The Scholars’ Initiative:

Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies

2001-2005

"You have your facts. We have our facts.

You have a complete right to choose between the two versions."

- Simo Drljača, ICTY indictee

I.  SPONSORS

	United States Institute of Peace (Washington, DC)
	National Endowment for Democracy
	German Marshall Fund - Balkan Trust (Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro)
	Purdue University - Peace Studies Program (West Lafayette, IN)
	Vojvodina Assembly

   Hosting Institutions:

	Sept. 2001: University of Novi Sad co-organizers: Serbian Ministry of Education & Culture, Republic of Serbia Vojvodina Assembly
	July 2002: United Nations Mission in Bosnia & Hercegovina (UNMiBH), Sarajevo, BiH co-organizers: Citizen’s Pact for Southeastern Europe (Novi Sad), Open Society Institute (Belgrade & Priština), Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Sarajevo)
	Sept. 2003: University of Alberta: Centre for Austrian & Central European Studies
	December 2004: Andrássy University (Budapest)                         Center for Interethnic Tolerance & Refugees (Skopje)                             Co-Organizers:  U.S. Institute of Peace                                                    Vojvodina Assembly
	April 2005:  U.S. Institute of Peace (Washington D.C.)

                                    Co-Organizer:  National Endowment for Democracy

II.  THE PROBLEM:

    Amid all the bitter debates about the Yugoslav conflicts, there has been one element of agreement by all sides, namely the pivotal role that history has played in shaping people’s minds.  Unfortunately, each national group employs a different array of facts, many of which are either distorted or blatantly untrue.  The resulting, divergent recitations of history have divided nations by sowing mistrust, resentment and hatred between people who coexisted with one another for long periods of time.  The deepest divide of all separates the great majority of ethnic Serbs (in both Serbia-Montenegro and Republika Srpska) from virtually all other national groups in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Slovenia.  In the hands of nationalist politicians, journalists, and academics, the tragic events of the 1990s decade have been misrepresented in ways that have intensified mutual recrimination, further widening the cultural gap between the Serbs and their neighbors. 

In the nine years since Dayton, the international community has worked to bridge the cognitive gap between the region’s peoples.  Western media platforms such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and BBC have disseminated news and information, while philanthropic NGOs like the Soros, Friedrich-Naumann, and Bertelsmann Foundations have sponsored numerous confidence-building, “people-to-people” programs.  The Hague Tribunal has painstakingly investigated, then exposed criminal acts committed by all sides.  Yet none of these vehicles has been able to overcome the proprietary representations of “patriotic” political leaders  --- and the great majority of “mainstream” media platforms which articulate their views. This has been especially the case in Serbia, whose newly democratic leaders and free media continue to ignore or deny the criminal record of the Miloševič regime.  Moreover, so long as they retain a de facto monopoly over public memory, perception, and interpretation, they will continue to discredit and marginalize the few independent voices that challenge them.  Indeed, there exist many among the region’s political, academic and media elite who privately concede the corruption of their vocal majority’s historical accounts, but who nonetheless lack the courage to take a public position. 

III.   PROJECT OBJECTIVES:

    The Scholars’ Initiative represents an attempt by scholars to bridge the gap that separates their knowledge of the tragic events of the period 1986-2000 from the proprietary interpretations that nationalist politicians and media have impressed on mass culture. Given gaps in the historical record and the existence of sometimes contradictory evidence, the Initiative will surely not be able to resolve all issues.  In some instances, it will only be able to narrow the parameters within which opposing sides can still engage in reasoned debate.   It does, however, expect to narrow the cognitive gap between peoples by simultaneously validating evidence and discrediting unfounded, proprietary myths through a combination of sober scholarship and sustained interaction with media and public officials.  Indeed, such an international consortium of eminent scholars can furnish a common, and ostensibly legitimate, alternative account on which moderate opinion leaders can lean for support. The credibility of the Scholars’ Initiative will be based not only on the indisputable scientific credentials of its participants, but on the transparent impartiality of its methodology as it solicits and examines evidence presented by all sides, then jointly evaluates and (in)validates the documentary material through the application of universal scientific methodologies.

Admittedly, no discussion of the Yugoslav tragedy can begin without the deeper historical context, especially the record of ethnic interaction and its representation by the agents of nationalism over the past two centuries.  The Initiative will, however, focus its research, analysis and public interaction on eleven key controversies that inform virtually every debate among and between the peoples and politicians of the former Yugoslavia:

1. Kosovo Under Autonomy (1974-1990)   Melissa Bokovoy / Momčilo Pavlovič To what extent were Kosovo’s Serbs subject to discrimination and intimidation by the then-dominant Albanian majority?  What, if any, disparity was there between reality and perception by the Serb minority?  What role did media and officials play in molding these perceptions?  What mix of motives informed Serb emigration from Kosovo?  To what exten were Kosovo's Albanians satisfied with autonomy?  How much support was there for a change in status?

2. The Dissolution of Yugoslavia (1986-91)   Sabrina Ramet / Latinka Perović What role did intellectuals play and what were their agendas?  What motivated the key Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian politicians?  To what extent did each violate the SFRY constitution?  Was the repeal of Vojvodina's and Kosovo's autonomy legal?...justified?  Who drove SFRY to dissolution?

3. Independence and the Fate of Minorities (1991-92)    Drago Roksandić / Gale Stokes What was Franjo Tudjman’s agenda in 1991?  To what extent was the threat to Serb minorities in Croatia and Bosnia real or manufactured?  What was the likely intent of Alija Izetbegović’s “Islamic Declaration”?  To what extent were Bosnia's Serbs and Croats motivated by fear or by the quest for a Greater Serbia/Croatia?  Did the Bosniak-Croat coalition do enough to assuage the Serbs’ concerns?  Was the Badinter referendum and subsequent secession legitimate?

4. “Ethnic Cleansing” and War Crimes Committed (1991-95)   Marie-Janine Čalić / Momčilo Mitrovič What were each side’s war aims?  When and where did the first acts of ethnic violence occur, and who was behind them?  To what extent did elites and media promote ethnic hatred and “ethnic cleansing”?  What was the extent of the expulsions in Croatia? Bosnia?  How extensive and organized were pillaging, rape, murder, incarceration and expulsion?

5. Int'l Community & the FRY/Belligerents (1989-95)   Dušan Janjič / Matjaz Klemenčić What role did the US and EC states play in Yugoslavia’s demise?  What were their motives?  How realistic were the various peace plans for Croatia and Bosnia?  Why did they fail?

6. The Safe Areas (1992-1995)   Darko Gavrilović / Charles Ingrao To what extent did each side violate the terms governing the Safe Havens?  What war crimes were committed by each side?  To what extent were the tactics employed in the siege and defense of Sarajevo militarily justified?  What happened at Srebrenica and who was ultimately responsible?

7. The War in Croatia (1991-1995)   Mile Bjelajac / Ožren Žunec What role did the international community play in arming, training and deploying the Croatian army?  To what extent were the Krajina Serbs evacuated or expelled?  How extensive were crimes committed against those who stayed behind and what role did the Croatian political and military leadership play in their commission?

8. Miloševič’s Kosovo:  Rugova & the KLA (1990-99)    Valentina Duka / Dušan Janjić To what extent was Belgrade’s crackdown in Kosovo justified? legal?  What was the shape of the Serbian regime in Kosovo?....of the Albanian reaction?  When and why did Albanian militants resort to violence?  Who comprised the KLA and what was its ultimate agenda?  To what extent was Belgrade’s response justified?

9. US/NATO intervention (1998-99)   James Gow / Miroslav Hadžić What motivated the US and its NATO allies?  What happens in Kosovo without NATO intervention?  Was the Rambouillet diktat justified?  Did NATO violate international law?  What was the extent of war crimes committed by the Yugoslav military?...Serbian (special) police?....paramilitaries?  Did anyone flee NATO bombs?

10. The Hague Tribunal (ICTY)   Vojin Dimitrijević / Julie Mertus To what extent is the ICTY a political body?  To what extent is it impartial?....anti-Serb?

11. Living Together or Hating Each Other?    David MacDonald (Exploring Marina Blagojević's concept of contradictory narratives of ethnic coexistence) To what extent were Yugoslavia's peoples capable of living together?...willing to do so?  How do we measure/weigh positive/negative attributes in such an analysis?...and how are they recorded in the collective memory?

 

To answer these questions project organizers have already brought together well over 260 leading academic authorities from North America, western Europe, and those core areas of the former Yugoslavia which have pitted Serbs against neighboring national and ethnic groups in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and, to some extent, Slovenia, Vojvodina, and Sandžak.  The objective will be to work together in examining dispassionately key documentary evidence that informs public perceptions of the underlying causes and tragic course of the Yugoslav catastrophe.  By employing shared scholarly methodologies, such a dialogue could reach a reasoned consensus on at least some of these contentious issues, particularly those controversies for which easily exposed myths or abject ignorance have erected insurmountable barriers to direct and productive communication.  Achieving at least some common ground would help replace yet another round of distortion and outright myth making with mutual understanding that could help heal the wounds and bridge the cultural divisions of the past decade.

Although the Scholars’ Initiative would initially focus on the major controversies of the 15-year period 1986-2000, its successful application could lay the groundwork for a subsequent re-examination of key historic developments both before the rise of Slobodan Miloševič and beyond the frontiers of the former Yugoslavia to other central European nation-states whose own cache of historical myths informs the entire region’s troubled transition from multiethnic coexistence to ethnic conflict.   Hence the hope that this initiative is merely a first step in a much broader process that can be applied throughout central Europe against proprietary versions of history -- and the demagogic politicians who employ them.

IV.  PROJECT ACTIVITIES:

    The activities will feature (1) coordinated, multilateral research by qualified scholars, both in published and unpublished sources, including oral interviews, punctuated at regular intervals by (2) regular meetings of research teams in four general sessions (September 2001, July 2002, September 2003, December 2004),  (3) sustained, programatized interaction both with mass media via TV, radio, and newspaper interviews or op-ed pieces, and (4) with “moderate” political leaders, initially as subjects for gathering information, but also for garnering support for the consortium’s ultimate findings, followed by (5) the publication of three authoritative studies: a composite examination of the Yugoslav conflicts built around the eleven aforementioned controversies; a collection devoted solely to the dissolution of Yugoslavia; a collection of originally researched articles on specific case studies to be published in the prominent scholarly journal Nationalities Papers.

A.    Progress to Date

    The 280+ scholars who have already joined the Initiative represent 26 countries from five continents.  Nonetheless, a clear majority come from the eight entities of the former Yugoslavia and Albania, including two-thirds of the twenty-one research team leaders.  As the project’s 1,000-title composite project bibliography demonstrates, the Scholars’ Initiative has enlisted many of the most eminent scholars in the field.  At the same time, we are committed to integrating as many younger scholars as possible as a necessary investment in the region’s future by helping to establish the reputation of a new generation of scholars who can break with the national chauvinism of so many of the academic profession’s senior figures.  On the other hand, roughly 10-15 percent of invitees have declined to join the project, usually citing competing commitments, but occasionally expressing skepticism that it can succeed with certain "nationalist" scholars already on board.  Nor do we presume to know the identity of all scholars who are willing and able to make a positive contribution, for which reason we continue to enlist participants as they are recommended or recommend themselves.  The following roster lists the 260+ scholars who have already joined the Initiative, while underlining the names of the team leaders:

Morović Conference (24-29 September 2001):  initial, organizational meetings held at Marshal Tito’s estate at Morović (Srem) was jointly sponsored by Serbia’s Ministry for Education and Culture, the provincial government of Vojvodina, the university and municipality of Novi Sad, and several national and regional NGOs.  These meetings helped to:

1.    determine the breadth of the project investigation, identifying those controversies and other substantive issues that merit special attention

2.    identify parallel investigations with which the Scholars’ Initiative can coordinate activities

3.    adopt procedures for expanding the number of investigators and selecting team leaders 

4.    reaffirm or revise the project schedule through 2003

5.    delineate methodological standards of research and interpretation

    Aside from these issues, the September meetings were also successful in laying the groundwork for a spirit of collaboration, based on mutual respect, confidence and camaraderie between western and Serbian scholars.  A key element in achieving this goal was the stress that was placed on the dualism of the Initiative’s activities.  For example, each research theme will typically have two team leaders, one of whom will have some Serbian-Montenegrin background.

Project investigators have already achieved a very high degree of visibility through their truly extensive publications (scholarly monographs and journal articles; trade books, magazine articles and newspaper op-eds), as well as through television, radio and print media interviews.  Nevertheless, the September meetings demonstrated that the Initiative’s overall impact on the public sphere will likely be greater than the sum of its part(icipant)s.  The week-long meetings attracted the interest of top political leaders in the Serbian and Yugoslav governments and also attracted extensive media coverage in the print and electronic media, including a 90-minute interview and call-in show that was televised live throughout most of Serbia.  Now that the Initiative has expanded beyond Rump Yugoslavia, it will engage media, politicians, and other opinion leaders in the other Yugoslav successor states.

Sarajevo Conference (6-9 July 2002), held at the United Nations headquarters and funded by USIP and several regional donors, was attended by 63 scholars from 16 countries, including all eight entities of the former Yugoslavia.  Its principal objectives were to (1) integrate Bosnian, Croatian, Kosovan, ans Slovenian scholars with their Serbian counterparts, who met for the first time and successfully interacted, a process much assisted by the agency of North American and western European attendees; (2) present, critique and refine the eleven research team agendas; discuss publication platforms, which will include not only a composite volume devoted to the eleven controversies, but several collections featuring several individually researched articles, (3) establish an Advisory Board, and (4) expand media contacts, which was effected in large part by (a) previous contacts with Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, which dispatched a reporter from Prague to cover the proceedings, (b) the UNMiBH public affairs staff, which led to extensive coverage by Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian media, (c) Joint-President Beris Belkić of Bosnia-Hercegovina, who issued a public statement endorsing the Scholars’ Initiative.

Edmonton Conference (12-15 September 2003), sponsored by the University of Alberta’s Canadian Centre for Austrian and Central European Studies, at which each research team delivered an initial narrative for evaluation and discussion.  Immediately thereafter, the teams began posting revised and expanded versions of the Edmonton drafts for comment and criticism by the full project membership.

 Budapest & Skopje Conferences (12-17 December 2004), hosted by Andrássy University (Budapest) and the Center for Interethnic Tolerance & Refugees (Skopje), featured three final and three interim reports, together with the presentation of a preliminary research agenda by a new, eleventh team, Living Together or Hating Each Other?

Washington Conference (19 April 2005), jointly hosted by USIP and NED, featuring the  presentation of an additional four final and three interim reports.  

Philadelphia Convention (6-7 January 2006) of the American Historical Association, featuring three sessions, with presentations by a dozen SI participants.

B. Project Activities

    Given the number and wide range of scholars employed in the project, the process of simply bringing together such readily accessible sources is easily attainable, although it has not been done before by individual authors who have lacked either the language skills, resources, or inclination to do so.  Even if the teams were to halt their research at this point, a composite, readily accessible narration and analysis of these key controversies would be a major achievement.  Indeed, the distillation of readily available documentary evidence would, by itself, expose many of the most fantastic myths that have been accepted as “truth” by the public imagination.

    The project did, however, received a significant grant from the National Endowment for Democracy that has permitted it to take the process one step further by commissioning original research that could fill in key gaps in the historical ledger, thereby providing a fuller, more compelling account of the Yugoslav tragedy for scholars and laypeople alike.  It is with this objective in mind that the project directors have encouraged participating scholars to submit (1) requests for modest research stipends to defray the costs of new research, and (2) proposals for article-length manuscripts for inclusion in a special issue of Nationalities Papers.  In the end, roughly forty stipends and thirteen articles were commissioned. 

    Of course, project participants have no illusions about the challenges they face in accessing relevant government documents from all sides (including the United States).  Nonetheless, the expectation is that fresh sources must be unearthed elsewhere: (1) interviews with high- and mid-level civil and military officials, (2) quantitative data gathered from surveys of individuals who were affected by the cycle of discrimination, fear, expulsion and crimes committed during the Yugoslav conflicts, (3) media material (periodicals, radio and television broadcasts, etc.), and (4) IGO and NGO documents, especially those generated by UNProFor and the ICTY, most of which has still not been systematically studied.

C. Projected Schedule

    Summer-Fall 2005:  Presentation of the remaining research team reports.

Winter-Spring, 2004-2005: Sequential public presentation of final reports, beginning with the SI's fourth annual convention at the Andrássy University, Budapest (12-13 December 2004), at USIP Headquarters in Washington, DC (19 April 2005), and and at press conferences in regional capitals, including Ljubljana (17 November), Belgrade (3 March; mid-June), Priština (mid-March), Zagreb (mid-June), and Sarajevo.

December 2005: target date for submission of completed manuscripts for:

(1) the composite volume featuring the eleven controversies, in English and Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian, (2) a scholarly collection, entitled Rethinking Yugoslavia’s Dissolution, that will include 10 articles by SI project participants, under contract with Purdue’ University Press’s Central European Studies series.  A special issue of the scholarly journal, Nationalities Papers has already appeared in December 2004, comprising eight originally researched case studies commissioned by the research team leaders.

January 2006: Formal presentation of the Scholars' Initiative to the international community of historians at the American Historical Association's annual convention in Philadelphia, PA.

V.  METHODOLOGY

    It is one thing to create a list of controversies that need to be investigated, but quite another to arrive at a credible, scholarly consensus that can earn broad acceptance across national and cultural fault lines.  The success of this project rests squarely on the ability to assemble a team of scholars committed to establishing:

	Scholarly integrity capable of uncovering and weighing evidence with a single set of scales.  Meeting this challenge has been foremost in my mind from the moment I first proposed an “Historians’ Dialogue” to a closed-door meeting of the Historical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences in December 1997.  Hence, a painstaking process of selecting researchers not only for their scholarly credentials but for their ability to assess evidence with an open mind, whatever their political, national or other orientations.  For this reason, members of the project Advisory Board have recommended against inviting some scholars, while still others have been recused after accepting governmental/political leadership positions that pose a potential conflict of interest.  On the other hand, no qualified scholar will, however, be excluded merely because s/he is deemed “nationalistic” or may have exhibited the kind of chauvinism that typified the rhetoric of writers on all sides during the opening stages of the Yugoslav conflicts. Indeed, the Initiative will earn the broadest appeal and credibility if it is recognized as a diverse, inclusive consortium of scholars.
	Clear objectives that de-emphasize the importance of subjective differences in emphasis or interpretation in favor of making objective judgments about the admissibility and validity of evidence that can establish a single, incontrovertible factual matrix.  There is simply no need to devote the Initiative’s resources to any exposition based on well-known facts on which everyone already agrees.
	Common procedures for the acquisition, identification and validation of evidence.
	Transparent organization, built around research teams that will readily welcome the broadest possible spectrum of qualified historians and social scientists who have not been discredited as partisan, led by two (Serb and non-Serb) team leaders who can work together in an atmosphere built on trust and equity.
	Mechanisms for resolving differences within or between research teams and, if necessary, marginalizing or removing outright individual investigators who violate these methodologies (through the establishment of a five-person panel of mediators who can counsel team leaders).

Notwithstanding the Initiative’s indispensable scholarly format, the greatest immediate impact will accrue from the attention it attracts from (1) media throughout the region through news releases and interviews, and (2) those political and other opinion leaders (including textbook authors) willing to stand on a platform wide enough to accommodate other national and ethnic groups.  

       Nor should we ignore the project’s potential for providing a model for interethnic conciliation throughout central Europe.  After a century of statebuilding that sponsored proprietary, exclusionist interpretations of each new nation’s history, the region’s people would be well served by an ethnically diverse community of scholars, speaking with one voice.

VI. PROJECT EVALUATION

The success of the Scholars’ Initiative will be measured by its ability to:

1. forge lasting professional ties and dialogue among scholars across the former Yugoslavia, western Europe and North America

2. provide the first platform for assembling and analyzing primary and secondary sources from all sides of the Yugoslav conflicts in a single, balanced and readily accessible account

3. publish new, original research that exposes (some of) the myths and resolves (some of) those controversies that have foreclosed meaningful transnational communication between scholars and mutual understanding among peoples of the former Yugoslavia

4. impact the public consciousness of the ethnic and national groups of former Yugoslavia through public media

5. encourage political (and other opinion) leaders to adopt positions in public discourse that share or create common ground across the region’s ethnic and national divides

6. create a model for transnational dialogue among scholars elsewhere in central Europe.

VII.     PROJECT ORGANIZATION

Project Director Charles Ingrao, Professor of History at Purdue University, Editor of The Austrian History Yearbook, and General Editor of the Central European Studies series that will publish the English-language edition of the Scholars’ Dialogue and, until recently, a member of the editorial board of Nationalities Papers, which has provisionally offered to publish a special volume devoted to originally researched case studies commissioned by the Scholars’ Initiative.  Aside from publishing seven books of the history of early modern and modern central Europe, he has focused his research on the region’s ethnic conflicts since 1995, making 29 research trips to the war zones of Slobodan Milošević, establishing a network of relationships with political and academic leaders.  He has since authored two dozen articles and presented eighty public lectures and seminars to university, governmental and military audiences throughout North America and central Europe, and is a regular commentator for print, radio and television media, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS).

Associate Director Tom Emmert, Professor of History at Gustavus Adolphus College.  Trained at St. Olaf College, Oxford and Stanford, he is author of Serbian Golgotha: Kosovo, 1389, co‑editor of both Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle, and the December 2004 special issue of Nationalities Papers dedicated to the Scholars’ Initiative.  He  has been a frequent guest analyst on NPR, the Christian Science Broadcast Network and Minnesota Public Radio.

Regional Liaison Dr. Gojko Misković, President of the Open Lycée of Sombor.  He has long been an active, influential advocate for an open society.  He organized and orchestrated every aspect of the successful September meetings in Morović, Novi Sad and Belgrade, including recruitment of Serbian scholars, conferences with political and academic leaders, and live television and other media coverage.

Research Teams.  At the Scholars’ Dialogue core are its investigators, currently drawn from 26 countries and a wide variety of humanistic disciplines (including Anthropology, History, Law, Slavic Languages & Literature, Psychology, Political Science, and Sociology).  The composite bibliography posted on the project website lists the relevant publications of those 130+ participants who have furnished a curriculum vitae.

 

Team Leaders  Two leaders have been selected for each of the eleven research teams.  Given the overriding need to establish the project’s credibility throughout the former Yugoslavia, each team is jointly headed by a Serb and non-Serb scholar who are working together in establishing and executing a common research agenda.  In some (perhaps most) cases, practical considerations (such as language, health considerations, or personal preference) may mandate an asymmetrical division of responsibilities, with one team leader emerging as the “principal investigator”.   The team leaders’ chief responsibilities are to direct their team’s research activities and, eventually, draft their group’s final report.

Levels of Participation We recognize a wide variation in the level of participation in a project with so many scholars, of widely divergent specializations, professional obligations and resources. All participants enjoy ready access to successive electronic drafts of every team report, about which they are welcome to post questions, comments, criticisms, and recommendations.  Similarly, members of research teams enjoy considerable latitude in choosing a level of participation that corresponds to their own qualifications, time and interest:

1. evaluating source materials and drafts of team reports prepared by other team members  

2. gathering, reading and evaluating published primary and secondary sources  

3. engaging in original research – including interviews with key actors -- on specific subjects for which there is presently insufficient documentation

4. writing a portion of the team report

Advisory Committee  To advise the project director and associate director on substantive issues, including academic and personnel disputes that may arise during the course of the project:

Mile Bjelajac

Matjaž Klemenčič

Drago Roksandić

Gale Stokes

Project Website: <http://www.cla.purdue.edu/si/>

Project Webmaster and Administrative Assistant:  Lisa Penn <lpenn@purdue.edu>

Last Updated:  March 2006