Svetozar Markovic and the Origins of Balkan Socialism

Svetozar Markovic, the first genuine socialist in the Balkans, was founder of the Serbian cooperative movement, social reformer, literary critic, polemicist, political leader, and father of Balkan socialist journalism. Mr. McClellan’s study, based upon original Russian and Serbian sources, is both an intellectual biography and an historical and theoretical analysis of the development of Serbian socialism; as such it supplants the two standard but biased accounts written some years ago in Serbian by Skerlic and Jovanovic. Using the career of Markovic as a vehicle, the author examines the intellectual pressures and conflicts which tormented the Balkan educated classes in the 19th century. He shows how, in this atmosphere of change, Markovic became the herald of a new age, as he sought to revitalize the ancient communal institutions of the Balkan states and combine in his philosophy the influence of Marxism, Russian revolutionary democracy, and Serbian communal tradition.

Originally published in 1964.

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