Yugoslav Protest: Student Rebellion in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Sarajevo in 1968

Abstract

In June 1968, Yugoslav university students launched strikes and demonstrations condemning police brutality and university conditions and critiquing the apparent failure of self-managing socialism. The "June events" show that the demonstrators were active participants in a global movement but also heavily influenced by local context, practices, and ideas. Whereas Yugoslav youth engaged with, drew from, and ignored the activities of other student movements, authorities reacted to youth rebellion by insisting that the majority of the protesters were showing support for state policies and that the most incorrigible were influenced by, or agents of, foreign entities. Thus, the state reproduced an artificially rigid boundary between east and west as well as between good socialist youth and enemy agents. This article decenters the west as the standard of youth rebellion, considering it in conjunction with but not in comparison to Yugoslavia. It approaches the Cold War world as characterized by the transfer of ideas and practices, not just the clash of civilizations.