Amid War, Scientific Publication Survives In Former Yugoslav Republics

The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and a divisive civil war has disrupted many local social, cultural, and scientific activities in this Balkan state. Relationships among various ethnic groups are in turmoil. Violence, forced migration, and ethnic cleansing have undermined any attempt at peaceful reconciliation. Yet, despite disruption of communication among the three major cultural groups during the conflict, scientific research and publication have managed to survive in many areas, including the war-torn city of Sarajevo. Attempts to unify the region have always been undermined by intense nationalism. Current conflict is no exception. The hostilities began after 1990, when leaders of the six Yugoslav republics-Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Montenegro-failed to find a way to reorganize the country. The Serbian Communist leader Slobodan Milosevic pushed for a united, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, while the majority of other leaders wanted separation. The northwestern Balkan regions of Slovenia and Croatia -strongly supported by Germany and Austria-declared independence. Slovenia, which lacked a Serb population, was allowed to leave Yugoslavia almost peaceably. In contrast, Croatia, with more than 1 million Serbs, was not. War broke out in central and northeastern regions-areas populated predominantly by Serbs-because the Croatian government did not guarantee the rights of the republic's Serb minority. When Muslim-dominated Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, the civil war spread to that republic. The civil war has only worsened cultural divides that already existed in the Balkans. Most people of the former Yugoslavia are South Slavs who speak one of three different languages: Slovenian, Macedonian, or Serbo-Croatian, which consists of several dialects and can be written using both Roman and Cyrillic alphabets. While Croats use only the Roman alphabet, Serbs use both. Religion also divides the region. Croats and Slovenians are Roman Catholics. The Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians are Eastern Orthodox Christians. Muslims, now living in Bosnia or a small part of Serbia, are Slavs who converted to Islam during the Turkish occupation. Unification attempts in the Balkans were always ill-fated. The history of the region has been marked by conflict as these divided cultures attempted to maintain their own ethnic superiority. After World War I, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed. However, nationalism prevented democratic unity of these advanced nations (R. West, Black Lamb and Gray Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, New York, Penguin Books, 1969). King Alexander I renamed the state Yugoslavia-meaning "Land of the South Slavs"-in 1929, but the royal dictatorship could not quell political unrest. When communist leader Josip Broz Tito took over the country after World War II, he dethroned the king and created a federation of the six republics. Their borders were primarily administrative, rather than ethnic, divisions. But like other attempts at unification, this one would be short-lived, and the federation would disintegrate as a result of misguided nationalistic aspirations. This civil war clearly shows that the South Slavs have not yet learned enough from their turbulent history. Nationalism and religious romanticism that emphasizes emotion over abstraction and thought have taken a devastating toll. According to Croatian sources (I. Cvitkovic, Hrvatska Ljevica, 3[9]:30-2, 1996), 140,800 Muslims were killed. The war also claimed the lives of 97,300 Serbs and 28,400 Croats. In Sarajevo alone, 10,615 people were exterminated during this war. In addition, the war displaced more than 2 million people, and divided Bosnia into three separate Muslim, Serbian, and Croatian regions. It also resulted in the creation of the ethnic-based state of Croatia, which is now virtually without a Serbian population. The Dayton peace agreement, achieved in November 1995 among the three warring parties, ended the conflict in the Balkans. Despite shortcomings in the agreement, hope remains for establishing peace in the former Yugoslavia. The peace plan must be supported by favorable economic measures and international help for cultural, scientific, and social activities, regardless of political affiliation. Mixed marriages among the various ethnic and religious groups were quite common in the former Yugoslavia. Such unions, including my own, have not been accepted universally by family and friends. This experience, along with persistent signs of growing nationalism in Yugoslavia, prompted me to write Nova Slovarica (Tuzla, Universal, 1987). In the book, I present a new combined alphabet, Slavica, in hopes of bringing the Yugoslav ethnic groups closer linguistically. I was well aware of ethnic and religious divisions and their impact on science many years before the Yugoslav civil war began. I was pressed by powerful nationalists to leave my position as an assistant professor in the department of pharmacology at the University of Sarajevo because I was not born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I next went to the medical school in Tuzla, where I became an associate dean. There I was able to enlist international cooperation to upgrade scientific education and research. Despite various nationalistic conflicts, scientists at the University of Tuzla communicated intensively with colleagues throughout the country. The war brought such communications to an end. A week before the war started in the Tuzla region in May 1992, I left the city. Through many twists of fate, my wife and I and our two sons have managed to settle in the United States, where I spent two postdoctoral years. Each of us holds a different passport: the former Yugoslavia, Federal Republic Yugoslavia (which includes Serbia and Montenegro), Croatia, and the U.S. The influence of the war on scientific output can be measured by changes in the number of papers from various parts of the former Yugoslavia published in scientific journals. These data signify the common human tragedies as well. Because the best quantitative indicator for assessment of scientific activity in a small country is the number of such publications, let us consider the number of publications from the former Yugoslav republics indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) over the three prewar years and the five war years. Scientists in the former Yugoslavia, although faced with many problems common to the Third World, managed to produce a significant number of papers that were published in journals indexed in the SCI. In 1988 they published 2,197 papers, with an average annual increase of 15 percent over the next two years. Of the publications indexed in the SCI from the prewar years, the Republic of Serbia produced 39 percent, Croatia 35 percent, Slovenia 20 percent, Bosnia and Herzegovina 3.5 percent, Macedonia 2 percent, and Montenegro 0.5 percent. Thus, scientific research in Yugoslavia was pursued vigorously before the war, especially in cities where there were large, well-established universities, such as Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. The coming of war suppressed this vitality. But even during the war, scientists from Bosnia and Herzegovina published papers. In 1993, they published 38 percent of the prewar volume. The lowest production occurred in 1994, when the number of published papers dropped to only 29 percent of the prewar volume. The majority of these publications came from the University of Sarajevo. Local scholars remained at work in Bosnia and Herzegovina despite adverse conditions, perhaps adopting the same protective attitude toward their research as Archimedes did when he confronted an invading Roman soldier: Noli tangere circulos meos, or literally, "not in my circle"-Don't touch the records of our discoveries. In Serbia, which has not been an arena of the war, scientific productivity dropped sharply in 1993 and 1994, with a decrease of 24 percent and 31 percent compared to the prewar volume of published papers. Under sanctions by the United Nations, international scientific journals were prohibited from publishing papers from Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Obviously, the majority of journals did not comply with this ban, but it did impact productivity. Other important reasons for the diminished number of publications in Serbia include insufficient financing, restricted communications, the exodus of scientists, and shortages of research supplies, including chemicals and electrical power. The civil war did not influence scientific productivity in Slovenia and Macedonia the same way, primarily because they were not directly in a war zone. The number of publications from those areas actually increased each year. In 1995 the volume of published papers was higher for both republics compared with 1991, with a 70 percent increase in Macedonia and 64 percent in Slovenia. Scientific publication in Croatia was not significantly reduced during the war-just an 8 percent decrease from 1990 to 1994. Scientific production was not hindered because the war zones were in Serb-populated regions of Croatia, where scientific activity was practically nil before the war. In fact, during the years of the war from 1991 to 1995, the number of papers from this republic increased moderately, by 6 percent per year on average. The only way the Balkan nations will peaceably move forward-both scientifically and culturally-is with the help of the international community. Because "we are one intellectual community" (E. Garfield, Current Contents, No. 16, pp. 3-7, April 18, 1988, reprinted in Essays of an Information Scientist, 11:118-22, Philadelphia, ISI Press, 1990), researchers from other countries should continue to survey scientific activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and other former Yugoslav republics and help to restore and upgrade research and publication. Scientists and educators in the international community can aid their colleagues in the damaged republics by maintaining communication, establishing collaborative ventures, and offering exchange programs and advice. In addition, gifts of scientific books and journals as well as equipment and supplies would be welcome. Like a cancer, war destroys the normal functions of a society. It spreads rapidly, leaving destruction in its wake. It should be stopped by all means possible. The international community has a duty to treat the tragic consequences of war and to rehabilitate the societies involved. To protect society, man must solve the problems relating to huge differences in development, distributions of power, and natural wealth. Each government should be responsible for the security of ethnic diversity-and the international community, perhaps under the auspices of the United Nations, has to find a way to carry out this obligation. Formation of new states will pose continuing challenges to many nations and governments, and all people must work together toward a common goal of peace. Scientists and other scholars can aid politicians, soldiers, and diverse public workers in progress toward peace and global prosperity. Let us remember the words of the 1971 Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, "O beautiful is this planet. I came to live in this world." To this I add my own message: Let the 21st century dawn upon a war-free millennium. Rajko Igic is a senior scientist in the department of anesthesiology and pain management at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He was a founder and head of the department of pharmacology at the medical school of the University of Tuzla from 1978 to 1992 and director of the Department for Scientific, Cultural, Technical and Educational International Exchange for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo from 1990 to 1992.

Amid War, Scientific Publication Survives In Former Yugoslav Republics

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