Branko Petranović

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Branko Petranović
Belgrade University
Scientific career
FieldsHistorian

Branko Petranović (31 October 1927, Cetinje — 17 June 1994, Belgrade) was a Serbian historian and a Belgrade University professor specializing in history of Yugoslavia.[1][2]

Career

Branko Petranović was born in

Belgrade University Faculty of Philosophy, Department of History. Petranović was also a member of editorial and advisory boards of numerous historical journals and anthologies (Istorija XX veka, Istorijski glasnik, Vojnoistorijski glasnik, Jugoslovenski istorijski časopis, etc.).[2]

During his academic career he advised 28 MSc and 19 PhD students.[3][2]

Petranović never retired. He died on 17 June 1994 and was buried in Belgrade.

Historiography

Petranović published 32 books in 38 volumes, 314 scientific papers in conferences proceedings and scientific journals and 259 surveys in scientific journals. He authored two TV documentaries dedicated to the history of Yugoslavia. He was a 20th-century historian who Yugoslav and foreign academics dedicated 296 articles to. His academic archives, found after his death, were source for additional six books (out of which one was published in the United States) and ten new scientific papers.[3]

He contributed to the transformation of the

Yugoslav Communist Party institutions from party services into serious research institutes. As a historian he fought against fanaticism, fatalism, and taboo creation in historiography i.e. fought against historian being a privileged liar of the rulers.[4][5]

Most his academic research and career was dedicated to the 20th century epoch and to Yugoslavia. Historian

communist ideology and its phraseology, the same works provided numerous insights into main problems of the historic development of Yugoslav state. As a historian, he was led by his principle stating that a historian cannot dedicate himself to the history of his times without confronting his own work and results to other historians research.[4][3]

He thought that the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia was a tragic event and, as a historian, he tried to thoroughly examine the multiple causes hidden behind the politics which led to the disintegration of both iterations of the nation. He stated that Yugoslavia was the only state keeping all

Serbs inside the same state and that both iterations disintegrated due to the fact that they were dictatorships with no democratic alternative. He stated that the dictatorships weren't able to counter taboos, religious intolerance and divisions, the uneven economic development of Yugoslav regions, and the influence and interest of great powers.[4]

His overall research can be summarized by the twentieth century themes[6]

  • Kingdom of Yugoslavia
  • History of Serbia in WWII
  • Communist Yugoslavia
  • WWII resistance movement in Europe
  • role of a historian in contemporary epoch[2]

Petranović influenced a group of his students who became later historians at Belgrade University: Ljubodrag Dimić, Desanka Pešić, Latinka Perović, for example. He advised his graduate students not to be historians of a single subject, rather historians of a century. He taught his students to think about a single event as an event in the context of the world history process within local environment.[7]

Selected works

References

  1. ^ Бранко Петрановић, Istorijska bibloteka (Branko Petranović biography in Serbian)
  2. ^ a b c d Dimić, Ljubodrag: Foreword: Branko Petranovic (1927-1994) in Branko Petranović: The Yugoslav Experience of Serbian National Integration, Issue 586 of East European monographs, East European Monographs, 2002, page vii-xxi
  3. ^ a b c Stanković, Đ., Dimić, L., Mira Radojević, M.: Istorija, a ne politika , Politika, April 21, 2008
  4. ^ a b c Perišić, Miroslav: Branko Petranović (In memoriam) in Jugoslovenski istorijski časopis, Issues 1-2, Savez društava istoričara Jugoslavije, Belgrade, 1999., page 297-301
  5. ^ The "privileged liar" phrase was borrowed from the H. de Balsac's Catherine de Medici:
    There is a general cry of paradox when scholars, struck by some historical error, attempt to correct it; but, for whoever studies modern history to its depths, it is plain that historians are privileged liars, who lend their pen to popular beliefs precisely as the newspapers of the day, or most of them, express the opinions of their readers.
  6. ^ Dimić, Ljubodrag; Lončar, Dragomir: Branko Petranović, Bibliography and Biobibliography, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University 1996
  7. ^ Ljubodrag Dimić: Eksplozija istorije (in Serbian)

External links

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