Historiographic and methodological importance of Kajica Milanov’s works

Kajica Milanov (1905–1986) taught philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy (University of Belgrade) and the Department of Philosophy in Hobart, Australia (University of Tasmania – UTAS). He was educated in Vienna, Belgrade and Berlin. Kajica Milanov shared the destiny of many prominent intellectuals who were unjustifiably forgotten, usually for having refused to build a research methodology upon a dominant political (party) ideology: “While still in Yugoslavia, Milanov, a lecturer at the University of Belgrade, was asked to teach philosophical subjects in the spirit of Marxism. He preferred to set sail for an unknown land rather than to speak from the lectern contrary to his scientific belief.” Kajica Milanov’s works are not the writings of a discontent individual, a defeated political émigré, as greatest Serbian intellectuals who lived and died in exile are often portrayed, Slobodan Jovanović, for instance. It is important to note that most of the views Milanov shared, as well as the emotional reactions he had psychoanalyzed, coincided with those maintained by the nation’s foremost researchers who had never emigrated, but had “adjusted” to an extent, waiting in vain for the communist era to end. Milanov’s views, remarks and humor, so foreign to the postwar reality, mirror the feelings and views largely shared by prewar Belgraders. In his studies Milanov explicated political and social history, the history of mentality (with deep psychological insights), the history of philosophy, state and law. His work is not just a forgotten writing from the past that needs to be stored away and classified, but rather, together with the works of Slobodan Jovanović and Jovan (John) Plamenac, used as a must-read, necessary for a critical interpretation of the past, unburdened by the generic canons fettering national research endeavors for much too long. To begin with, a critical comparison should be made between the methodology employed by prewar scientists and that used after the war. It’s precisely a critical methodological approach that creates the most valuable legacy Kajica Milanov’s historiographic work can offer