SANU MEMORANDUM

SANU MEMORANDUM

(Group of academics of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on current social issues in our country (Serbia))

Note

The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) Memorandum was written sometime in 1985/1986 and was published in various places by mainly semi-official publications. Here we will introduce it in the form published in “Nashe Teme”, Zagreb, 1989, 33 (1-2), p. 128-163; the text contains a brief introduction and two parts: Crisis of the Yugoslav economy and society; and - Serbia and the Serbian people’s position.

Because of space limitations, we will provide only a brief introduction and the second part of the Memorandum; items considered to be an ideological introduction to the breakup of Yugoslavia. The first section contains reviews of the Yugoslav one-party, non-democratic, self-governing and quasi-market system. It covers Serbian lag of development, inconsistently applied minority autonomy rights and majority democracy. We will continue with two texts (Shesheli Subotich) supplied with explanations. Here we are talking about a book of over 1000 pages, with a very complex structure (15 chapters with over 50 chapters, subdivisions etc., with numerous references, literature and so on.), which covers the entire history of the Serbians, territory, religion, language and culture, and its relations with the other neighbouring nations, and other topics. Special attention is given to its relations with the Croats, Albanians, Bosnians, etc., between themselves and the Macedonians.