Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
SaSa Zabjek UDC 323.15(497):800 
Institute for Ethnic Studies 
Ljubljana, Yugoslavia 
SOME REFLECTIONS ON CULTURAL PLURALISM IN YUGOSLAVIA* 
The Yugoslav society is built on self-management relations and on 
the equality of all the nations and nationalities. It is 
precisely these relations which permanently unite our community, 
which is not only multinational but also multilingual. All the 
most important legal acts derive from the principles of national 
and cultural pluralism. Equality itself also expresses itself 
through education, instruction and in culture, by way of the 
activity of various institutions, publishing activities, mass 
media, etc. It is expressed above all through education, in which 
the relation to individual languages is reflected to the greatest 
extent. It is precisely the right to the mother tongue which 
paves the way to the right to one's own culture, not only in the 
sense of its existence but also through creative cooperation in 
the course of one's development. 
Modern nations strive for the affirmation and defence of national 
and cultural identity. Nationalities are recgonised through their 
cultural forms. The whole of culture is firmly linked with its 
collective experience of a collective historical past, although 
it does not have equal significance in all eras and with all 
nations. Such is also the case in Yugoslavia. Edvard Kardelj 
wrote: "A different historical past has given a different degree 
of economic development to individual parts of Yugoslavia and, 
with this, also differences in the general social and cultural 
level". These differences have not altered substantially in the 
decades since the National Liberation War, so that it is 
impossible to reduce the culture of Yugoslavia to a single 
general model, although both its origin and development must be 
traced in the framework of a united multinational self-management 
society and on the basis of new, productive social forms and 
economic and historical development; it is the reflection of the 
collective experiences. It would be very difficult to enumerate 
all the many factors which define individual cultures, linked as 
they are to a specific environment, conditions and situations 
(e.g. cultural background, tradition, language; models, styles). 
National cultures cannot be integrated into such a monolithic 
culture without losing some of their own characteristics in the 
process. The cultures of the Yugoslav nations and nationalities 
have developed over the centuries in different socio-economic 
environments; they have existed in different cultural spheres and 
hence achieved different levels of development, which have been 
more or less in correspondence with the coexistent demands of 
national politics and of the country. Thus the meaning and role 
that culture plays in different nations and nationalities is also 
specific. It is also necessary to take into account here the 
interaction with the culture of the central society. 
  
* Original: Slovene 
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Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
However, all these differences are diminishing. In every 
nationality there are elements, creations and discoveries of the 
cumulative cultural developments that make themselves felt 
directly and indirectly in books, films, theatre, music, art, and 
scientific achievements of the authors, members of a particular 
nation/nationality. But this cultural cooperation as a creative 
conflict with the existing world (national culture) as well as 
with that other world (the culture of other nations) makes 
possible the formation of new structures. Such a new structure 
should also be a culture of “equality in diversity," with a 
respect for particularities, in which individual cultures 
interconnect, intertwine and permeate one another, thus creating 
a kind of dialogue with the existing particularities, traditions 
and differences. Equality in diversity also includes cultural 
pluralism, which, of course, also opens up the question of 
relations between the parts and the whole, the question of the 
political and cultural association of the multinational 
community. We cannot deny the differences existing in Yugoslavia 
in the understanding of culture/cultures and in the practice of 
the individual republics and provinces. In other words, cultural 
pluralism means the right to a free development of all the 
cultures; to their openness and reciprocal permeation, as 
national culture is not a reservation in which the processes of 
creativity are pumped dry. There is a constant critical dialogue 
between the cultures, in which not only does a certain culture 
establish itself which at the same time influences other 
cultures, but also the existing cultural influences of the 
different nations/ethnic groups give rise to changes in the 
development of culture in general and in society as a whole. And 
changes in culture are urgently needed, since a culture is only 
alive when it is in the state of constant change and development 
(neither is cultural tradition static). This is not forced 
paracultural (external) change but culture's own need for 
development and change, since it is only in this way that it 
avoids negating itself and does not become removed from its 
historical essence. 
We can look at the differences between cultures as, on the one 
hand, creating the favourable possibility for the enrichment and 
development of each national culture separately, and, on the 
other hand, as maintaining the possibility of generating a new 
structure, as already mentioned - the culture of the "equality in 
diversity," - as a unifying element interlinking the Yugoslav 
nations and nationalities. Such a culture is not achieved 
overnight but demands planned education by which we not only 
ensure the basic cultural information which we have from each 
other but, through cultural awareness, also slowly diminish the 
existing differences. This new culture, in the,sense of numerous 
cultures made up of individual cultures having different 
relations to tradition, different cultural backgrounds, 
historical pasts, a greater or smaller sensitivity to questions 
of language, special problems in their development which cannot 
be generalised, and following their own paths and forms in the 
creation of the collective cultural interests of the Yugoslav 
nations and nationalities, does not exclude the unified Yugoslav 
cultural policies which issue from uniform cultural criteria with 
a clearly defined direction but flexible enough to encompass 
“differences which create unity," with an understanding of a new, 
progressive and creative culture with clearly defined 
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Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
correlations of cultural creativity of the nations and 
nationalities. Such a culture, which stimulates and supplements a 
mutual understanding of other cultures, can be considered a 
priceless link which perpetually interconnects our nations and 
nationalities, without regard to the actual state of mutual 
relations at any given time. : 
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