Sergej Flere: The Role of Communist Elites in the Demise of Tito’s Yugoslavia.

The presentation will focus on the book Da li je Jugoslavija morala da umre? Kako su etničke komunističke elite kontinuitetom svojih svađa dovele do neizbežnog kraha SFRJ? (with Rudi Klanjšek, Belgrade, Dan Graf, 2017). The lecturer will commence by comments on the subtitle by leaders of Prva and Druga Srbija.

The presentation will focus on the long term process of dissolution of Tito's Yugoslavia by way of permanent struggles among national communist and intellectual elites. This process was continuous and after searching for solutions by way of decentralization, around 1970 Tito and others became aware Yugoslavia would dissolve in a mean way after Tito's death. New facts about the 29th November, 1943 AVNOJ session will be presented.

It will be considered, in view of the chronology, which theoretical explanation of the dissolution is most appropriate and to whether a Smithsian ethnosymbolist view of nation or to a Gellnerian modernist one is more plausible.