Interwar Yugoslavia Research Articles

The Evolution of Anti-Corruption Legislation in Interwar Yugoslavia (1918–1941)

This article maps the legal framework of the anti-corruption legislation in interwar Yugoslavia, by examining the context and contents of the evolving anti-corruption laws in the period 1918–1941. It examines the intentions of the law-makers and the messaging that they wanted to convey through the legislation in a diachronic perspective, as well as the focus of the anti-corruption efforts towards petty corruption versus grand corruption. It poses questions towards the applicability of existing corruption models in the context of interwar Yugoslavia and proposes new directions for studying persisting structural phenomena shaping corruption practices in Southeastern Europe to this day.

“That Tesla of ours”: Modular nationalism and the cult of Nikola Tesla

AbstractThis paper uses a comparative case study of Nikola Tesla's use as a symbol in interwar Yugoslavia and the contemporary United States to build upon Anderson's theory of modular nationalism. The modularity of national symbols, I argue, is driven by their utility in addressing similar social, political and economic transformations in different countries and may be transmissible through emigrant communities—albeit not without some changes in substance. Just as Yugoslavia used Tesla to bridge ethnic divisions, Yugoslav emigrants deployed Tesla to enhance their status in the United States. The cult of Tesla, moreover, is doubly modular, with its Yugoslav incarnation drawing inspiration from the American cult of Thomas Edison, just as Edison's current obsolescence as a symbol led to the cult of Tesla's adoption in the United States.

Mapping the Margins: National Borders, Transnational Networks and Images of Coherence in Interwar Italy and Yugoslavia

This article analyses the relationship between charted (drawn) maps and mental maps of the contested border-region between Italy and Yugoslavia following the First World War. Drawing upon graphic and verbal depictions of tourist routes, railways, supply chains, demographics, topographic features and telephone and telegraph lines, the article analyses representations of an unstable border at a moment of peak uncertainty. In so doing, it reveals the centrality of architects, engineers, tourist bureaus, artists and cartographers in forging an imaginary geography that correlated with emerging political divisions in post-war Europe. On both sides of the contested border, cartography was utilised to change the way people conceived political geography. Maps, the article argues, both revealed existing mental maps and helped to shape new ones.

KOMPARATIVNA ANALIZA RASTA JUGOSLOVENSKE I TURSKE EKONOMIJE U MEĐURATNOM PERIODU (1918-1941)

In the interwar period, Turkey and Yugoslavia, despite all their differences, have approximately similar economic performance. Namely, during the 1930s, the two countries recorded very similar levels of the most important indicator of the state of an economy, which implicitly indicates the level of living standards, GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity). Yugoslavia, like Turkey, was a predominantly agrarian country with underdeveloped industry, where the main aggravating factors for more intensive economic development was, in addition to the lack of capital, the insufficiency of skilled labor, and rapid population growth. Despite the significant progress made in industry and mining, both countries have retained the characteristics of industrially underdeveloped or agrarian-extractive economies, with only about 11% of employees in industry and crafts activities. Despite the above-average GDP growth per capita of Turkey of 1.8% in the period 1913-1939, and the average one for Yugoslavia (1.1%), at the end of the observed period they remained at a very low relative level looking at GDP per capita, and consequently among the most underdeveloped countries in Europe.

Jovana Babović, Metropolitan Belgrade, Culture and Class in Interwar Yugoslavia

Observer la Yougoslavie de l’entre-deux-guerres a travers le prisme de l’industrie du divertissement de sa capitale, voila l’entreprise inedite dans laquelle s’est engagee Jovana Babovic, maitresse de conferences a l’Universite New York Geneseo, dans son ouvrage Metropolitan Belgrade, Culture and Class in Interwar Yugoslavia. Cette demarche originale et ambitieuse a le merite de defricher un terrain laisse presque intact dans la recherche historique sur la Yougoslavie. En effet, s’il existe b...

Religious Diversity and Equality in Interwar Yugoslavia

This paper explores the relationship between religion and state- and nation-building in interwar Yugoslavia. In the current scholarship, the relationship between religion and nationalism in interwar Yugoslavia has been assessed primarily in terms of its contribution to the Croat-Serbian tension and exacerbating political crisis leading to the collapse of the state (Ekmečić, 1989; Radić, 2000, 2003). This approach continues the historiographical tradition of studying the positive link between religion and national identity in the Balkans, where indeed since the 19th century religion has played an important role in the development of national ideologies and national movements (Jelavich, 1983; Kitromilides, 1994). This articles provides a more detailed exploration of the dynamic behind the religious communities’ shift from initial support of Yugoslavia in 1918 to disenchantment with the Yugoslav idea and withdrawal of support. I argue that the reasons for this shift are closely linked to how Yugoslav authorities approached the question of religious diversity and attempted to secure religious equality in the context of establishing new state structures; and to what assumptions were made about the role and place of religion in relation to both the new state and the Yugoslav nation. The article thus questions the presumption that religion was inevitably a destabilizing factor in the interwar period.

Contribution of the Yugoslav Sokol organizations to the interwar sphere of music

In this article part of musical activities of two federal Sokol organizations (JSS and SSKJ) in interwar Yugoslavia will be thoroughly examined. Despite the fact that these organizations were primarily focused on development of gymnastics and certain individual sports, cultural advancement of its members as well as of Yugoslav population also occupied an important place, particularly in the 1930s. As a result of broadening of Sokol?s work, musical amateurism started to gain prominence in Sokol legions, societies and parishes (zupe). This was reflected in the proliferation of Sokol vocal and instrumental ensembles, as well as their performances in various Sokol units, both in urban and rural areas. The flourishing of musical activities among Sokols from different parts of the country led to the change of circumstances in the cultural sphere of these regions, particularly in the undeveloped ones. Among other things, this included giving an impetus to the preservation and popularization of tamburitza orchestras and epic singing to the accompaniment of the gusle, promotion of national and Slavic music repertoire and enrichment and diversification of musical life.

Sličnost ekonomskog razvoja Turske i Jugoslavije između dva svetska rata - uporedna analiza makroekonomskih indikatora

In the interwar period, Turkey and Yugoslavia, despite many differences, have approximately similar economic performance, especially during the 1930s when the average GDP per capita at purchasing power parity for the two countries was almost the same, implicitly indicating a similar living standard. Both Turkey and Yugoslavia remained predominantly agrarian economies in the observed period, both in terms of the share of employees by sectors or the GDP structure. The two countries pursued a protectionist policy during the 1930s, which, in addition to imports substitution, also meant intensifying industrialization. However, the industrial growth of the 1930s, especially strong in Turkey, did not result in significant structural changes in the two economies, which remained at the European bottom in terms of development.

Jovana Babović. Metropolitan Belgrade: Culture and Class in Interwar Yugoslavia.

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The Modernity of Interwar Turkey through the Eyes of Yugoslav Travelers (1923–1939)

Abstract The modernization efforts of the early Republic of Turkey were a recurrent theme of books and newspaper articles written by interwar Yugoslav travelers in Turkey. Their views on Turkish modernity were based on a dichotomy between the “old,” “traditional,” and “backward” Ottoman Empire and the “new,” “modern,” and “revolutionary” Turkish Republic. Their comments reveal the Yugoslav public’s self-perception: in their eyes, through its reforms, Turkey was becoming similar to Western European countries, and had reached or even surpassed the civilizational level of Yugoslavia. Thus, the Yugoslav perception of Turks as Europe’s “Other” had changed for the better.

Yugoslav Women’s Movement and “The Happiness to the World”

ABSTRACT This analysis focuses on the ways in which the interwar Yugoslav women’s movement contributed to national and international political processes of that time, and it divides into two parts. The first deals with the national efforts of the Yugoslav women’s umbrella alliance and its endorsement of the concepts of Yugoslavia and a Yugoslav nation. The second analyses the international activities of Yugoslav women’s organisations on a global and regional level. It investigates the ways that women’s co-operation was used to promote peaceful solutions to regional and international conflicts. However, the national and international women’s movement was a social product of its time. Although promoting pacifism and transnational concepts, in many ways it also faced, mirrored, and sometimes perpetuated contemporary social and national conflicts and prejudices.

State-Building and Democratisation on the Fringes of Interwar Poland and Yugoslavia. Prekmurje and Eastern Galicia from Empire to Nation-State

State-Building and Democratisation on the Fringes of Interwar Poland and Yugoslavia. Prekmurje and Eastern Galicia from Empire to Nation-State

Oltre il fallimento. La prima Jugoslavia, una storia europea

Beyond Failure. The first Yugoslavia, a European history According to an established scholarship, the history of interwar Yugoslavia can be mainly interpreted through the lens of the national question and authoritarianism. This contribution aims at challenging this view, stressing how this country was also the stage of innovative forms of governance, shaped by complex interactions between state and non-state actors. What emerges is an original Yugoslav response to the crisis of European liberalism.

“Improving Our Way of Life Is Largely in Our Own Hands”: Inclusion according to the Romani Newspaper of Interwar Yugoslavia

The only Romani newspaper of interwar Yugoslavia, Romano lil/Ciganske novine (the latter meaning ‘Gypsy newspaper’ in Serbian), was published in Belgrade in 1935 comprising only three monthly issues. The most prominent Yugoslav Romani activist of the time, Svetozar Simić, was the editor of the newspaper, giving tribute to his visions of what Roma should do for the prosperity of their own community. In terms of content, the newspaper articles seem to be strategically thought-out with the aim of creating a narrative about the Roma, as people united by common culture and historical memory, equal to the other people of the Yugoslav Kingdom, who needed to be included in all processes of the social and public sphere. This article looks into the essence of some messages that the newspaper conveys regarding Roma’s social inclusion, such as (1) education and professional training as a key for a better future, (2) the need for Roma to be more engaged and to self-organise as a community and (3) the fight against majority misconceptions about the Gypsies. The article presents and analyses these three elements of Svetozar Simić’s visions for Romani social inclusion as presented in his editorial pieces. The analysis also pays attention to the resemblances between some of the main messages of the Romani activism in the interwar period and the activism for Roma inclusion in later periods, including parallels during the time of Yugoslav Socialism and the period of democratic transition up until today.

Keeping up the separatist tradition: Hungarian Orthodoxy in interwar Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy

ABSTRACT In recent decades several studies had reviewed Hungarian Jewry and its unique characteristics, especially the official separation between Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. Throughout the ages, despite having individuals who were lax in their religious conduct, the Jewish community was always regarded as a cohesive body which was willing to readmit its deviant members who repented. This was known as the concept of Klal Israel. The Orthodox–non-Orthodox separation meant that this historical principle was abandoned in favour of a new one: communal separation. This meant that Orthodox Jews concentrated on self-preservation by increasing religious standards, while allowing their former brethren to drift away from Jewish traditions and to adopt more modern ideologies. Scholars have traced these processes in the major Hungarian-speaking territories in Hungary itself, and also in Transylvania, Slovakia, and Karpatorus. Little attention was paid to the former Hungarian Jews in the territories that were annexed to Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy, where the number of Jews was smaller and the proportion of the Orthodox Jews among them was lower. This article shows how Orthodox Jews in these territories also sought to maintain their religious legacy, through the formal separation between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox communities.

A Character Trait, or a Political Commitment?

Slavonic and East European Review, 98, 2, 2020 REVIEW ESSAY A Character Trait, or a Political Commitment? ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ Martens, Michael. Im Brand der Welten: Ivo Andrić, ein europäisches Leben. Biografie. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna, 2019. 494 pp. Map. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. €28.00. It seems that the significance of Ivo Andrić’s work increases as the decades go by: more articles, books, and new translations of his novels and stories are published now than at the time of his death half a century ago. Martens’s new biography is another valuable addition to this already extensive library. This is not the first biography of Andrić, however: his life has already been well researched and presented in a number of volumes in Serbo-Croat, and one in English.1 The most extensive is Žaneta Đukić-Perišić’s, which in the manner of ‘life and work’ studies presents all significant data and synthesizes a number of specialist studies devoted to particular periods of Andrić’s life.2 Among the latter, especially valuable are Želimir Bob Juričić’s and Dušan Glišović’s studies of Andrić’s time in Berlin immediately prior to the Second World War, Ratko Peković and Slobodan Kljakić’s book about the years immediately after it, and Miroslav Karaulac’s two volumes about his life up until the beginning of the war.3 Also, Sveske, the annual publication of the Andrić Foundation in Belgrade, has been publishing biographical studies, memoirs and correspondence Zoran Milutinović is Professor of South Slav Literature and Modern Literary Theory at UCL SSEES. 1 Vanita S. Mikerji, Ivo Andrić: A Critical Biography, Jefferson, NC and London, 1990. 2 Žaneta Đukić-Perišić, Pisac i priča. Stvaralačka biografija Ive Andrića, Novi Sad, 2012. 3 Želimir Bob Juričić, Ivo Andrić u Berlinu 1939–1941, Sarajevo, 1989; Dušan Glišović, Ivo Andrić, Kraljevina Jugoslavija i Treći Rajh 1939–1941, Belgrade, 2012; Slobodan Peković and Ratko Kljakić, Angažovani Andrić 1944–1954, Belgrade, 2012; Miroslav Karaulac, Rani Andrić, Belgrade, 1980, and Andrić u diplomatiji, Belgrade, 2008. ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ 346 for almost forty years, all of which contributes to the impression that his life has been well researched, and that there are few reasons to expect some new and significant discoveries in the future. All that remains is re-assessment, or re-contextualization, of what has already been found, and Martens cannot be criticized for a lack of significant new data from this already well-researched field. There are only two novelties Martens mentions that will come as a surprise to Andrić specialists, who may regret that the author did not supply any evidence for them. The first is his claim that Andrić joined Jugoslovenska radikalna zajednica, the political party established by Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović. This is not very probable: Andrić was a civil servant and served under all interwar Yugoslav prime ministers, reaching the peak of his diplomatic career during Stojadinović’s term in office, and Andrić’s relationship with him was neither cordial nor politically supportive, as witnessed by Andrić’s close friend Lepa Pavlović in an article listed in Martens’s bibliography. The second claim is that in the run-up to the Second World War, Andrić advocated forging closer ties with Hitler’s Germany: this runs counter to everything known so far about Andrić’s political opinions, and it would be very helpful if some evidence for this claim could be provided. Martens does an excellent job in synthesizing the existing literature, and transforms our knowledge about Andrić’s life into an eminently readable narrative which can be followed effortlessly and with enjoyment. A journalist with some experience in the former Yugoslav republics, Martens wisely refrains from interpreting Andrić’s novels and stories. When he does venture into this territory by quoting brief paragraphs from Andrić’s works — which are intended to shed light on his life — the results are mixed, and some instances of this process are more convincing than others. For example, he discusses the rumours around Andrić being an illegitimate child — fathered by a Franciscan monk, if the source of the rumour is a Croat, or by a Bosniak bey, if...

Voices of Identities: Vocal Music and De/con/struction of Communities in the Former Habsburg Areas ed. by Daniel Ender and Christoph Flamm

Reviewed by: Voices of Identities: Vocal Music and De/con/struction of Communities in the Former Habsburg Areas ed. by Daniel Ender and Christoph Flamm Georg Burgstaller Voices of Identities: Vocal Music and De/con/struction of Communities in the Former Habsburg Areas. Edited by Daniel Ender and Christoph Flamm. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2018. [viii, 190 p. ISBN 9781527508088 (hardcover), $99.95; ISBN 9781527525870 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, music examples, bibliographies, maps, screenshots. This slender volume of proceedings from a 2014 conference in Klagenfurt explores the role of vocal music (ranging from traditional song to opera) in relation to the plurality of identities (from individual to supranational identity) in the territories of the former Austrian–Hungarian Empire after 1918, with a particular focus on the Balkan peninsula and relative neglect of the empire's Italian regions and farther outreaches to the east. The editors' unforced conceptualization of identity in the context of such multi-ethnic, multinational, and multicultural complexity acts as an apposite curtain-raiser: individuality is voluntarily (though not always unproblematically) ceded to become subsumed in, as George Herbert Mead put it, the "generalized other" (p. 2). How might the voice, perhaps the most individual human expression, figure in this process of converging around or diverging from the new social models formed within the identity vacuum created by the fall of empire and beyond? Ursula Hemetek's chapter on the role of traditional song and identification in the Balkans—buried towards the end of the volume—might have been an appropriate gambit to unravel the issue, but the collection is elegantly launched, nonetheless, by Gerda Lechleitner's chapter on the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv (initiated in 1899 as a matter of scholarly interest in ethnography and linguistics rather than music) and its spoken-voice recordings, with some discussion of music from Croatian Sprachinseln (language islands) and a brief gloss on how language and music might figure as markers of identity in the case of Burgenland Croats, based on recordings from the first three decades of the twentieth century. (Marko Kölbl offers a discussion emphasizing the tension between retaining and creating musical traditions within that particular ethnic minority in a later chapter.) The essays that follow create a multifarious, somewhat eclectic path through a large variety of musical genres in geographies that could be grouped together as those of today's eastern central Europe (Czech Republic and Poland), aforementioned Croatia, Serbia, and Hungary, as well as a couple of essays on music in Austria, all largely by writers hailing from the countries in question. Bohemia is discussed by way of David Vondráček's essay on the music for jazz revues at Prague's avant-garde theater Osvobozené Divadlo (Liberated Theater; 1926–38), which had become reimagined as a specifically Czech sound of resistance against both Nazism and communism. In a similar vein, Anna G. Piotrowska offers insights into the selfportrayal and stereotyping of urban minorities (in this case Romani people) in Cracow's vaudeville theater during the early twentieth century as well. Three consecutive chapters are devoted to Serbian music: Melita Milin provides an overview of identity issues affecting composers in interwar Yugoslavia, especially their oscillation between actively promoted supranational (Yugoslav) identity on the one hand and national (Serbian) identity on the other. These became musically reified by adherence to a distinct musical culture established in Serbia (1882–1918) as opposed to an embrace of more [End Page 100] progressive tendencies—especially expressionism—in Slovenia and Croatia, even if these were nowhere near akin to Viennese modernism. A historically broadly conceived excursion into the orally transmitted Serbian folk epic, illuminating its eventual nationalist potential during the twentieth century, is followed by Nadežda Mosusova's discussion of the premiere of the opera Ženidba Miloša Obilića (The Marriage of Miloš Obilić) by Serbian composer Petar Konjović (1883–1970) at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb in 1917. A pseudohistorical drama partly based on the Serbian Kosovo epic about the fourteenthcentury knight Miloš Obilić, the opera's perceived Serbian patriotism proved politically sensitive given the hostilities between Austria-Hungary and Serbia before and during World War I, as can be gleaned from its reception in the Croatian...

A Character Trait, or a Political Commitment?

Slavonic and East European Review, 98, 2, 2020 REVIEW ESSAY A Character Trait, or a Political Commitment? ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ Martens, Michael. Im Brand der Welten: Ivo Andrić, ein europäisches Leben. Biografie. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna, 2019. 494 pp. Map. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. €28.00. It seems that the significance of Ivo Andrić’s work increases as the decades go by: more articles, books, and new translations of his novels and stories are published now than at the time of his death half a century ago. Martens’s new biography is another valuable addition to this already extensive library. This is not the first biography of Andrić, however: his life has already been well researched and presented in a number of volumes in Serbo-Croat, and one in English.1 The most extensive is Žaneta Đukić-Perišić’s, which in the manner of ‘life and work’ studies presents all significant data and synthesizes a number of specialist studies devoted to particular periods of Andrić’s life.2 Among the latter, especially valuable are Želimir Bob Juričić’s and Dušan Glišović’s studies of Andrić’s time in Berlin immediately prior to the Second World War, Ratko Peković and Slobodan Kljakić’s book about the years immediately after it, and Miroslav Karaulac’s two volumes about his life up until the beginning of the war.3 Also, Sveske, the annual publication of the Andrić Foundation in Belgrade, has been publishing biographical studies, memoirs and correspondence Zoran Milutinović is Professor of South Slav Literature and Modern Literary Theory at UCL SSEES. 1 Vanita S. Mikerji, Ivo Andrić: A Critical Biography, Jefferson, NC and London, 1990. 2 Žaneta Đukić-Perišić, Pisac i priča. Stvaralačka biografija Ive Andrića, Novi Sad, 2012. 3 Želimir Bob Juričić, Ivo Andrić u Berlinu 1939–1941, Sarajevo, 1989; Dušan Glišović, Ivo Andrić, Kraljevina Jugoslavija i Treći Rajh 1939–1941, Belgrade, 2012; Slobodan Peković and Ratko Kljakić, Angažovani Andrić 1944–1954, Belgrade, 2012; Miroslav Karaulac, Rani Andrić, Belgrade, 1980, and Andrić u diplomatiji, Belgrade, 2008. ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ 346 for almost forty years, all of which contributes to the impression that his life has been well researched, and that there are few reasons to expect some new and significant discoveries in the future. All that remains is re-assessment, or re-contextualization, of what has already been found, and Martens cannot be criticized for a lack of significant new data from this already well-researched field. There are only two novelties Martens mentions that will come as a surprise to Andrić specialists, who may regret that the author did not supply any evidence for them. The first is his claim that Andrić joined Jugoslovenska radikalna zajednica, the political party established by Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović. This is not very probable: Andrić was a civil servant and served under all interwar Yugoslav prime ministers, reaching the peak of his diplomatic career during Stojadinović’s term in office, and Andrić’s relationship with him was neither cordial nor politically supportive, as witnessed by Andrić’s close friend Lepa Pavlović in an article listed in Martens’s bibliography. The second claim is that in the run-up to the Second World War, Andrić advocated forging closer ties with Hitler’s Germany: this runs counter to everything known so far about Andrić’s political opinions, and it would be very helpful if some evidence for this claim could be provided. Martens does an excellent job in synthesizing the existing literature, and transforms our knowledge about Andrić’s life into an eminently readable narrative which can be followed effortlessly and with enjoyment. A journalist with some experience in the former Yugoslav republics, Martens wisely refrains from interpreting Andrić’s novels and stories. When he does venture into this territory by quoting brief paragraphs from Andrić’s works — which are intended to shed light on his life — the results are mixed, and some instances of this process are more convincing than others. For example, he discusses the rumours around Andrić being an illegitimate child — fathered by a Franciscan monk, if the source of the rumour is a Croat, or by a Bosniak bey, if...

Metropolitan Belgrade: Culture and Class in Interwar Yugoslavia by Babović Jovana (review)

REVIEWS 565 Perović’s history is an invaluable addition to the growing modern historiography of the North Caucasus which should be used by all future students and scholars of the region. Department of History Alex Marshall University of Glasgow Babović, Jovana. Metropolitan Belgrade: Culture and Class in Interwar Yugoslavia. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2018. ix + 259 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Works cited. Index. $27.95 (paperback). Metropolitan Belgrade is an ambitious attempt at a sociocultural history of entertainment in interwar Belgrade. Babović presents to the English language reader the scholarship of Belgrade historians Dubravka Stojanović, Radina Vučetić, Ljubodrag Dimić and Predrag Marković, among others, and brings additional archival and press coverage. She places entertainment in the wider context of popular culture in Yugoslavia as well as globally, as it was during this period that the capital of the newly unified country immersed itself in transnational genres such as jazz, film and cabaret. The most important contribution she makes is to link this existing scholarship to that about entertainment in other European capitals, to which Belgrade aspired to be compared.Yetthisapproachisnotwithoutrisk,asitsambitiontoaccommodate and project Western discourses on class, bourgeois morals and spatial analysis often turns out to be unsubstantiated. In Babović’s analysis the Belgrade middle-class, or otherwise interchangeably defined bourgeois urbanites, chose to be consumers of foreign popular culture as a demonstration of their participation in European metropolitan modernity, as opposed to their alleged civic duty of promoting the emerging Yugoslav high culture or nurturing that of the Serbian nation within the Yugoslav state. Further archival research and an examination of the readily available views of outsiders — the numerous foreign journalists, travellers and residents in Belgrade (only Rebecca West’s disillusionment is mentioned) would have resulted in a more nuanced picture. More significantly, Babović fails to consider the enormous influence, as both creators and consumers of entertainment, of the massive influx during this period of Russian émigrés, who thrilled Belgrade audiences, such as the singer Olga Jančevecka or prima ballerina Nina Kirsanova. Jewish immigrants are mentioned, but only in a discussion about entry permits, and there is no mention of the thousands who streamed into Yugoslavia from Eastern Europe, and especially Germany SEER, 97, 3, JULY 2019 566 and Vienna, after 1933 and 1938 respectively, many of whom revolutionized Belgrade jazz, cabaret, opera and other spheres of culture and entertainment. There is a chapter on the pillar of Belgrade’s entertainment industry — Radio Belgrade — but it does not mention that the station was established by a group of Jewish and German entrepreneurs. One of them, Marconi representative Julius Hanau, also served as the key British intelligence officer in Yugoslavia. His story is just one example of the multi-dimensional aspect of Belgrade’s entertainment culture that the book’s imposed straitjacket of a theoretical framework does not allow for. Babović’s examination of the contemporary press yields some evidence that it endowed foreign popular entertainment with higher cultural value, but it is not sufficiently compelling to draw the conclusion that it marginalized local performers and their lower-class patrons, leading to spatial segregation, cultural stratification and the destruction of the Yugoslav entertainment industry during the interwar years. According to Babović, Belgrade ‘middleclass urbanites who eagerly consumed foreign entertainment’ left ‘little room for Yugoslav entertainers’, but she then does precisely the same, by leaving out almost all of them from her study, including the two greatest local divas — actress Žanka Stokić and singer Sofka Nikolić. Nikolić was also Belgrade’s greatest export to the European and global stages, where she befriended Josephine Baker — another missing link in what is otherwise the richest chapter in this partial book. Babović covers at length Josephine Baker’s tour of Yugoslavia in 1929, at the moment when its king assumed dictatorial powers, juxtaposing Belgrade’s overwhelming and enthusiastic embrace of Baker during her week-long stay with Zagreb — where clashes between Croatian nationalists and conservative Catholics interrupted her first show and led police to cancel the rest of her visit — and provincial Ljubljana, where no one showed any interest in her at all. A highly entertaining read and a genuine contribution in...

“Our Bengal Mission”: Negotiation of National and Transnational Agendas by Interwar Yugoslav Missionaries in Bengal

V nasprotju z apostolskim pismom Maximum illud, ki je od misijonarjev zahtevalo, da pretrgajo vezi z nacional(istic)nimi in kolonialnimi interesi, je bil misijonarski podvig medvojnih jugoslovanskih misijonark in misijonarjev v Bengaliji globoko prežet s patriotizmom, tako casopisje kot misijonarski tiski pa so jugoslovanski bengalski misijon prikazovali kot simbolno zmago nove jugoslovanske države. Clanek želi to protislovje interpretirati z raziskavo nacinov, na katere so usklajevali konflikt med transnacionalnim misijonarskim projektom in nacionalisticnimi programi, pri cemer so bili pogosto pred težavno odlocitvijo, interesom katere nacije naj sledijo.