A Short History of the Serbian Heritage Academy of Canada

The Serbian Heritage Academy of Canada (Српска национална академија у Канади) was established in 1981, and the following year, in 1982, it received the Charity Status as a registered charitable organization. The founders and the first Board members were: Nikola Pašić, lawyer, the  grandson of Nikola Pašić, the famous Serbian statesman; Sofija Škorić, librarian of the University of Toronto; Dušan Bijelić, art historian; Nikola Alexeichenko, civil engineer; and, Paul Pavlovich, teacher and Vice-Principal.

The basic principles of the Serbian Heritage Academy, as one may  expect of an organization of this type, were and still remain, were solely of cultural and educational character:

The Golden Age of the SHA (1981 – 1993)

Nikola Pašić and Sofija Škorić were at the helm of the organization from the founding in 1981 until 1993. The Academy during time strictly observed its founding principles, and because of that fact and the ensuing activities, it achieved a great popularity and affirmation. Thus, that period could be regarded as the "Golden Age" in the history of SHA.

Because of its diversified and various academic programs, as well as truly diligent work of the Board of Directors, and contributions by many members, the Academy gained a great respect and credibility throughout the Serbian Diaspora on the North American continent, especially within the Canadian establishment, in the academic and intellectual circles of Canada, Serbia and Yugoslavia, and in addition, a great respect of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

In addition to the five founding members, who served on the Board for many years, at every annual meeting, new members augmented it by being  democratically elected and added to the Board, who contributed new ideas and worked actively and thus furthered the development of the Academy. We will mention just a few names: Mrs. Rosa Somborac, Gojko Protich, Nikola Bogdanović, Jana Dželetović, Rade Dodić, Dr. Žika Davidovac, Mirjana Simić, Jelena Petričić, Braca Divić, Dr. Velimir Ristić, Nada Stegnajić, Gordana Tomić, and Dragan Todorović (aka Charles Todd).

The Academy had its chapters, members and associates in fourteen cities throughout Canada and the U.S.A. Guests of the Academy were very often invited speakers by the SHA chapters. Members, organizers and hosts were in Montreal: Dr. Dimitrije Pivnički, Dr. Jovan Cvejić, Dr. Milaca Vatic; in Windsor: Stanislav Markova; in Cleveland: Dr. Brainier Simić-Glavaški; in Edmonton: Prof. Milan Dimić, Jovan Mišić and Branislav Vilimonović; in Vancouver: Radomir and Nada Putnik, and Boba Stefanović; in San Francisco: Moma Tasić, Desa Tomasevich Wakeman and the archpriest Dušan Bunjević; in Los Angelos: Lupče and Jovanka Radivojević, Miša and Ankica Milosavljević, Dušica Savić-Benghiat; in San Diego: Aca and Danka Pantelić, Dr. Predrag Pecić; in Chicago: Miki Nedić, Savo Rakočević, Prof. Nikola Moravčević and Stevo Dobrijević; in Millwaukee: Dr. Lazar Brkić; in New York: Vlada Adjemović, Dr. Dušan Kosević and Ratko and Mirjana Pićurić; in Washington: Djordje and Mira Jovanović, Ružica Popović and Mihajlo Budjevac.

The list is rather long of all those who rightly deserve an honourable mention because of their generous help given to the Academy. Some of these great people, the Serbian patriots, are not, unfortunately, any longer alive, but their work and contribution cannot be forgotten.

Conferences, academic lectures, literary evenings, art exhibitions and concerts were of academic and international character and attracted large audiences. The SHA was the only organization in the Diaspora which had established formal cooperation with the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. The Academician Dr. Predrag Palavestra was appointed as the coordinator .

“Democracy and Parliamentarism” an international scholarly conference co-sponsored by the University of Toronto was held in 1981 to mark the centenary of the Founding of the Serbian Radical Party. It put the Academy in the center of attention and gave it an academic importance, which it  maintained in its future endeavours. It was interesting to note that at the conference there were also, beside the well-known historians, the grandson of Nikola Pašić; Milan St. Protić, the great-grandson of Stojan Protić; Prince Alexander Karadjordjević, heir to the Serbian throne; Dr. Milorad Draškovich, (Director of the Hoover Institute ) and son of Minister Drašković; Count  George Ignatieff, Chancellor of the University of Toronto, a grandson of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, a close relative of Tsar Nicholas II, who was also the first Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and Count Bagration, the President of the Tolstoy Foundation.

The following conferences organized by the Academy and staged at the University of Toronto were devoted to Serbian poets Jovan Dučić and Djura Jakšić, the Serbian philologist and father of Serbian orthography Vuk Karadzić, the Great Serbian Migration of 1690, and other important historical and literary topics.

Lectures by many prominent intellectuals, Serbian academicians and professors were organized at the University of Toronto: academician Dobrica Cosić, academician Dr. Vojislav Djurić, academician Dr. Ljuba Tadić, academician Dr. Andrija Gams, academician Dr. Predrag Palavestra, academician Vasilije Krestić, academician Dr. Dimitrije Djordjević, Vaderbilt University professor Dr. Alex Dragnich, academician Dr. Dragoljub Živojinović, as well as Dr. Dušan Bataković, architect Dr. Predrag Ristić and many others.

Professors from the University of Toronto, in addition to professors from American universities such as George Vid Tomasevich, Dr. John Loud, Dr. Vasa Mihailović, Dr. Gale Stokes, Dr. Nikola Moravčević, Dr. Aleksandar Saša Petrov, Dr. Želimir Juričić were also guests of the Academy.

Members of the older generation, who were historical personalities themselves, such as Velimir Tošković from Windsor and Nikola Kosić from Milwaukee presented their witness accounts about the beginning of WWII in Yugoslavia.

Other speakers were film and theatre director Prof. Arsenije Jovanović, theater director Vida Ognjenović, theologian Dr. Veselin Kesić, noted law expert from the Belgrade University Prof. Dr. Radoslav Stojanović, Dr. Klara Mandić (founder of the Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society), Prof. Dr.Živorad Stojković, Dr. Lazar Brkić, the theologian Dr. Stanimir Spasović, and church dignitaries Dr. Atanasije Jevtić, and Dr. Amfilohije Radović, as well as Irinej, the then Bishop of Niš, currently His Holiness the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Famous and very popular poets and writers from Serbia were guests of the SHA: Matija Bećković, Rajko Petrov Nogo, Danko Popović, Brana Crnčević, Stevan Raičković, Momo Kapor, Jovan Radulović and others. Some of them extended their trips and visited Serbian communities in cities throughout Canada and USA, on more than one occasion.

Performances of the great actors from Belgrade theatres Ljuba Tadić and Aleksandar Berček will remain in the history of SHA as the great artistic achievements.

The SHA guests, while in Toronto, were hosted and entertained by the Jauković, Protić, Stegnajić and Škorić families.

Exhibitions such as “The Serbian national books published in Exile”, a photo exhibition by Boris Spremo, the renowned Toronto Star photographer, “Photographic presentation of Canada through the eyes of a New Canadian,” and the pastels art works of Aleksandar Petričić, were also important art events staged by SHA.
An academic project of SHA, organized in order to pay tribute to the Canadian medical volunteers in Serbia during the Great War, was officially supported by both states, Yugoslavia and Canada. In the hall of the Medical Sciences Building at the University of Toronto on November 11, 1984, the Remembrance Day,  an exhibit was opened and a bronze plaque “Thank you, Canadians!” unveiled by the Dean of Medicine, together with Dr. Dimitrije Pivnički from Montreal and Dr. Josif Divić from Ottawa. SHA was awarded a special Citation from Bill Davis, the Premier of Ontario, for this endeavour.

The same exhibit was presented at the National Library in Belgrade by Mr. Fraser, the Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and Sofija Škorić, who was the author of the Exhibit and of the academic presentation. Later on, when the Exhibition traveled through Serbia, visiting many cities, the new ambassador, Mr. James Bissett, took part in the openings. After completing the tour, the exhibit was gifted to the Serbian Medical Society’s Museum of Serbian Medicine in Belgrade and at that time another “Thank you Canadians” plague was unveiled at the Museum. Special recognition and medals were awarded to the organizers as symbols of gratitude by the Society of the Descendants of the  Salonika Veterans.

A very successful multimedia event, in Serbian and English, marking the Anniversary of the 750 year of Death of St. Sava, on October 12, 1985 at the Ryerson Theatre in downtown Toronto was choreographed and directed by Prof. Arsenije Jovanović. This performance was repeated in Montreal, Windsor and Chicago.

The benediction of His Holiness Patriarch German was read by Bishop Irinej of Niš, currently the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Greetings were sent or personally delivered by His Grace Bishop Georgije, prelate of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Canada, Mila Mulroney, then the First Lady of Canada, Otto Jelinek, Federal Minister for Multiculturalism, Tony Ruprecht, Ontario Minister without portfolio responsible for Disabled Persons and Multiculturalism, Art Eggleton, Mayor of the City of Toronto, Elizabeth Kishkon, Mayor of the city of Windsor, academician Antonije Isaković, Vice President of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, as well as academician Dobrica Cosić, academician Miodrag Pavlović, writer Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, poet Ljubomir Simović and Bishop Atanasije Jevtić.

After the staging of the event in Toronto, arrangements were made for the poet Matija Bećković to visit Serbian communities in Canada and the U.S.A., with the purpose of collecting donations for the construction of the St. Sava temple on the Vračar Hill in Belgrade, the largest Eastern Orthodox church in the world. The Serbs donated at that time $350.000. For this humanitarian work His Holiness German, the Serbian Patriarch, acknowledged the work of the Academy by proclaiming SHA a "ktitor" (a founder) of the Church of St. Sava.

On the 50th Anniversary of the Jasenovac concentration camp, there was a commemorative academy and promotion of a publication about the Jasenovac victims, which was published by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1990. This commemoration was organized by Mrs. Nada Stegnajić, herself a surviving detainee of Jasenovac. Incidentally, Nada is credited with being the first to introduce the Serbian language classes in Ontario schools.

SHA translated and published books by Meša Selimović, Ivo Andrić, Prof.George Vid Tomasevich, Negovan Rajić, academician Ljuba Tadić and Matija Bećković. Also, SHA made a sizeable financial contribution towards the publishing of the Collected Works of Jovan Dučić, in 1989, which was also the first time in the post-WW II Yugoslavia that Dučić's works were published.

A significant financial help was donated in 1987 to facilitate the publishing of a monumental book “The Heritage of Kosovo: Monuments and Symbols of the Serbian People.” The book will represent “Our Title Deed to Kosovo and Metohija,” stated at the time the president of the Editorial Board, then Bishop Pavle, and later Serbian Patriarch, as he foresaw the coming events. The same year the book “Oj davori, ti Kosovo ravno” was edited by poet Rajko Petrov Nogo and published by SHA.

An important book “Serbs in Ontario” published in 1987 is the best, most objective history of the Serbian in Ontario to date. Gerry Phillips, Minister for Citizenship, at the special promotion of the book on September 12, 1988, proclaimed that this was the best publication which his Ministry had financially supported.

Numerous lectures and promotions  of various Serbian publications organized by SHA attracted audiences and enlarged the SHA membership. A great number of Serbs in Toronto and the surroundings were always willing to work for the organization, as well as provide donations. Some of the projects were subsidized by the Ontario government, while others University of Toronto  officially supported and participated in all event staged at the University. Many events were opened by George Ignatieff, the University Chancellor or Dr. Gleb Žekulin, Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies.

SHA contributed considerably to building bridges between the Mother Country and the Diaspora in the decade of 1980 and after. That was an attempt of a younger generation of Serbs in Canada, who wanted to open their doors to the most prominent Serbian scholars and writers, in order to make possible for them to meet their exiled countrymen, whom the communist government in Yugoslavia had tendentiously accused of being “people's enemy,” while the Slovene, Croat and Macedonian immigrants were embraced as “our people.”

SHA invited as guests the most popular writers, the Serbian dissidents, who were bravely raising their voices demanding their human rights and freedom of speech in those famous public debates that were taking place at 7 Francuska Street in Belgrade, home of the Association of Serbian Writers.

The Serbian Heritage Academy, eloquently and principally, on a scholarly level, defended the interest of the Serbian community before the Canadian authorities, and at the academia stage, contributing to the good image of the Serbian people in Canada, and serving as the Diaspora’s spiritual centre.

SHA opened a new world for our guests. They came here and met and got to know our people and upon their return to the Homeland they were able to bear witness verbally and in their writings about the real attitude of the Serbian patriotic émigrés.

The Centre for the Newcomers  (1993 – 2001)

The second period in the evolution of the Serbian Heritage Academy might be labelled as the “Time of the Serbian Centre for the Newcomers.” The tragedy that beset the Serbian people, occasioned by the dissolution of Yugoslavia, did not leave unaffected even the Serbs in the Diaspora. The Serbs who had been expelled from their ancestral homes dating back centuries started to arrive as refugees in Canada. Some members of the SHA came to the idea that these refugees needed to be welcomed and helped to overcome the shock and trauma and to integrate themselves into the Canadian society. The Academy could make itself available to these people by offering vital information, translating and notarizing documents, by directing them to the various government services available to them or by preparing them for job interviews and helping them find suitable employment. The Academy, as it was, could not do much more, because it had not been set up for such a function nor did it have available resources and proper condition for such humanitarian work. At the beginning, the Canadian government provided adequate help to the newcomers so many of them improved their knowledge of the English language, adjusted rather rapidly and became successful Canadians.

It was necessary for the Academy to formally revise its founding Goals and Objectives by adding a new clause, new goal and objective, to cover the immigrant reception services, which it was embarking on. An examination of its activities in the years that followed shows that aid to the refugees and immigrant reception services became its top priority and also sole justification of for its existence.

The Government of Ontario provided a grant of $ 150.000 to make it possible for the Academy to purchase a building, which it adapted as “The Centre for Newcomers,” under the condition that SHA contribute 25% of capital and an obligation for volunteer work for the following ten years. The second condition was that SHA had to provide for immigrants a full time services, i.e. from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, five days a week. Evenings and weekends were left free for other activities. This quite responsible and demanding work did not leave much time for the Academy staff to devote to cultural programmes, as it had done in the previous period.

Analyzing the activities of the Academy for this period one has to conclude that the SHA Board surrendered its cultural activities to the societies with whom they allied in an occasional cooperation, such as the literary society “Desanka Maksimović”,  the Association of the Graduates of Belgrade University “Singidunum”, and the historical society “Preporod”.
As the Academy changed its profile, it ceased to be the magnet that it once was for its membership, which used to number in the hundreds. It was the ability of the Academy to satisfy their intellectual and cultural needs, not its humanitarian work, that attracted them to the SHA in the first place. Once that disappeared, their interest waned and stopped renewing their annual memberships. On the other hand, the SHA Board failed to find ways and means to recruit replacements from the thousands of newcomers that had availed themselves of the services that SHA extended to them upon their arrival in Canada as they felt no loyalty or obligation to repay the favours once they settled and set their roots in the Canada. Sofija Škorić, who used to be a spiritus movens of SHA, became preoccupied with other projects and activities, but nonetheless continued to promote the Serbian culture at the University of Toronto, by organizing lectures and exhibits on the Cyrillic alphabet, Ivo Andrić the Nobel Prize winner, the 800th Anniversary of the Monastery Hilandar,  and others. She kept the doors of the University Library open to the guests of “Desanka Maksimović” whenever they asked for it. The long standing president of SHA, the respected Nikola Pašić, resigned in 1994. Dr. Desanka Krstić was elected the new president but remained in office only for one year. Mr. Dragomir (aka Koča) Radojković was elected in 1995 and remained at that position until 2013, seldom calling annual meetings or holding Board elections.

The Centre functioned thanks, first of all, to an army of volunteers, who served in the Centre daily, who considered this their patriotic duty, and because the Government was providing some financial assistance. Let us mention just a few volunteers who deserve our special respect: Petar and Saveta Milojević, Bilka Mironović, Milena Milošević, Kaća Lazarević, Suzana Smith, Andja Stepanović, Zorica Radišić, Mirjana Matejić, Katarina Kostić and others.

By 2000 the wave of new immigrants subsided and the Canadian government stopped the financial subsidies to the Centre for Newcomers. Consequently, the Centre had to close and SHA faced dire financial problems. Thousands of immigrants passed through the Centre and used its services, but hardly anyone became a member and volunteered his/her work. They looked upon the Academy simply as a service to which they were entitled to, without any wish to belong to the organization, to adopt it as their own, to develop it, to work as volunteers. Why it was so perhaps some future historical-sociological objective study may find the explanation. The Board made a decision to rent the premises in order to be able to keep the building.

The Dormant Time (2000 – February 2013)

The third period, from 2000 to February 2013, may be characterized as the time of hardly any activities. The Board, which failed to call regularly annual meetings of the membership, did not changed since 1995. The previous membership for the most part disassociated themselves, while the Board itself did not have desire, knowledge, or energy to revive the Academy. Thus the organization was existing on paper only, without any significant events, without a budget and practically without its building, as it was leased out. The legitimate question arose: for whom and for what purpose did such an organization, bearing the name "Serbian", exist?

The Revival of the Serbian Heritage Academy 2013

The original founders of SHA, and a considerable number of the old members as well as some newcomers, intellectuals, all good Serbs, patriots and successful Canadians, who valued the importance and the role of culture in the preservation of  the ethno-cultural identity of Serb in the Diaspora, decided, in December 2009, to start an action to revive the Serbian Heritage Academy.

The process was long and painful as the existing Board in its autism strove relentlessly to hang on, refusing to relinquish it "powers". The struggle between the two sides persisted until February 3, 2013 when, finally, at the Annual Meeting the membership, in a democratic manner, elected a completely new Board of Directors, consisting of : Sofija Škorić, President; Miro Miketić, Vice President; Rajko Radojević, Secretary General; Dejan Milićević, Treasurer; and members-at-large: Dragana Babić, (Renovation); Dr. Radomir Baturan (Publishing); Dragica Braunstein (Literature); Katarina Kostić (Media); and, Djuro Lubarda (Art).

The new Board immediately proclaimed the return to the original Goals and Objectives of SHA, i.e. to preserve the Serbian Heritage, to promote the Serbian culture, to develop special relationship with the Serbian people in the Mother Country, and to foster good citizenship in Canada befitting the Canadians.