The Repercussions of the Tito-Stalin Split in 1948 on the University of Belgrade [chapter]

Dragomir Bondžić
2020 The Tito-Stalin Split 70 Years After  
e Repercussions of the Tito-Stalin Split in 1948 on the University of Belgrade After the Second World War, the University of Belgrade was one of the three biggest and the most important institutions of higher education in Yugoslavia, with a crucial role for the state policy of creating trained professionals and a "new socialist intelligentsia". e development of the higher education system in Yugoslavia after WWII was determined, above all, by the Communist Party's seizure of power and the
more » ... ing of the construction of a new political and social-economic system. During the rst postwar years, the system of higher education was transformed and adjusted to the new goals and tasks, modeled on the Soviet pattern, shaped and imposed by the Party through the network of state and party organs and student mass organizations at universities and faculties. rough these bodies, the Party supervised the work and life of teachers and students, imposed political attitudes and Marxist ideology, and even strived to in uence the teaching process itself. In Yugoslavia, the formation of the highly educated sta and a "new socialist intelligentsia" were ever-present basic tasks of the higher education system. 1 e pressure of creating highly educated experts resulted in a sudden increase in the number of students in Yugoslavia. It jumped from less than 30,000 in 1945 to over 60,000 in 1948. At the University of Belgrade alone, the number of students in that same period increased from 15,000 to over 30,000. 2 ey were all to become not only trained experts in their elds, but also committed representatives of the "new socialist intelligentsia". 3 However, there were many obstacles in reaching these goals. e rst was the animosity of a considerable part of the teaching sta and a signi cant segment of the student body toward the new regime and its ideology. In April 1947 among around 600 1 Bondžić, Beogradski univerzitet, pp. 137-170; Pervan, Tito and the Students, pp. 6-7.
doi:10.17234/9789531758031.06 fatcat:pzj4ud7cyzfe5jnxh4mgsf5bsq