Anglofilske organizacije u Beogradu između dva svetska rata

Ranka, Gašić

Istorija 20. veka

1

21

36

0352-3160

https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=178931

2007-2020/03/25/07:12:58

The early pha­se of the re­la­ti­ons bet­we­en Ser­bian and An­glo-Sa­xon cul­tu­re is not wi­dely known, due to the po­li­ti­cal events and di­scon­ti­nu­i­ti­es in Ser­bian 20th cen­tury hi­story. The first la­sting cul­tu­ral re­la­ti­ons with Gre­at Bri­tain we­re esta­blis­hed du­ring WWI. Bri­tish and bi­la­te­ral or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons bet­we­en the World Wars can be re­gar­ded as two in­ter­con­nec­ted net­works. One of them was for­med du­ring WWI and soon af­ter, con­si­sting of or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons de­a­ling with cha­rity and edu­ca­tion of the Ser­bian sol­di­ers and ci­vil­li­ans. The ot­her con­sists ma­inly of or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons esta­blis­hed bet­we­en the World Wars, de­a­ling with Bri­tish pro­pa­gan­da, cul­tu­ral as well as po­li­ti­cal. The­re we­re fi­ve of tho­se in Bel­gra­de: The An­glo-Ame­ri­can-Yugo­slav Club, The So­ci­ety of Fri­ends of Gre­at Bri­tain and Ame­ri­ca, The So­ci­ety for Pro­mo­ting An­glo-Sa­xon Cul­tu­re in Yugo­sla­via, The Union of For­mer Stu­dents in Gre­at Bri­tain, and The Union of Stu­dents of the En­glish Lan­gu­a­ge and Li­te­ra­tu­re in Bel­gra­de. The­ir ac­ti­vi­ti­es we­re co­or­di­na­ted from Lon­don by the Yugo­slav So­ci­ety of Gre­at Bri­tain (R.W.Se­ton-Wat­son) and the Bri­tish Co­un­cil, as well as by the Yugo­slav-Bri­tish In­sti­tu­te from 1940 on­wards. The mem­bers of the­se so­ci­e­ti­es we­re mostly edu­ca­ted in Bri­tain du­ring and af­ter the WWI. The most ac­ti­ve and nu­me­ro­us among the­se we­re the An­glo-Ame­ri­can-Yugo­slav Club and the So­ci­ety of Fri­ends of Gre­at Bri­tain and Ame­ri­ca. The Club had a bro­a­der cir­cle of mem­bers, whe­re­as the So­ci­ety was mo­re ex­clu­si­ve as to its po­li­ti­cal ori­en­ta­tion. Jo­van Jo­va­no­vić, the for­mer mi­ni­ster and a di­plo­mat, le­a­der of the Ser­bian Agra­rian Party, and Vla­de­ta Po­po­vić, Head of the Cha­ir for En­glish lan­gu­a­ge and li­te­ra­tu­re and a clo­se col­la­bo­ra­tor of the Bri­tish Co­un­cil, played by far the most im­por­tant part in the Bri­tish cul­tu­ral pro­pa­gan­da in Bel­gra­de. As for the­ir ide­o­logy, the Bel­gra­de an­glop­hi­les sha­red li­be­ral and de­moc­ra­tic va­lu­es and, with few ex­cep­ti­ons, be­li­e­ved in „Yugo­sla­vi­a­nism“ and pro­mo­ted the idea of the fe­de­ral, de­cen­tra­li­zed sta­te.

Belgrade, The anglophile organizations, World Wars