Yugoslavia – from the Periphery to socialism and back
The Museum of Yugoslavia and the Department of Political Studies of the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade are organizing a series of lectures “Yugoslavia – from the Periphery to Socialism and Back”. The lectures will deal with the historical processes that led Yugoslavia from the dependent capitalism in the interwar period, towards the attempt to build socialism and to move away from a peripheral position in the international division of labour in the period after the World War II, and to the peripheral development of the countries that emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the period of the restoration of capitalism.
Retrospectively, we can say that the countries that were created following the breakup of Yugoslavia now occupy the same place they had in the period between the two world wars, that is, the position of peripheral capitalism. On the other hand, the period of Yugoslav socialism may be perceived as an attempt to move away from the position. Hence, the present moment requires an urgent critical review of the past and re-opening of the horizon of thinking that aims at emancipation from the patterns of dependent development.
The lectures will analyse Yugoslavia’s positioning in the international division of labour from a historical-materialist perspective, critically review the Yugoslav development of social sciences in traditional academic settings and attempts to develop alternative scholarly institutions. They will also examine the scope of emancipation of women in socialist Yugoslavia, criticise the present-day dominant approaches to the legacy of Yugoslav socialism and analyse the paths of peripheral, dependent development taken by the countries created after the breakup of Yugoslavia and restoration of capitalism.
Program of lectures:
October 14 – Rade Pantić, “Yugoslavia in the international division of labour”
October 21 – Mislav Žitko, “What to do with Capital?” The Yugoslav response”
November 4 – Aleksandar Matković, “On the edge of science: political schools and Marxist education in Yugoslavia 1919-1991”
November 18 – Lilijana Burcar, “The SFRY: Reproductive rights as basic human rights”
December 2 – Rastko Močnik, “Varieties of restoration of capitalism in the Yugoslav area”
December 16 – Maja Breznik, “Memory and forgetting in the studies of Yugonostalgia”
All the lectures will take place in the cinema hall of the Museum of Yugoslavia, at 7.00 p.m. Free entry.

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