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Prof. Slobodan G. Markovich, PhD
Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

ATTITUDES OF YUGOSLAV AUTHORITIES TO FREEMASONRY IN YUGOSLAVIA SINCE 1945

Vol. XLIII, 2/2025, pp. 363–386
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2025.2.mar.363-386

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME:

The paper discusses why Freemasonry could not be reactivated in 1945 in Yugoslavia, unlike in some other Eastern European countries, attributing this to the rapid Sovietisation of the country in 1944–48. It analyses how the new communist authorities and UDBA formed their opinion on Freemasonry and concludes that it was essentially based on Nazi and Quisling propaganda against Freemasonry and conspiracy theories, even making use of some participants of those propaganda campaigns. The paper describes the activities of freemasonic circles in Belgrade in the 1950s and 1960s and the grossly overrated significance assigned to them by UDBA. It also retraces the efforts of Yugoslav emigrants to form their own masonic supreme body in exile. It concludes that freemasons were seen and treated from 1945 till their dormancy in the late 1960s as a “powerful internal enemy”. This view was transplanted into non-historiographical works, penned by amateur authors rather than trained scholars, in the 1980s, which even included conspiracy theories. The policy of keeping masonic archives in Belgrade under an embargo provided fertile ground for developing such theories.

 

KEYWORDS: Yugoslav Freemasonry, Anti-Masonic propaganda, Yugoslav secret services

 

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