Andrej Mitrović

Andrej Mitrović
Mitrović in 1995
Born	Андреј Митровић (1937-04-17)17 April 1937 Kragujevac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died	25 August 2013(2013-08-25) (aged 76) Belgrade, Serbia
Nationality	Yugoslav, Serbian
Spouse	Ljubinka Trgovčević
Academic background
Alma mater	Faculty of Philosophy University of Belgrade (PhD)
Thesis	Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference 1919-1920 (1967)
Academic work
Discipline	History
Institutions	University of Belgrade
Main interests	modern history historiography social history economic history history of political thought cultural history
Notable works	Times Intolerant (1974) Serbia's Great War (2005)

Andrej Mitrović (Serbian Cyrillic: Андреј Митровић; 17 April 1937 – 25 August 2013) was a Serbian historian, professor and author. A specialist of the contemporary history of Serbia and Yugoslavia, he was head of the Contemporary History Department at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Mitrović wrote extensively about the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference, interwar Europe as well as articles on economic, social, cultural history and historiography.

One of the leading Yugoslav and Serbian historians of the 20th century, Mitrović often challenged his own country's historical narratives and was openly critical of Serbian nationalism in the late 1980s and early 1990. He was an honorary member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, a member of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the recipient of several prestigious awards.^[1]

Early life and education

Andrej Mitrović was born in Kragujevac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 17 April 1937, he completed elementary and secondary school in Kragujevac. Mitrović graduated in history from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, earning his master's degree in 1964 with the thesis "April negotiations on the Adriatic question at the 1919 peace conference" and his doctorate in 1967 with the thesis "Delegation of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the 1919-1920 Peace Conference".^[2]

Academic career

Mitrović became faculty assistant in 1961, assistant professor in 1967, associate professor in 1974; that year he published Times Intolerant: A Political History of the Great Powers, 1919-1939 his award-winning book about the interwar growing ideological divisions and the intolerance that resulted from it.^[3]

In 1980 he accepted a position at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, where he taught contemporary European history, introduction to historical studies and numerous specialised courses; in 1987 he became the head of the department of Modern History.^[2] In 1988 he became a corresponding fellow of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, spending research years in Italy and West Germany.^[4] Mitrović published the first comprehensive theory of historical studies in Serbian historiography after assimilating the concept of total history developed by the Bielefeld School, Mitrović’s version included politics, economy, society and culture bringing new perspectives in historical writing, a concept which his students then started applying in their own research.^[5]

Mitrović studied the place of Yugoslavia in European politics between the two world wars and is the author of books and articles about Serbia’s involvement in the First World War, as well as on the economic, social, and cultural, history of the Balkans within the European framework. According to Cambridge University Press Mitrović's Serbia's Great War, 1914–1918 (2005), his only volume to be republished in English, is widely regarded as a major contribution to the topic of Serbia and its role in WWI and is being studied in western scholarship.^[3] The first edition was greeted in scholarly circles as a "scrupulously written magnum opus".^[6]

Activism

Starting in the late 1980s Mitrović was outspoken about the abuse of history and the revision of facts for political purposes, using his scholarship as a platform for critique and activism; In the 1990s he was a vocal critic of the regime of Slobodan Milošević, opposing growing nationalism and advocating for a modern European oriented Serbia. Some of his speeches were published by the Belgrade Circle in a book entitled Druga Srbja (Other Serbia).^[a] Together with his wife, Ljubinka Trgovčević, he utilised his academic background to engage in public discourse, writing essays, giving lectures, and participating in every protests against the war.^[8]

In 1991 they published an historian's proclamation against the shelling of Dubrovnik, that same year he published a book in which he warned against the effects of what he called parahistory, a type of historical revisionism featuring the distortion of selected sources to indict one side or another.^[9] In April 1999 with a number of prominent Serbian intellectual, he was a signatory of “A plea for peace from Belgrade”.^[10] According to German Historian Alexander Korb, as a consequence of his positions that stood out from most Serbian professional and academic circles, Mitrović was never promoted to full member of the Serbian Academy.^[11]

Awards

• 1975 City of Belgrade October Award^[3]
• 2001 Herder Prize by the University of Vienna and the Alfred Toepfer Foundation of Hamburg^[3]
• 2004 Konstantin Jireček Award by Germany's Southeast European Association^[3]

Personal life

Andrej Mitrović was married to fellow historian Ljubinka Trgovčević. He died on 25 August 2013 in Belgrade.^[2]

Selected works

During his lifetime Mitrović published 25 books and approximately 400 articles.^[12]

Books

• Yugoslavia at the Peace Conference in Paris (1969, Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika)^[13]
• Time of the Intolerant - Political History of the Great States 1919-1939 (Belgrade 1974)
• Demarcation of Yugoslavia, politics at the Peace Conference in Paris (Novi Sad 1975)
• Historical in the Magic Mountain (1977)
• Entering the Balkans, Serbia in the Plans of Austria-Hungary and Germany 1908-1918. (1981)^[14]
• Engaged and Beautiful (1983)
• Arguments with Clio (1991)
• The Toplica Uprising (1993)^[15]
• About God's State and Evil Salvation (2007)
• Culture and History (2008)
• About God's State and Evil Salvation (2007)
• Serbia's Great War 1914–1918 (2007, Purdue University Press)^[16]

Notes

1. Other Serbia became during the 1990s, a term to designate intellectuals who were anti-war and opposed to Serbian nationalism.^[7]

References

1. "Umro Andrej Mitrović". Vijesti. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 9 February 2014.
2. "Хроника". sanu.ac.rs. 22 February 2014. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014.
3. Lampe, JR. "IN MEMORIAM Andrej Mitrovic, 1937–2013" (PDF). cambridge.org. Cambridge University Press.
4. Štavljanin, Dragan (26 August 2013). "In memoriam: Andrej Mitrović, kritičar vremena netrpeljivih". Radio Slobodna Evropa (in Serbian).
5. Burke, P. (2001). New Perspectives on Historical Writing. Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-2428-0.
6. Miloradović, Goran (1 January 2014). "Andrej Mitrović. Serbia's Great War, 1914-1918. Introduction by Professor Mark Cornwall, Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, London 2007". Transcultural Studies. 10 (2). doi:10.1163/23751606-01002008. ISSN 1930-6253.
7. "The Other Serbia". University of Southern Maine. 3 November 2004. Archived from the original on 19 February 2005. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
8. Kulačin, Nenad; Sporazum za nesporazum; Lukač, Jasmina; JUL, Moja Srbija kao; Ime autora poznato redakciji; Singapura, Srbija do; Vidojković, Marko (30 August 2013). "Netrpeljiv prema netrpeljivima". Dnevni list Danas (in Serbian).
9. Sindbæk, Tea (28 January 2015). "Representations of Yugoslavia's difficult past – from 1945 to 2002". Aarhus University Press.
10. "A plea for peace from Belgrade". the Guardian. 23 April 1999.
11. "Nachruf auf Professor Dr. Andrej Mitrović (1937-2013)". Humanities and Social Sciences Online. 16 January 2014. Archived from the original on 16 January 2014.
12. "Andrej Mitrović (1937–2013)". Nedeljnik Vreme (in Serbian). 29 August 2013.
13. Mitrović, Andrej (1969). Jugoslavija na Konferenciji mira 1919-1920 (in Serbian). Beograd: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika.
14. Mitrović, Andrej (1981). Prodor na Balkan: Srbija u planovima Austro-Ugarske i Nemačke 1908–1918 (in Serbian). Beograd: Nolit.
15. Митровић, Андреј (1987). Устаничке борбе у Србији 1916–1918 (in Serbian). Београд: Српска књижевна задруга. ISBN 9788637900610.
16. Mitrović, Andrej (2007). Serbia's Great War 1914–1918. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-476-7.

External links

• Obituary on the website of SANU
• Netrpeljiv prema netrpeljivima [Bigoted to bigoted] – Obituary published in Danas magazine, author: Dubravka Stojanović
• Interview with Andrej Mitrović from 1999