Yugoslav teachers in Argentina 1939-1944

Milesa, Stefanović-Banović, Branislav, Pantović

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08611401227S

2014-2020/03/08/19:21:30

In this paper we present reports of Yugoslav teachers who held classes to immigrants in Argentina 1939-1944, organized by the government of Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Teachers’ reports to Yugoslav Embassy in Buenos Aires testify of Kingdom of Yugoslavia efforts to oppose assimilation and promote and strengthen “Yugoslav national unity”. The reports also describe general social circumstances of Yugoslav immigrants, show various details from their everyday life and contain valuable data on numerous political, economic, social and cultural problems of this diaspora in Argentina and their relationship with motherland. We believe that archive materials presented in this paper opens numerous questions which could be topics of separate researches. Some of them could be the following: To which extent the teachers’ reports represented the actual situation and to which they were shaped to match policy and expectations of Kingdom of Yugoslavia? What was the actual influence of teachers to spreading the “national unity” among immigrants? Have their work left trace in Yugoslav diaspora and in which way? Beside all of the open issues, it is certain that teachers’ reports contain valuable data on immigrants’ everyday life, curriculum, schooling conditions, relationship with motherland, etc. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije. Izrada multimedijalnog internet portala "Pojmovnik srpske kulture"]

Kingdom of Yugoslavia, immigrants, Argentina, teaching