientific articles. Her book Izmedu anarhije i autokratije
[Between Anarchy and Autocracy] shows well her scientific and ethical
credo. Here she analyses the process of Serbia's modernisation, and the
patriarchal responses to the challenges raised by it, paying special
attention to the ideology of narodnjaštvo [village-based populism] and
its liberal alternative, to the role of the intellectual elite in social
and political development, and to violence as a constant in Serbia's
modern history. |