The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on National and State Interests: The Academy over a Slow Fire of (un)bearable Weariness
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on National and State Interests: The Academy over a Slow Fire of (un)bearable Weariness

Author(s): Božidar Jakšić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics and society, Nationalism Studies, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Serbian national interest; state interest of Serbia; status of Kosovo and Metohija
Summary/Abstract: The basis of this paper is an attempt to find an answer to the question whether it is possible to anticipate - and if so, in what manner - a way out of isolation, self-isolation and stigmatization of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti - SANU) under the insufficiently strong democratic potential of Serbian society. From a methodological point of view, the Academy is examined through the prism of its own documentation. Various attempts at restoring the Academy’s respectability are analyzed. These are, considering the general state of affairs after the political changes of 2000, overcoming difficulties in renewing international cooperation, admitting new, younger members, The SANU Dictionary - the traditional and oldest SANU project (dating back to 1893) - and, finally, the attitude of the SANU to the most important contemporary state issue in Serbia: the status of Kosovo and Metohija. Analysis of these points is important in explaining the endeavors of the SANU to clear its name of the stigma that, with or without good reason, has followed the Academy during the last decade of the 20th century. Analysis of the SANU after 2000 revealed that its potential for critical thought was very modest. Until the SANU attains a higher level and becomes capable of rationally articulating material, and even human cultural misery and frustrations into demands of free living, it will linger in a futile representational state fueled by a slow fire of (un)bearable weariness.

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