Mihailo Marković, PhD ( sr-cyr, Михаило Марковић; 24 February 1923 – 7 February 2010) was a Serbian philosopher who gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s as a proponent of the

Praxis School The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical cycle, whose members were influenced by Western Marxism. It originated in Zagreb in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s. Prominent school's theorists include Gajo Petrović and Milan Ka ...

, a

Marxist humanist Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to huma ...

movement that originated in

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

. He was a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia, co-author of the

SANU Memorandum The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, known simply as the SANU Memorandum ( sr-cyr, Меморандум САНУ), was a draft document produced by a 16-member committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) from ...

and a prominent supporter of

Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...

's politics in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Early life

Marković was born in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchy ruled by a king or queen * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and media Television * ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...

. He became a member of the youth organization of the

Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

(KPJ) in 1940, and in 1944 he became a member of the KPJ itself. As a partisan he actively participated in the struggle for

liberation of Yugoslavia World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the U ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Academic career

Marković took a doctorate in philosophy first at the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-b ...

Faculty of Philosophy A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

in 1955, and then another in 1956 at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. There he studied

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

under

A. J. Ayer Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer (; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989), usually cited as A. J. Ayer, was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books '' Language, Truth, and Logic'' (1936) ...

, and wrote his thesis on ''The Concept of Logic''. In 1963 he became a full professor of philosophy at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, and the dean of the faculty in the period 1966–1967. From 1960 to 1962 he was the president of the Yugoslav Society of Philosophy. In the 1970s, he taught at the

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and was a director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. He also taught for many years at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, first as a frequent visiting professor from 1972 to 1980 and then as an adjunct professor from 1981 to 1993. Marković was a co-Chairman of the

International Humanist and Ethical Union Humanists International (known as the International Humanist and Ethical Union, or IHEU, from 1952–2019) is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Found ...

(1975–1985). He has been a corresponding member of the

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...

since 1963 and a full member since 1983. In his honour, a collection of articles entitled ''Philosophy and Society'' was published in Belgrade in 1987.

Social critic

After the Resolution of the

Informbiro The Informbiro period was an era of Yugoslavia's history following the Tito–Stalin split in mid-1948 that lasted until the country's partial rapprochement with the Soviet Union in 1955 with the signing of the Belgrade declaration. After Wor ...

condemning the Yugoslav communist regime, Marković took part in a fierce debate against

Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

dogmatism, becoming one of the fiercest critics of the Stalinist philosophical theses. His ''Revision of the Philosophical Bases of Marxism in the USSR'', published in 1952, was the first major attack on the Stalinist philosophy in Yugoslavia. In the 1960s Marković became a major proponent of the

of Marxist interpretation, which emphasized the writings of young Marx, and their dialectical and humanist aspects in particular. He also actively contributed to the international journal ''Praxis''. Due to his critical observations, together with seven other professors from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Marković was suspended in January 1975, and finally lost his job in January 1981. After that, Marković worked in the Institute of Social Research until his retirement in 1986. As a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) in 1986, Marković, together with others, wrote the

, a document that has formulated the central tenets of Serbian nationalism. While the document has been viewed in some neighbouring former Yugoslav republics as a preparation for full-scale Greater Serbian expansionism, many Serbs considered it a realistic depiction of the Serbian position within Yugoslav federation. During the

Breakup of Yugoslavia The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...

, Marković considered that the borders of the country should be changed based on ethnic and historical grounds. Marković considered that the

quasi-state A quasi-state (some times referred to as state-like entity or proto-state) is a political entity that does not represent a fully institutionalised or autonomous sovereign state. The precise definition of ''quasi-state'' in political literature f ...

Republic of Serbian Krajina The Republic of Serbian Krajina or Serb Republic of Krajina ( sh, Република Српска Крајина, italics=no / or РСК / ''RSK'', ), known as the Serbian Krajina ( / ) or simply Krajina, was a self-proclaimed Serb proto-state, ...

, eastern

Slavonia Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Baranja ...

Baranya Baranya or Baranja may refer to: * Baranya (region) or Baranja, a region in Hungary and Croatia * Baranya County, a county in modern Hungary * Baranya County (former), a county in the historic Kingdom of Hungary * Baranya, Hungarian name of villag ...

and western

Syrmia Syrmia ( sh, Srem/Срем or sh, Srijem/Сријем, label=none) is a region of the southern Pannonian Plain, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia and Croatia. Most of the region is flat, with the exce ...

should not belong to

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

because the Serbian people have lived in these territories for most of the centuries. He also considered that "the Albanian people lack any historical reasons to support their right to

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

", as they did not live in the territory before the arrival of the Slavs.

Political activity

Marković was vice-president of the

Socialist Party of Serbia The Socialist Party of Serbia ( sr, Социјалистичка партија Србије, Socijalistička partija Srbije, SPS) is a political party in Serbia. It is led by Ivica Dačić. It was founded in 1990 as the direct successor to t ...

from 1990 to 1992, as well as its one time chief ideologue. At other times, he was a vocal critic of the official SPS party line. In November 1995 he was released from all duties in the party.''Praxis – critical thinking and acting'', 2009 interview with Mihailo Marković
(in Serbian)

Bibliography

* ''Revision of the Philosophical Bases of Marxism in the USSR'' (1952) * ''Logic'' (1956) * ''Formalism in Contemporary Logic'' (1957) * ''Dialectical Theory of Meaning'', Belgrade 1961 * ''Humanism and Dialectics'' (1967) * ''Dialektik der Praxis'', '' Humanizm i djalektika'', Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1968 * ''Att utveckla socialismen'', Stockholm, 1971 * ''From Affluence to Praxis (Philosophy and social criticism)'', Ann Arbor, 1974 * ''The Contemporary Marx'', Nottingham, 1974 * ''Philosophical Foundations of Science'', Belgrade 1982 * ''Selected Works in eight volumes'', Belgrade, 1994 * ''Freedom and Praxis'', Belgrade 1997 * ''Social Thought at the Border of Milenia'', 1999 * ''Storming the Sky: Memoirs'', 2008

References

External links

Mihailo Marković Archive

''The Notion of Revolution'' (in Serbian)

''Equality and Freedom'' (in Serbian)

''The Causes of breaking up of Yugoslavia'' (in Serbian)

''Reason and Ethos'' (in Serbian)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110724061015/http://archive.serbianunity.net/kosta/memorandum/title.html Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts: Answer to the Criticisms
Biography and Bibliography of Marković (in Serbian)

* ttp://teme.junis.ni.ac.rs/teme3-2002/teme3-2002-10.pdf ''Philosophy as a Way of Life'' – an interview with Mihailo Markovic (in Serbian)
''A sort of super-Serb defends Serbian policy'' – an interview with Markovic (in English)

* ttp://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Kulturni-dodatak/Filozofija-koja-se-zivi.lt.html ''Philosophy that is Lived'' – a tribute to Markovic (in Serbian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Markovic, Mihailo 1923 births 2010 deaths Yugoslav Partisans members Serbian atheists Scholars of Marxism Social philosophy 20th-century Serbian philosophers Serbian political philosophers Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Serbian writers University of Belgrade faculty University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy alumni Alumni of University College London League of Communists of Serbia politicians Socialist Party of Serbia politicians Serbian humanists Yugoslav philosophers University of Michigan faculty