Imagine being a scientist in Serbia. It means smuggling equipment in your trouser pockets, losing your best colleagues to Western Europe, and watching helplessly as their jobs are taken up by political appointees. For three decades, Milan Kurepa was professor of physics at the University of Belgrade. But he resigned in 1998 after watching his once-thriving lab become what he calls 鈥渁 workplace of ghosts鈥� as, one by one, colleagues and students fled the country. Rather than suffer in silence, he agreed to speak to New 杏吧原创. Gillian Sandford travelled to Belgrade to hear his story.
You鈥檙e a known critic of the Milosevic regime. Have you suffered personally in any way because of that?
I鈥檝e never been harassed or threatened. I know some academics who have been harassed and even fired because of their anti-Milosevic political affiliation.
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I鈥檒l give you an example of the kinds of things that happen to me. A few months ago, I was at a conference of 400 university physicists and high school teachers. I was due to lecture on the 1998 University Act. This act was brought in by the Milosevic regime to ensure that all appointments are made on party loyalty, rather than academic or intellectual ability. It was designed to stifle universities as centres of free thought and free speech.
I arrived at the lecture theatre it was locked and the three physicists at the conference who belonged to Milosevic鈥檚 ruling Socialist Party-two of whom were organisers-refused to let me give the lecture.
Surely the new law doesn鈥檛 actually state: 鈥淎ppointments will only be made on party loyalty鈥�?
Under the new law, all rectors, deans and vice-deans of universities will be appointed by the Ministry of Education instead of by the universities themselves. Moreover, these deans now have the power to hire and fire staff without appeal. This effectively politicises the university system and makes appointments dependent on party loyalty, not academic criteria.
Is this why you resigned from your university post?
I did not want to be put in a position where a minister of education-a puppet of the ruling party-has the power to decide whether or not I can be a professor. We were also asked to sign a new contract.
This was, in a way, affirming support for the regime. I did not want to do that. So I preferred to retire. A wave of resignations and firings have occurred because of the university law. Around 150 academics either quit or were sacked from Belgrade University.
How has your scientific work been affected by the break-up of Yugoslavia, the wars between Serbia and its neighbours, sanctions, and last year鈥檚 NATO-led bombing campaign?
In 1990, I had a thriving atomic physics lab with 18 staff. We tried to stay at the cutting edge of discovery. We were planning to work with polarised electrons. Ten years later, Serbian science is at the level it was in the 1950s. Most of the staff-people I nurtured myself-have left for other countries, or retired.
Most UN sanctions against Serbia have now been lifted. But this doesn鈥檛 appear to have helped ordinary people like you. If anything, it seems to have consolidated Milosevic鈥檚 hold on power.
That鈥檚 a false statement. Now, at least, there is some free flow of information. When sanctions were in force, Milosevic used to say to people: 鈥淟ook at the EU and the West. They are against people in Yugoslavia.鈥� He was able to use sanctions to win support from people and whip up anti-Western feeling. This was particularly strong after last year鈥檚 bombing.
I can鈥檛 remember the details of sanctions against South Africa, but I know that in Iraq children are dying because of sanctions. Is that Western policy? What kind of policy is that? Has the US succeeded in bringing down Castro in nearly 40 years of sanctions against Cuba? Are there any politicians willing to think about people-not about one leader? Poor people suffer, but the sanctions don鈥檛 affect the ruling party.
Yet most sanctions against Serbia were lifted quite a while back. Aren鈥檛 you free to travel and resume contacts with colleagues abroad?
I hardly know where to start. We expected to travel all across Western Europe. Years ago, under the Marshal Tito regime, Yugoslavia鈥檚 was the best passport to have in the whole of Eastern Europe. Now gaining a visa takes time and money. I need a letter of invitation to go to a conference. Someone has to guarantee that they will support me with sufficient funds to cover my basic needs. Sometimes, this is quite a humiliating process. Then I must wait between two days and two weeks for a visa.
Freedom to travel should have enabled me to visit my former students in other countries and to re-establish connections with colleagues abroad and with institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Visits abroad should have meant guest lectures and joint papers and even joint projects, as well as access to journals and the chance to buy instruments and equipment. We probably would also have been able to generate additional funding. But none of this happened.
How do you carry out research when you鈥檙e starved of contact with the outside world?
It is not possible to do serious research without journals, without textbooks, with intermittent water and electricity, because our experiments take at least a week to do and we need constant power. Often, we just have to improvise.
How do you improvise?
We have a long tradition of improvisation. For the five years before the collapse of Yugoslavia, we were smuggling in equipment. We have ended up smuggling all kinds of things in, like the time a colleague in Manchester brought in parts for an electron scattering machine. In 1985, I also managed to bring in a large metal shield, about six feet square, from France. I was fine at Paris airport but when I reached Belgrade the customs offer asked what it was and was very suspicious.
I can鈥檛 remember how many times during the late 1980s I crossed the border between Serbia and neighbouring countries with gaskets, potentiometers and other equipment hidden in my pockets, bags, suitcases, anywhere. Perhaps the most amusing time was when I was in Brussels and wanted to bring home some xenon gas. It鈥檚 stored at very high pressures. We asked the Yugoslav Ambassador if he would bring it in diplomatic bags, but he refused. A colleague eventually tried to take it on a plane. When it was X-rayed at the airport, the security guard asked what it was. When he was told it was gas under pressure, he just screamed: 鈥淕et it out of here! Get it out of here!鈥�
If it is so difficult to travel to the West, what about your Western colleagues? Have they maintained contact with you?
Some have been very helpful. But generally people have not been supportive. So many of them never cared enough to even ask if, for example, we were all right, how we lived, whether we needed anything. I get letters from some Japanese physicists from the University of Kyoto, but I have had arguments with my colleagues from France. Britons are very quiet: they just don鈥檛 say anything!
Why do you think your colleagues in other countries have been largely silent?
I think in most cases they began to believe the anti-Serbian propaganda in their countries. They believed all those stories. All the propaganda that said Serbian people were killing and raping Croatians and Bosnians, that we are beasts.
Was this really all 鈥減ropaganda鈥�? Surely, some of it was true?
We have a very troubled history in this country-atrocities have been committed by Serbs and against Serbs. Some Serbs have been killing and raping, but I believe much that has been reported is not true.
Bluntly speaking, can you blame us for being indifferent? After all, we live comfortable lives. No scientist in a Western country is suffering because of Milosevic.
If you believe that science is global, then I鈥檓 convinced you should care about your colleagues in other countries. Colleagues from all over the world are adding to the body of knowledge called science. It isn鈥檛 just those in Western Europe. We in Serbia are no different. If we suffer, then science suffers. We physicists treat one another as an international gang. We support each other. It鈥檚 a sense of togetherness. If I work in five or six countries, I treat my colleagues there as I treat those here in Belgrade.
Let鈥檚 move on. In terms of the future, what specifically would you like your overseas colleagues to do now?
There is one thing that they can do: supply us with journals-preferably from 1991 onwards. Believe it or not, in the university, we haven鈥檛 been getting journals for eight years or more. We don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 going on in our fields, which is fatal for any scientist.
There鈥檚 a phrase in physics: 鈥渋nventing hot water鈥�. We鈥檝e done it several times over here-believing that we have discovered something, only to learn that it has already been discovered and written about. We didn鈥檛 know because we did not have the journal articles.
Are there any examples where you鈥檝e written a paper on something that鈥檚 already been discovered?
I recently wrote a paper on inert gas ionisation and the electronic states of molecules, and submitted it to various journals. One referee wrote back to say that something similar had already been done, and that the reference was missing from my submission. But how was I to know? We don鈥檛 get any journals. This has happened more than once.
Countries at war often pay more attention to science-particularly its military aspects-than in peacetime. Is this the case in Serbia? Are any areas of science doing well?
No areas of science are doing well here. The government has specialist institutions for defence-related projects, but they were bombed. I really don鈥檛 know so much about them.
Are you unwilling to talk about this because of your personal security?
No, if someone鈥檚 working for defence then they are of course not allowed to talk about it. That鈥檚 the same in the US and Britain. But I don鈥檛 want to be involved in questions about military institutions and defence. I just don鈥檛 like it. If my intention when I graduated was to work with the military I would have gone there straight from university and had a big flat. I didn鈥檛 choose to do that. That鈥檚 the choice. And now I鈥檓 a poor person. It was simply that I chose a different way of life and a different path.
Do you think Serbia鈥檚 present hardship is a price worth paying, that it may lead to democracy?
I don鈥檛 like that question.
Why don鈥檛 you like it?
Because behind the question I feel propaganda again. This is not a logical question. We were brought into this state of nihilism by our authorities and nobody asked us if we were ready to pay any price for this stupidity. We don鈥檛 have democracy here. I can鈥檛 see any connection between the current situation in the country and the possibility of democracy. We are under an oppressive government and no one asked us if we wanted this current situation.