Mihajlo Mihajlov

MIHAJLOV, MIHAJLO Age 75 Mihajlo Mihajlov, a leading dissident in the former Yugoslavia who was jailed by Communist leader Josip Broz Tito for his writings critical of the Soviet Union and of one-party rule, died Sunday at his home in Belgrade, at the age of 75. The cause of death was not given. Word of his death was received Sunday morning by his sister, Maria Ivusic, of Washington, DC. Mr. Mihajlov also lived here part of the time during the years of exile, following his amnesty in 1977 under the pressure of President Carter's human rights campaign. Mr. Mihajlov, the son of Russian parents who fled to Yugoslavia after the Russian revolution, was born in Pancevo in Serbia on September 26, 1934. He came to be considered, after Milovan Djilas, Yugoslavia's leading dissident for his stand against totalitarianism. The Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov nominated Mr. Mihajlov for the Nobel Peace Prize. His work was cited by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. Mr. Mihajlov is the author of Moscow Summer, a series of essays about writers in the Soviet Union, which was first published in a monthly series of magazine articles and later in The New Leader magazine in New York. In one of the essays he wrote that the labor camps in the Soviet Union existed before the Nazi concentration camps. The Soviet ambassador to Yugoslavia complained about the articles to Tito, whose reaction was to seize the publication and to accuse Mihajlov of "a new form of Djilasism" and to have him arrested "for slandering a friendly country." Dismissed from his university post and given a suspended sentence, Mr. Mihajlov in 1966 tried unsuccessfully to publish an independent socialist journal, Slobodni glas (Free Voice). He went on fighting for human rights, and for his writings published in the Western press, he was tried four times under Articles about "hostile propaganda" and spent seven years in prison. Recently, in an interview with Richard Byrne for an article in The Chronicles of Higher Education, Mr. Mihajlov recalled himself as a "young and impudent man" when he wrote Moscow Summer. "In my book, I wrote very positively about Krushchev's 'liberalization.' But it so happened that Krushchev was, in October 1964, overthrown by a triumvirate Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Podgorny, who immediately started 're-Stalinization.' Of course, I could not know that this would happen, and that my text would provoke such a political storm." A storm did rage in the Western press, which published many of Mihajlov's writings about human rights, and which came to his defense in the Cold War battle of ideas. In that battle figured his sister, who had emigrated to the USA in 1965. As a student at Catholic and American universities, she interrupted her studies for a Master;s degree, to fight for her brother, known as "Misha" to family and friends. "During his time of prosecution, here in America I was trying to help him," Maria wrote in a paper for the Alpha Literary and Philosophical Society, an organization in Fairfax, Va. "I was in touch with a number of important people and institutions who were interested in Misha's case, such as Zbigniev Brezinski, John Dos Passos, Amnesty International, Freedom House in New York, the U.S. State Department, and local and national television news and feature broadcasters." Arthur Miller came to Mr. Mihalov's defense when, as president of Pen, a writer's organization in New York, he refused to hold a meeting of the International Pen in Yugoslavia in protest of Tito's treatment of Mr. Mihajlov. U.S. Senator Robert Dole was refused an audience with Tito after visiting the jailed author at Sremska Mitrovica, the prison near Belgrade where Djilas had also once served a sentence for his writings. Maria also met with Robert Straus, of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and subsequently translated her brother's book Russian Themes, published by Straus in 1968. She also translated with her husband Mihajlov's book, Underground Notes, first published by Sheed, Andrews & McMeel in 1976. While in prison, Mr. Mihajlov smuggled out writings in letters to his family and sometimes with the help of his mother, Vera. These writings became the book, Unscientific Thoughts, as yet unpublished in English. He is also the author of Planetary Consciousness. His books have been translated into many languages. Maria recalls, "In 1977 one night on the CBS evening news, Walter Cronkite read the news of an amnesty for political prisoners in Yugoslavia, and the first person he mentioned was Mihajlo Mihajlov. Misha told us he was very proud of being mentioned by Mr. Cronkite." After the amnesty, and in exile in the USA and Europe before regaining his native country's citizenship, Mr. Mihajlov taught at Yale, University of Virginia, Ohio State University, Siegen University in Germany, and Glasgow University in Scotland. He was an analyst and commentator for Intellectual and Ideological Affairs from 1985 to 1994 at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. According to a former student of his at the University of Virginia, Ira Straus, who collaborated with the author on political and literary projects, Mr. Mihajlov at RFE "diverged from the nationalist and anti-Russian bent of many of the other Eastern Europeans working there. In fact, he maintained a lifelong sympathetic engagement with Russian philosophy, and after 1991 favored faster integration to Russia with the West." As a dissident, Mr. Mihajlov made it his cause to fight for other dissidents and to promote world democracies. He was a leader of The Democracy International (TDI) and TDI's Committee to Aid Democratic Dissidents in Yugoslavia (CADDY) and he helped promote the Association to Unite the Democracies. He received many awards, among them an annual award in 1978 from the International League for Human Rights. Upon his return to Serbia in 2001 and up until his recent illness, Mr. Mihajlov kept writing and presenting his views in newspaper and magazine articles and in television appearances as a commentator on public affairs. "He was a celebrity in Yugoslavia," Maria says of her brother's return to his native land. "We can all take a lesson from his remarkable life and the things he stood for. I hope the world recognizes it has lost a freedom fighter," are the words of Robert Thompson, ALPS secretary. Mr. Mihajlov himself is more modest about the role played by dissidents. In Mr. Byrne's article in Chronicles, Mr. Mihajlov said, "I do not think that dissidents seriously affected the situation in Communist countries, especially Yugoslavia. Of course, it was important that they exist, but they did not overthrow one-party dictatorship. Western governments were more influential in such matters." But Myron Kolatch, editor of The New Leader, disagrees, according to Mr. Byrne. Before Mr. Mihajlov's death, Mr. Kolatch asserted that Mr. Mihajlov has, in fact, "made a real contribution to how the world has been shaped. He was one of many dissidents to do so. He is, in his mind, still doing that." Mr. Mihajlov is survived by his sister, Maria, of Washington, DC, and a nephew Sean, of Point of Rocks, Md. A funeral service will be held in Belgrade on Saturday, March 13. A memorial service in Washington will be held at a later date.