“Language is like a musical instrument,” ASU's Robert Niebuhr quotes Dante Alighieri's translator John Ciardi. Therefore, to unveil the specific logic of the text to the readers, a word-for-word translation is not necessarily the best or the only way to go. Frankly, I was rather surprised by this statement in the first sentence of the Note on Translations and Terms by someone who co-authored the beginner-level textbook on standard Croatian (and Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin). The historiography of Cold War Yugoslavia, or even less so, the historical documents in the Archives of Yugoslavia or most Cold War archives, as a matter of fact, are hardly comparable to anything Dante wrote. The impression this book gives is that sometimes some of Niebuhr's conclusions are not polished enough, but his overall thesis, the whole logic of the book, seems to be rather solid and convincing.
The Search for a Cold War Legitimacy covers a long time period and tries to explain Tito's Yugoslavia from the war years to the break-up of the federal state in 1991. That is, perhaps why there are too many strong conclusions and statements per page in this book, but it would be wrong to say that they are not stirring or that they are problematic or unconvincing. Many interpretations are not radical—some are only new ideas in old bottles, and it would probably be better to give more attention and argumentation to some of them, but they are, in spite of the unusual approach of some, intriguing and intellectually provoking. The footnotes are very long, sometimes a bit too peculiar, but never boring. Some of them should have been included in the main narrative.
Niebuhr is primarily a diplomatic, but also a military historian, so a significant number of pages in this publication is dedicated to territorial defense and the role of the Yugoslav People's Army that Marshal Tito was commander-in-chief of. Being positioned in-between the two blocs left Yugoslavia vulnerable, and it was necessary to find a credible strategy for how to secure the independence for the Federation of the Southern Slavs. Legitimacy was found in the Partisan movement during the WWII, Marxism in the peculiar Yugoslav interpretation, and specific, active, and visible foreign policy. Josip Broz Tito was “a Cold War Otto von Bismarck, stuck in the middle of two overwhelming blocs” (214), Niebuhr claims. Decentralization, which was one of the Yugoslav obsessions, was a substitute for democratization. Legitimacy and the attempt to find it was always connected with Tito's foreign policy plan, which “stood at the center of his governance strategy” (210). This statement, which is one of the main theses in the text, sometimes seems to be overstretched, but it is an intriguing argument that is consistently elaborated throughout the book.
As Marshal of Yugoslavia, Tito “took his internal reform a step further by integrating his reformist ideology with foreign affairs,” (5) states Niebuhr. After Tito was expelled from the Cominform in 1948, he gradually transformed from strongman to statesman, and made Yugoslavia, which was the most important component of the Soviet bloc (22), something different. He became an ideological traitor who had created a new socialist model, neither fully communist, nor fully democratic (55), a system that “could not identify with either” (57). Titoism became a new glue; a new ideology that was supported by the west, and Yugoslavia “firmly wedged between the two competing systems” (55).
Niebuhr is also relatively, even excessively, detailed when describing some of the interior problems Yugoslavia was facing, which were not necessarily connected with foreign relations, meaning that some incidents during the Croatian Spring of 1971, like the Donji Karin case in “općina Obrovac” (not “Obravac opština,” 159). Yugoslavia and nationalism go hand in hand, and Niebuhr explains in depth “how the regime dealt with nationalism—it avoided recognition of inter-ethnic tensions and instead pushed the idea of anti-regime forces coupled with punishments meted out to all ethnic groups involved” (189). Any significant disturbance in Yugoslavia was felt as an “invitation for Soviet aggression,” and it was probably one of the reasons why disturbances were to be minimal.
The literature and sources used are balanced. The majority of the works consulted were published in English; many sources are from the Archives of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, and the Open Society Archive in Budapest. Most of the “usual suspects” and historical figures are mentioned in this book. Some of the historical figures of significance—like Ambassador Nijaz Dizdarević—were quoted many times. Dizdarević is obviously dear to the author; he was more talented than his brother Raif, but Raif was not mentioned once, and he was both the head of the state and minister of foreign affairs, while Nijaz served as the ambassador in Iran and Algeria.
A detailed description of Yugoslav territorial ambitions after the war—in Austria, Italy, Albania—and Tito's eventual failure to expand the state borders, was transferred to non-aligned foreign policy, which represents mature Titoist diplomatic practice. Although Niebuhr claims that there was a “post Nonalignment European Focus” in Yugoslav foreign policy (Chapter 5), this might be a bit problematic. Nonalignment never seized to be the most important Yugoslav foreign policy doctrine, but I would argue it was never anti-European. This book is, therefore, an important interpretation of the Yugoslav role in the Third World. Robert Niebuhr wrote an intriguing and modern book that will make many smile, nodding with approval.
