[Lecture] Radina Vučetić – The Invisible Enemy – Smallpox epidemics 1972/Microhistory of Yugoslavia (YugoLab)
🗓 Oct 19 🕒 14:00 CET 🔹 IFDT
In the spring of 1972, Yugoslavia was hit by what turned out to be the last European smallpox epidemic. The deadly virus appeared after 42 years of absence in Yugoslavia, presenting a dramatic challenge for the country’s public health system. The state response analysis reveals the virtues of the socialist state system, but also its flaws. The study of three months long of epidemic reveals the functioning of the health system in Yugoslavia; the functioning of the state (state response, readiness); the international (Cold War) position of Yugoslavia; the position of Kosovo and Muslims in Yugoslavia; tensions between Yugoslav republic; the state of media, Josip Broz Tito’s role during the epidemic; economy and tourism; and finally – the everyday life of ordinary people. The analysis of the Yugoslav responses to the smallpox epidemic of 1972 includes a wide range of phenomena stretching ‘from below’ and local history to the Cold War and transnational historical topics.
Radina Vučetić is a Full Professor and manager of the Center for American Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Her research focuses on the history of the 20th century, American studies, the Cold War, and the cultural and social history of Yugoslavia. She is the author of the book Coca-Cola Socialism: Americanization of Yugoslav Culture in the Sixties, The Invisible Enemy. Variola vera 1972, Monopoly on the Truth. Party, Culture and Censorship in Serbia Sixties and Seventies of the Twentieth Century, Europe on Kalemegdan: “Cvijeta Zuzorić” and the cultural life of Belgrade 1918-1941, and The Time When the People Spoke: Echoes and Reactions in Politika , 1988-1991 (co-author with Aljoš Mimic). She is the co-editor of the books Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity and Brotherhood and Unity at the Kitchen Table: Food in Socialist Yugoslavia, and the author of dozens of scientific articles.