Abstract

The Zadar Declaration of 9 August 1966 is a curious document. Its original intent was the founding of the Movement of Independent Intellectuals at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Zadar branch of Zagreb University, which would sponsor a new independent socialist magazine, Free Voice or Free Word, in Tito's Yugoslavia. It was a test case whether Tito's "liberal" national communism would allow genuine freedom of thought, speech, press, association, pluralism, and tolerance characterizing an open society, democracy, and popular self-government. The regime response was the arrest of Mihajlo Mihajlov on the eve of the meeting on 8 August 1966. Yet the Mihajlov Group pressed on with the project. Due to regime pressure on the organizers, the founding meeting and Declaration became an occasion both for a critique of the ruling Party's ideological-political monopoly and an endorsement of Titoism. Nonetheless, it is a testimony to the courage of non-Marxist intellectuals who sought to speak the truth. The organizers were intimidated before the meeting, while all the signers of the Declaration were persecuted.