This is the collection of the prominent intellectual and dissident of the SFR Yugoslavia, Zoran Đinđić. During his studies at the beginning of the 70s, Đinđić was active in a leftist oppositional student movement. After being tried for attempting to organize an alternative independent student union, he left Yugoslavia for Germany and only returned at the beginning of the 90s. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Đinđić was one of the most important leaders of the opposition movement during the 1990s, and between 2001 and 2003 he served as prime minister of Serbia. The collection consists of books which Đinđić accumulated from his student days up until his assassination.
Zoran Đinđić’s personal library dates back to the beginning of the 1970s, during his days as a philosophy student at the University of Belgrade. During his studies, Đinđić was active in the Student Union of the Faculty of Philosophy and in informal groups of the radical left. Because of his participation at the gathering of students at the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana in 1974, where a leftist critique of the socio-political conditions in the country was debated, Đinđić was arrested and put on trial. Although his sentence was dropped, he faced discrimination afterwards and left Yugoslavia in 1977. Đinđić returned at the beginning of the 90s and became one of the founders of the Democratic Party.
The most important books from this period are in Serbian and include topics on philosophy and sociology. Some of the books on the radical left and anarchism are of special importance, since the author dedicated his attention to these topics during his studies. The collection includes a few rare books, such as an edition of Peter Kropotkin’s: Die Eroberung des Brotes: Wohlstand für alle [The Conquest of Bread: Prosperity for Everybody] from 1920. After Đinđić’s departure for Germany, the amount of books in German dealing with political history and philosophy grew. Since Đinđić spent much of his time between 1977 and 1990 in Germany, his collection did not result in political pressure from the authorities.
During the overturning of Slobodan Milošević in October 2000, Zoran Đinđić was the key leader of the opposition. In the aftermath of these events, Đinđić became the first democratically elected prime minister of Serbia in 2001, a position he held until his assassination in 2003.
The books on contemporary politics, economy and management in English started to dominate Đinđić’s collection after his return to Serbia. A special segment of the collection are the books he received as prime minister, with the dedications of politicians from around the world. After his assassination in 2003, his personal library came into the possession of the Đinđić family. The National Library of Serbia catalogued the books in 2008, and in 2009, the Zoran Đinđić Foundation received the collection to ensure its public use. That means that this collection is operated jointly by the two institutions, the Đinđić Foundation and the National Library of Serbia.
All of the books are accessible to researchers. However, the collection is not yet well known to the public as a distinct library. The collection currently contains over 1200 units. The plan is to incorporate another thousand of Đinđić’s books which were kept by his mother Mila Đinđić until her death in 2016.
Description of content
The personal library represents Đinđić’s book collection containing old and rare editions. Thus, the collection is declared a cultural good of significant importance to Serbia and is under special protection. Some of the books are unique in Serbia. The collection also contains a selection of political and philosophical literature in German, which cannot be found in any other library in Serbia.
