Savez književnika Jugoslavije (Serbo-Croatian) Zveza književnikov Jugoslavije (Slovene) Сојузот на писателите на Југославија (Macedonian) | |
Formation | 1946 |
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Founded at | Belgrade |
Dissolved | 1990 |
Type | writers professional organization |
Legal status | umbrella organisation |
Location |
The Association of Writers of Yugoslavia or the Yugoslav Writer's Union (Serbo-Croatian: Savez književnika Jugoslavije, Slovene: Zveza književnikov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојузот на писателите на Југославија) was an umbrella organisation of 6 of the constituent republics' writers associations in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Association coordinated cooperation between its member organizations.[1] From 1965 onwards, the Association was transformed into a coordination body of its members at the time; the Association of Writers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Association of Writers of Montenegro, the Croatian Writers' Association, the Association of Writers of Serbia, Association of Writers of Macedonia and the Slovene Writers' Association.[2] Ivo Andrić was unanimously elected as the first president of the Association in 1946.[2]
With progressive decentralisation and confederalisation of Yugoslavia itself, exemplified in the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, the importance of the federal association became less prominent from 1970s onwards with republican association attaining more central place in literary life of the country.[3]
Following the last Congress in 1985 in Novi Sad association became one of the first federal institutions which experienced paralyzing querals leading to effective and never formally declared dissolution in 1990.[3] The crisis deepened already in 1986 when Serbian republican branch proposed Miodrag Bulatović as the new president of the association's rotating presidency to which Serbian candidate was to be elected at the time.[4] This candidate was rejected by Slovenian, Kosovan, Montenegrin and Croatian branch whose delegates claimed that the candidate was hostile to other Yugoslav nations.[4]
Following the 1948 Tito-Stalin split increased plurality developed in Yugoslav literature with Miroslav Krleža's speech at the Third Congress of the Association in Ljubljana in 1952, which epitomised artistic distancing from previously promoted socialist realism.[5]
In 1956, the Association sent Petar Guberina as the Yugoslav observer representative to the Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris who attended the second Congress in Rome in 1959 as well.[6]
In 1958, the Association nominated Yugoslav author Ivo Andrić as its first ever candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, a prize he would receive in 1961.[7]
In 1966 the Association broke off all formal relations with the Union of Writers of Bulgaria after Bulgarian partners rejected to sign a document in Macedonian language.[8] Relations were not re-established until the end of the existence of the Association as the Yugoslav side insisted that all of the agreements will be signed in Bulgarian and Macedonian language.[8]