Jozo Tomasevich
Josip Tomašević
Born1908
Košarni Do, Dalmatia, Austria-Hungary
(now Croatia)
Died(1994-10-15)October 15, 1994 (aged 86)
Palo Alto, California
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materUniversity of Basel
Harvard University
Known forWar and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945
Spouse(s)Neda Brelić (m. 1937-1994; his death); 3 children
AwardsAward for Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies (1989)
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics
History
InstitutionsSan Francisco State University
Stanford University
Columbia University
Federal Reserve Bank
Board of Economic Warfare
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
National Bank of Yugoslavia

Josip "Jozo" Tomasevich (1908 – October 15, 1994; Serbo-Croatian: Josip Tomašević) was an American economist and historian who was a leading expert on the economic and social history of the former Yugoslavia, and after his retirement was appointed professor emeritus of economics at San Francisco State University. Tomasevich was born in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, part of Austria-Hungary, and after completing his schooling gained a doctorate in economics at the University of Basel in Switzerland. In the mid-1930s he worked at the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and published three well-received books on Yugoslav national debt, fiscal policy, and money and credit respectively.

In 1938 he moved to the US as the recipient of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship, and conducted research at Harvard University before joining the academic staff of Stanford University. During World War II, Tomasevich worked for the Board of Economic Warfare and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and post-war he joined the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. In 1948 he joined the staff at San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University), and combined research and teaching there for twenty-five years until his retirement in 1973, broken by a year teaching at Columbia University in 1954. Between 1943 and 1955, Tomasevich published two further books on economic matters, one focused on marine resources, and the other on the peasant economy of Yugoslavia, both of which were positively reviewed.

Tomasevich then embarked on a extensive research and writing project on Yugoslavia in World War II – War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945 – which was planned to include three volumes. Supported by grants and fellowships, he published The Chetniks in 1975, which explored the development and fate of the Chetnik movement during the war. Positively reviewed by scholars such as Phyllis Auty, Alexander Vucinich and John C. Campbell of the Council on Foreign Relations, it was also criticised for bias against Serbs, its length and repetition, by the political scientist Alex N. Dragnich. In 2002, the Croatian academic Ivo Goldstein lauded The Chetniks as still the "most complete and best book about the Chetniks to be published either abroad or in former Yugoslavia". Tomasevich died in California in 1994.

His final book was the second volume of the series – War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration – which was published posthumously in 2001 after editing by his daughter Neda. It focused on collaboration and the quisling governments in Yugoslavia during the war, with a strong emphasis on the Axis puppet state, the so-called Independent State of Croatia. The book was praised by historians such as Goldstein and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst lecturer and German historian Klaus Schmider. The latter described Tomasevich's grasp of the sources in five languages as "stupendous", and concluded that "the scholarly standard achieved by Jozo Tomasevich in his two volumes of War and Revolution in Yugoslavia and the thought of what he would have made of volume three of the series make his death a tragedy keenly felt even by those who never knew him". As of 2024, the third volume on the Yugoslav Partisans remains unpublished, despite being 75 per cent complete at the time of his death. In an obituary written by Vucinich, Tomasevich was described as "a master of scholarly skills, a person of bountiful erudition, wit and human dignity".

Early life, education, career and family

Josip "Jozo" Tomašević was born in 1908 in the village of Košarni Do on the Pelješac peninsula in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, part of Austria-Hungary. Košarni Do is near the village of Donja Banda, and is today part of the Orebić municipality within the Dubrovnik-Neretva County of Croatia.[1] His father, known to the family as Nado, travelled to California in the 1870s, but returned to the village in 1894, married the daughter of his first cousin, and was a farmer. The couple had four sons.[2] Jozo completed his secondary education in Sarajevo – then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia – before moving to Switzerland to study at the University of Basel where he earned a doctorate in economics. In the mid-1930s he was employed as a financial expert at the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. In 1938 he was the recipient of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship and moved to the US,[3] "availing himself of the rich resources of Harvard University".[1] At this time, Tomašević assigned his share in the family farm at Košarni Do to one of his two brothers who remained there. The other brother living in Košarni Do received the share of the fourth brother who by then was a merchant mariner living in New Zealand.[4]

Prior to the outbreak of World War II – and now known by the anglicised Tomasevich – he moved to California and was on the scholarly staff of the Food Research Institute within Stanford University. During the war he worked with the Board of Economic Warfare and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Washington, D.C. After the war he initially worked at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco.[1] His preference was for a position combining teaching and research, so in 1948 he joined the San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University) and he taught there for twenty-five years until he retired in 1973 – with the exception of 1954 when he taught at Columbia University.[1] After his retirement, he was appointed professor emeritus of economics at San Francisco State University.[5] According to his obituary in the Slavic Review written by the historian Alexander Vucinich, Tomasevich "gave his lectures rich and pertinent content, precise organization and warm delivery".[1]

In 1937, Tomasevich married Neda Brelić, a high school teacher. They were happily married for 57 years, and they had three children – Anthony, Neda Ann, and Lasta. In 1976, Tomasevich contributed an essay to a book in which he conducted a sociological and historical analysis of his extended family reaching back to the early nineteenth century. He became an American citizen.[6] Tomasevich died on October 15, 1994, aged 86,[1] in Palo Alto, California.[7] His widow Neda died on July 5, 2002, at the age of 88.[8]

Scholarship

According to Vucinich, from the time Tomasevich was 25 until his death at 86, he engaged himself in a succession of research projects, some of which were very extensive. He describes Tomasevich as having "a temperament that encourages inner discipline... he gave undivided attention to each of the research projects until full completion had been achieved".[1] Vucinich divides Tomasevich's scholarly work into three distinct phases: his work regarding the finances of Yugoslavia during the Great Depression; two studies in the 1940s and 1950s regarding international marine resources and the economic problems of the peasants of Yugoslavia; and the final phase focusing on the historical events in Yugoslavia during World War II.[1]

Between 1934 and 1938, Tomasevich published three books. The first appeared in German in 1934 and was titled Die Staatsschulden Jugoslaviens (The National Debt of Yugoslavia). According to Vucinich, the book "provided a solid and much cited analysis of government efforts to stabilize national finances at the outset of the Great Depression".[1] The following year he published Financijska politika Jugoslavije, 1929–1934 (Fiscal Policy of Yugoslavia, 1929–1934) in Serbo-Croatian, covering much of the same material but more accessible to Yugoslavs.[1] His 1938 treatise Novac i kredit (Money and Credit) "helped train an entire generation of Yugoslav financial experts", according to Vucinich.[1] A 1940 review of the book in Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, by Professor Mirko Lamer – who later served with the United Nations as an expert at the Food and Agriculture Organization – described Novac i kredit as an important work that filled a large gap in Yugoslav economic literature, and gave a vivid picture of then-current economic theory.[9] In a 1997 article, Zvonimir Baletić, director of the Croatian Institute of Economics, described Tomasevich as one of the most prominent advocates of Keynesian economics in interwar Yugoslavia, and concluded that Novac i kredit was an "authoritative" work that had a strong impact on students and among Yugoslav economists.[3]

Draža Mihailović was the titular leader of the Chetnik movement in Yugoslavia during World War II.

After he arrived in the US, Tomasevich undertook two significant projects. The first was International Agreements on Preservation of Marine Resources, published by Stanford University Press in 1943. Vucinich described this work as "a highly competent inquiry into international relations in the Pacific basin centered on an issue of vital economic importance".[1] The second book, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia published in 1955, was described by Vucinich as "a study of monumental scope [which] has been widely recognized as the most comprehensive and accomplished study in the field". Vucinich observed that the book was an "impressive testimony to Tomasevich's ability both to penetrate the depths of messages carried by documentary material and to be scrupulously careful in drawing conclusions". He concluded that Tomasevich had been "eminently successful in placing the economic problems of the Yugoslav peasantry within a larger social, political and historical framework".[1] The political scientist Zachary T. Irwin described the book as "magisterial".[10] Irwin T. Sanders of the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky reviewed the book in 1956 and stated that it was "the best book available for anyone wishing to understand the socio-economic pre-Communist background of Yugoslavia", contained realistic evaluations of the peasant political parties, and concluded that "there is little question about the soundness of his economic analysis or his description of the participation of the peasant in national life".[11]

In 1957, Tomasevich received a grant from San Francisco State University for Slavic and Eastern European studies.[12] This led to work on a planned trilogy of the history of Yugoslavia during World War II, with an overall title of War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945. The first volume, focused on the Chetnik movement led by Draža Mihailović, and subtitled The Chetniks, appeared in 1975 and according to Vucinich it was "basically a study in politics, ideology and military operations, although the role of the economic factor has not been overlooked".[1] Soon after it was published, the book was reviewed by Phyllis Auty, professor of modern history at Simon Fraser University. Auty described the work as "a most impressive... scholarly examination of evidence",[13] that was meticulously referenced, and a "deceptively lucid account of a most complex and difficult subject".[13] Auty praised Tomasevich's detachment from the subject, and stated that it was "likely to remain the standard book on this subject for a long time."[13] In Tomasevich's obituary, Vucinich observed that The Chetniks was "clearly the most exhaustive study so far of the military forces of Yugoslavia dedicated to the restoration of the Serbian monarchy after the end of World War II", and that the book "casts significant light on the multiple facets of the conflict between the Chetniks and Partisans".[1] The Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein, writing in 2002, stated that The Chetniks "is still the most complete and best book about the Chetniks to be published either abroad or in former Yugoslavia".[14] An alternative view of the book was advanced by the Serbian-American political scientist and professor at Vanderbilt University, Alex N. Dragnich, who accused Tomasevich's book of consistent bias against the Chetnik movement and a lack of understanding of its problems, as well as significantly overstating Chetnik collaboration with the enemy. Dragnich considered that the book's concluding chapter betrayed "an almost gleeful view of Serbian misfortunes". He also stated that the book was excessively long and repetitive.[15] John C. Campbell of the Council on Foreign Relations reviewed the book positively and stated that The Chetniks provided "mountains of evidence that [the Chetnik] collaboration was manifold, massive and continuous".[16]

Ante Pavelić was the leader of the fascist Ustaše movement that ruled the Independent State of Croatia between 1941 and 1945.

In 1974 Tomasevich received a fellowship for his postdoctoral research into volume two of the trilogy from the American Council of Learned Societies, and this was followed in 1976 by a fellowship supporting his work on the planned third volume on the Yugoslav Partisans.[12] In 1989, Tomasevich received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.[17]

The second volume of his planned trilogy – War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration – concentrated on collaboration and the quisling governments in Yugoslavia during the war,[1] with a strong emphasis on the Axis puppet state, the so-called Independent State of Croatia led by Ante Pavelić, the head of the fascist Ustaše movement, and was published posthumously in 2001 with editing from his daughter Neda.[18] Goldstein reviewed the book in 2002, and concluded that the most valuable contribution of the book was the part dedicated to the Independent State of Croatia making up almost half of the work. While he identified a few shortcomings and minor errors of fact, Goldstein described Tomasevich's work as a complete and lucid description and explanation of the occupying and collaborationist forces in Yugoslavia. He concluded that "this book, together with its predecessor, is an invaluable foundation that no new research into World War II on the territory of former Yugoslavia will be able to bypass. It promises to remain [so] for a long time to come."[14] In a review of the book published the following year, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst lecturer and German historian Klaus Schmider described Tomasevich's grasp of the sources in five languages as "stupendous",[19] and observed that the result was well worth the twenty-six year wait between the volumes. He wrote that even though he had criticisms about minor gaps in the work, when compared to the "scale of the overall achievement, these are but minor quibbles". Schmider concluded that "the scholarly standard achieved by Jozo Tomasevich in his two volumes of War and Revolution in Yugoslavia and the thought of what he would have made of volume three of the series make his death a tragedy keenly felt even by those who never knew him".[19] The third volume in the planned trilogy, which was to cover the Partisans, was 75 percent complete at the time of his death,[1] and as of 2024 remains unpublished.[19]

According to Vucinich, Tomasevich was "a master of scholarly skills, a person of bountiful erudition, wit and human dignity, and a leading expert on the economic and social history of the former Yugoslavia.[1] In 2004, Tomasevich's personal papers were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.[20]

Selected bibliography

As sole author

  • Die Staatsschulden Jugoslaviens [The National Debt of Yugoslavia] (in German). Zagreb, Yugoslavia: Drukerei "Merkantile". 1934. OCLC 10626641.
  • Financijska politika Jugoslavije, 1929–1934 [Fiscal Policy of Yugoslavia, 1929–1934] (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb, Yugoslavia: Vlastita naklada. 1935. OCLC 18666473.
  • Novac i kredit [Money and Credit] (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb, Yugoslavia: Vlastito izdanje. 1938. OCLC 254535363.
  • International Agreements on Conservation of Marine Resources: With Special Reference to the North Pacific. Stanford: Food Research Institute (printed by Stanford University Press). 1943. OCLC 6153373.
  • Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1955. OCLC 450385266.
  • War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: The Chetniks. Vol. 1. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1975. ISBN 978-0-8047-0857-9.
  • War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Vol. 2. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.

As co-author or contributor

  • Tomasevich, Jozo; Vucinich, Wayne S. (1969). Contemporary Yugoslavia: Twenty Years of Socialist Experiment. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Tomasevich, Jozo (1976). "The Tomašević extended family on the Peninsula of Pelješac". In Byrnes, Robert F. (ed.). Communal Families in the Balkans: The Zadruga Essays by Philip E. Mosely and Essays in His Honor. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 978-0-268-00569-6.

Articles

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Vucinich 1995.
  2. ↑ Tomasevich 1976, p. 197.
  3. 1 2 Baletić 1997.
  4. ↑ Tomasevich 1976, p. 198.
  5. ↑ Stanford University 1982.
  6. ↑ Prosecutor versus Vojislav Šešelj 2008.
  7. ↑ Palo Alto Online 1994.
  8. ↑ Palo Alto Online 2002.
  9. ↑ Lamer 1940.
  10. ↑ Irwin 2000.
  11. ↑ Sanders 1956.
  12. 1 2 ACLS 2011.
  13. 1 2 3 Auty 1976.
  14. 1 2 Goldstein 2002.
  15. ↑ Dragnich 1976.
  16. ↑ Campbell 1976.
  17. ↑ AAASS 1989.
  18. ↑ Kadezabek 2004.
  19. 1 2 3 Schmider 2003.
  20. ↑ OAC 2004.

References

Books and journals

Websites and court transcripts

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