Balcanica - Annual of the Institute for Balkan Studies

Three Votive Plaques from Upper Moesia

Dragana Nikolić — 2023-03-01

The article proposes a new reading and interpretation of three inscriptions engraved on small bronze plaques in the shape of tabula ansata from the Danubian limes in Upper Moesia — two from Pincum and one from Viminacium, associating the inscribed objects with the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus. The revised inscriptions also provide new data on the Roman units stationed on the Upper Moesian Danube bank, as two of the dedicators are identified as members of the ala Flaviana.

A Hypothesis about the Origin of Záviš’s Cross (or about a Lost Serbian Reliquary)

Ivana Komatina — 2020-12-01

The documents testifying to the conflict between Serbian king Stefan Uroš I (1242/1243–1276) and Hungarian king Béla IV (1235–1270) from the 1260s also bring news about the Serbian king’s reliquary that was seized at the time. Following the destiny and specificities of Záviš’s cross, we indicate the possibility of this being the same precious item.

Experiencing Disease and Medical Treatment in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Pietro Bembo and his Circle

John Henderson — 2023-03-01

This article, which examines contemporaries’ personal experience of illness in Renaissance Italy, is part of a growing literature which concentrates on the patient rather than the practitioner. The basis of this study is the correspondence of Pietro Bembo, the well-known humanist, papal secretary and latterly Cardinal, with his cousin Gian Matteo Bembo and his long-standing secretary and friend, Cola Bruno. These letters are revealing of how a non-medical man understood and described illness in the sixteenth century, and his personal experience associated particularly with “mal delle reni”, which he shared with his friends and recommended treatments. It also reveals his attitude towards medical practitioners, ranging from scepticism to fully embracing new therapies such as Holy Wood, which was used to treat the new epidemic disease of the Great Pox. Indeed he shared his enthusiasm for the efficacy of this drug with his great friend the physician Girolamo Fracastoro, the author of Syphilis, the poem which he dedicated to Bembo, and also of the treatise De contagione et contagiosis morbis (1546).

The Second Eastern Crisis (1875–1878): Echoes, Volunteers and Italian Interests

Francesco Guida — 2023-03-01

The actions of Balkan insurgents during Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878 were closely followed by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his supporters as well as by the Italian politicians and writers that were a part Mazzini’s school of thought. Garibaldi actively sustained the insurgents and his red shirts went to fight in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first year of the Crisis. When the uprising evolved into a war of Serbia and Montenegro against the Ottomans the involvement of red shirts as well as the one of volunteers in general was con- siderable reduced, with the exception of the Russian contingent under the commandment of the Russian general Mikhail Chernyaev. However, the interest for the ongoing devel- opments in the Bosnia and Herzegovina only changed the form, since Italian politicians and journalists made several projects trying to mobilize Italian general public to support South Slav cause. The Venetian writer Marco Antonio Canini even imagined a confederal solution for the nations in the Danube basin thus trying to overcome the conflicts between the nascent nationalisms that could dispute among them the territorial heritage of the Austria-Hungary after its projected demise. None of the projects were put in practice, but they remain as testimony of Italian interest and involvement into the Great Eastern Crisis and its consequences

The Opening of the Italian Legation in Belgrade in 1879 and Relations between Serbs and Italians in the 19th Century

Antonio D’Alessandri — 2023-03-01

This essay focuses on the opening of the Italian diplomatic Legation in Belgrade in 1879 after the Serbia’s independence. This new beginning of the Serbian-Italian political relations is seen in the framework of the reorientation of the Italian foreign policy after the fall of the French Second Empire and the rise of the Imperial Germany. A great role in this process was played by Count Giuseppe Tornielli Brusati di Vergano, former Secretary General of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Kingdom. He was entrusted to open the Italian Legation in Belgrade and in Bucharest, thus inaugurating a new phase of the Italian action in South-eastern Europe and the Eastern affairs. This question is analyzed in a broader chronological space such as the long tradition of cultural and political exchanges between Serbs and Italians during the epoch of the national Risorgimento.

Movies about the First World War: Shaping the Collective Memory. Cases of Serbian/Yugoslav and Greek Cinematography

Jasmina I. Tomašević — 2023-03-01

The First World War brought radical changes to the political map of Europe andtook more than 15 million lives on both warring sides. This conflict of unprecedented proportions has left deep traces on the lives of people who found themselves in a whirlwind of war. Therefore, it is no wonder that the theme of war was present in various types of human creativity – through literature (especially autobiographical genres), art, but also popular culture, where movies rightly took centre stage. Even during the period 1914–1918, the film became the main weapon of propaganda. Through this instrument, the message was able to reach quickly a large number of people, regardless of their social status and level of education. After 1918, the film served as a popular medium through which the memory of war events was preserved. The first movies exuded the anti-war spirit at the moment when post-war Europe was facing long-term economic consequences that had surfaced. Pacifist messages could be seen in different film productions, which to a large extent looked up to Hollywood, the most significant film industry in the world. The same was in the case of smaller allied countries such as Greece and Serbia, which both paved a different path of development due to the complexity of historical processes conducted in these Balkan countries. This paper aims to point out these different developments and shed light on lesser-known facts about Yugoslav and Greek WWI cinematography.

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The March on Rome and its Consequences. Views of Yugoslav Contemporaries

Milan Ristović — 2023-03-01

This paper looks at the Yugoslav public’s reactions to the rise of fascism and Mussolini’s coming to power in Italy. The main source for the analysis of this change at the top of power structure have been texts published in the contemporary Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian daily press, periodicals and publications. Among their authors were active diplomats of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, influential political figures of diverse political leanings. Observation of the rise of fascism, its violent “methodology” of disposing of its political rivals, the misplaced response of the traditional centres of power and the ceding of ground to the fascists caused concern on the east side of the Adriatic over further radicalization of Italian nationalism and irredentist claims in spite of the obligations assumed under the treaties concluded by the two governments.

Italy in the Writings of Slobodan Jovanović

Boris Milosavljević — 2023-03-01

Slobodan Jovanović made frequent stays in Italy since his earliest childhood, which contributed to his thorough and comprehensive understanding of Italian history, politics, science, culture and arts. His father, Vladimir Jovanović, maintained close contact with Mazzini, whose liberal nationalism he embraced and followed. Some of their closest family members resided in Rome during the First World War, because Vladimir Jovanović’s sonin-law, Mihailo Ristić, served as Serbia’s minister to Italy (1914–17). For about half a century Slobodan Jovanović was an interpreter of Italian political history, of its influence on Serbian and Yugoslav history, and of the work of Italian statesmen and theorists, notably Machiavelli. In the 1930s he taught a doctoral course on Italian public law and corporate system. After the Second World War he lived in exile in London. Some of the works he published there showed that some solutions in the constitution of socialist Yugoslavia, presented as an original invention, had already existed in interwar Italian corporate law.

Yugoslav-Italian Foreign Trade Relations 1919–1939 and the Yugoslav Industry: The Import of Textile Products from Italy

Jelena Rafailović — 2023-03-01

Yugoslav-Italian relations between two world wars, besides the diplomatic-political, also had a very signifi cant economic aspect. Italy was one of the most important foreign trade partners of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and this paper will explore the trade exchange between the two countries, especially the import of materials necessary for the textile industry, which substantially contributed to the positive balance of trade. Beside a quantitative analysis of statistical data regarding foreign trade, the paper also looks at the impact of political and economic events on the trade relations between the two countries, as well as the relation between the industrialization of Yugoslavia and changes in foreign trade.

The Venice Biennale and Art in Belgrade in the 1950s. A Contribution to the Study of the Artistic Dialogue between Italy and Serbia

Ana Ereš — 2023-03-01

Throughout the twentieth century the International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale was seen as a major event by the art world of Belgrade and, more broadly, of Serbia and Yugoslavia. After the Second World War this biggest and most important international show of contemporary art provided Belgrade’s artists and art critics with an opportunity to acquaint themselves with the latest developments on the international art scene. At the same time, it was used as a platform for the leading figures of Belgrade’s artistic and cultural-policy establishment to create, through the exhibitions mounted in the national pavilion, an image of the country’s artistic contemporaneity aimed at achieving its desired standing in the West. The attitude of Belgrade’s art scene to the Venice Biennale went through a articularly interesting phase in the 1950s. Its transformations offer an opportunity to observe, analyse and expand the knowledge about the changes that marked that turbulent decade in the history of Serbian art, which went a long way from dogmatically exclusive socialist realism to the institutionalization of a high-modernist language as the dominant model. Based on the reconstruction of Yugoslavia’s sustained participation in the Venice Biennale (1950–60), this paper analyses the models of the representation of Serbian art in the international context of the Biennale within a broader context of the intensification of Serbian-Italian artistic contacts during the period under study.

The Two Last Encounters between Broz and Berlinguer – the Epilogue of an Alliance

Bogdan Živković — 2023-03-01

Based on unpublished historical sources from the archives of the communist parties of Yugoslavia and Italy (Archives of Yugoslavia, Belgrade; Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Archivio del Partito comunista Italiano, Rome), this paper analyzes the two last meetings of the leaders of the two parties, Josip Broz Tito and Enrico Berlinguer. The topics are Berlinguer’s two visits to Yugoslavia, in October 1977 and October 1978, which took place at the height of the inter-party alliance, after the Berlin Conference of the Communist Parties of Europe held in June 1976. The aforementioned two visits are viewed in this paper as case studies that testify to the nature of the alliance between the two parties, and illuminate the key similarities and differences between these two political actors.

The Yugoslav Perspective on Italian Eurocommunism in the Second Half of the 1970s

Petar Dragišić — 2023-03-01

The article outlines the key elements of the Yugoslav perceptions of the Italian Communist Party’s (PCI) ideological and political orientation during its Eurocommunist phase. In addition, it investigates the relationship between the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and PCI in the latter half of the 1970s. The article is primarily based on an analysis of Yugoslav archival sources and press materials.

Dan Dana, Onomasticon Thracicum. Répertoire des noms indigènes de Thrace, Macédoine orientale, Mésies, Dacie et Bithynie

Danilo Savić — 2023-03-01

Danilo Savić: Dan Dana, Onomasticon Thracicum. Répertoire des noms indigènes de Thrace, Macédoine orientale, Mésies, Dacie et Bithynie

Eugenia Beu-Dachin, The Latin language in the inscriptions of Roman Dacia.

Jelena Vukojević — 2023-03-01

Jelena Vukojević: Eugenia Beu-Dachin, The Latin language in the inscriptions of Roman Dacia.

Tudor Dinu, Revoluția Greacă de la 1821 pe teritoriul Moldovei și Țării Românești

Marija Milinković — 2023-03-01

Marija Milinković: Tudor Dinu, Revoluția Greacă de la 1821 pe teritoriul Moldovei și Țării Românești

Paul Miller-Melamed, Misfire: The Sarajevo Assassination and the Winding Road to World War I

John Zametica — 2023-03-01

John Zametica: Paul Miller-Melamed, Misfire: The Sarajevo Assassination and the Winding Road to World War I

Mark D. Chapman and Bogdan Lubardić [eds.], Serbia and the Church of England: The First World War and a New Ecumenism

Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović — 2023-03-01

Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović: Mark D. Chapman and Bogdan Lubardić [eds.], Serbia and the Church of England: The First World War and a New Ecumenism

Slobodan G. Markovich [ed.], Freemasonry in Southeast Europe from the 19th to the 21st Centuries

Petar S. Ćurčić — 2023-03-01

Petar S. Ćurčić: Slobodan G. Markovich [ed.], Freemasonry in Southeast Europe from the 19th to the 21st Centuries

John r. Lampe and Constantin Iordachi [eds.], Battling Over the Balkans: Historiographical Questions and Controversies

Anđelija Miladinović — 2023-03-01

Anđelija Miladinović: John r. Lampe and Constantin Iordachi [eds.], Battling Over the Balkans: Historiographical Questions and Controversies

Slobodan Vuković, Koreni velikog rata i nacizma

Bogdan Živković — 2023-03-01

Bogdan Živković: Slobodan Vuković, Koreni velikog rata i nacizma

Alberto Basciani, Egidio Ivetic, Italia e Balcani

Bogdan Živković — 2023-03-01

Bogdan Živković: Alberto Basciani, Egidio Ivetic, Italia e Balcani

Luciano Monzali, Federico Imperato, Rosario Milano, Giuseppe Spagnulo, Storia delle relazioni internazionali (1919–2021). Tra Stati nazionali, potenze continentali e organizzazioni sovranazionali

Bogdan Živković — 2023-03-01

Bogdan Živković: Luciano Monzali, Federico Imperato, Rosario Milano, Giuseppe Spagnulo, Storia delle relazioni internazionali (1919–2021). Tra Stati nazionali, potenze continentali e organizzazioni sovranazionali

Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović, Radmila Radić [eds.], Orthodox Christian Renewal Movements in Eastern Europe

Marko Galić — 2023-03-01

Marko Galić: Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović, Radmila Radić [eds.], Orthodox Christian Renewal Movements in Eastern Europe

Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković, Mihai Dragnea, Thede Kahl, Blagovest Njagulov, Donald L. Dyer and Angelo Costanzo [eds.] The Romance-speaking Balkans: Language and the Politics of Identity

Panagiotis G. Krimpas — 2023-03-01

Panagiotis G. Krimpas: Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković, Mihai Dragnea, Thede Kahl, Blagovest Njagulov, Donald L. Dyer and Angelo Costanzo [eds.] The Romance-speaking Balkans: Language and the Politics of Identity

Đorđe S. Kostić

Ljubodrag P. Ristić — 2023-03-01

In memoriam Đorđe S. Kostić

Spyridon Sfetas

Jasmina Tomašević — 2023-03-01

In memoriam Spyridon Sfetas (1960—2021)