Scientific networks of Miodrag Grbić and their influence upon Serbian archaeology

Abstract

In order to understand the creation, spread, adoption, and maintenance of scientific ideas, it is productive to study scientists in relation to their contemporaries. The studies in sociology of science indicate that the informal level of personal communication makes up a substantive part of scientific life. Scientists build various strategies, find confirmation for their ideas, or fortify their position through personal communication. Driven by various interests, scientists form networks of interaction. The analysis of personal correspondence of Miodrag Grbić (1901–1969), archaeologist and custodian of the National Museum in Belgrade, offers insight into the less known, but important details of the history of Serbian/Yugoslav archaeology. The activity of Grbić becomes considerably more comprehensible when observed in its context, in the light of international scientific networks. The ideas he shared in this framework will become apparent during the World War II, to gain their final shape in the form of Museum Course. From a wider perspective, major important themes of culture-historical archaeology under the specific political circumstances of Europe between the wars, may be discerned beyond the scientific networks of Grbić.