Institucionalna produkcija znanja o prošlosti: Istorijski institut u Beogradu od 1947. do kraja šezdesetih godina 20. veka

Abstract

Given the fact that the position and role of history and the other humanistic sciences in the contemporary world have been significantly affected by the discourse of a new knowledge or a new society of knowledge, this paper analyzes the political and social circumstances as well as the frameworks of the scientific paradigm within which knowledge of the past was produced in the Institute of History during the first two decades following its establishment. After 1945, the new Communist authorities considered knowledge of the past as an important factor in the building of a new political, social and cultural identity. Thus, their mistrust of the “old cadres” at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. However, it was these representatives of critical positivist historiography who constituted the scientific core of the Institute of History in the first decades of its existence. Through an analysis of the organization of the work, and the choice of associates, research topics and scientific production, it can be noticed that, despite the fact that the authorities supervised its work, the Institute managed to avoid becoming a mere instrument of the state’s scientific policy in the field of historiography during this period, by including a great variety of themes covering the period from the Middle Ages to modern times. With the change of the political course in Yugoslavia and the strengthened relation to the ideology of brotherhood and unity in the 1960s, topics dealing with modern national history became more present in the Institute’s projects.

Keywords

• history
• historiography
• production of knowledge
• Yugoslavia
• Institute of History Belgrade