Peter N. Kujachich Endowment in Serbian and Montenegrin Studies
Projects Supported
The following projects were awarded funding from the Kujachich Endowment:
1999
Professor Ronelle Alexander, department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, was awarded a grant to assist in the publication of a Bulgarian language textbook.
2000
Professor Eugene Hammel and Dr. Mirjana Stevanovic, departments of anthropology and demography, were awarded a grant for a demographic study of migration patterns between and within Inner Serbia and Kosovo, c. 1930-1981.
2001
Ms. Anna Vrska, a senior at Cal in the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, was awarded a travel grant to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, for research on the theme of her senior thesis, that is, the role of women in Serbian epic poetry.
The department of Slavic Languages and Literatures was granted assistance to support a Lecturer to teach Serbo-Croatian, guaranteed for two years.
2002
Professor Eugene Hammel and Dr. Mirjana Stevanovic, departments of anthropology and demography, were awarded a grant for expanded research on "The Migration of Major Ethnic Groups in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia, c. 1930-1991."
Mr. Ilija Labalo, undergraduate in philosophy, received a travel grant to Belgrade to compare the attitudes toward the ICTY and the local tribunals being organized in Serbia at that time.
Ms. Emily Shaw, Ph.D. candidate in political science, was awarded a language-training grant to study Serbo-Croatian during the summer in Novi Sad, Serbia.
2003
Mr. Victor Pineda, M.A. student in city and regional planning, was awarded a grant to do research and then produce a video on the disabled in Yugoslavia. Victor is himself disabled and confined to a wheelchair. Among other institutions, he collaborated with the Association of Disabled Students in Belgrade.
Ms. Vesna Rodic, a Ph.D. candidate in French studies, received grant support for archival research in Belgrade for an article about Ivo Andric.
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures received an award to assist with the teaching of Serbo-Croatian again for two years.
2004
Mr. Mieczyslaw Boduszynski, Ph.D. candidate in political science, received a travel grant to Belgrade to research the final stages of his dissertation on political change in the Yugoslav successor states.
Mr. Andrej Milivojevic, M.A. candidate in public policy, received a travel grant to Belgrade for his master's thesis on civil society organizations and social policy reform in Serbia.
Mr. Victor Peskin, Ph.D. candidate in political science, is also recipient of a travel grant to Belgrade. He is examining the ways in which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has affected political and legal developments in Serbia and Montenegro.
2005
Prof. David Frick as chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. This award will assist the funding of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language for two years.
Prof. Ronelle Alexander, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, received an award towards the publication of a two-volume textbook for Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language and an accompanying DVD.
2006
Eugene A. Hammel (professor emeritus, anthropology) and Mirjana Stevanovic (Ph.D. in anthropology) received funding for "Ethnic Geography in the Former Yugoslavia II," the continuation of work begun with a Kujachich grant in 2002.
Elena Morabito (Ph.D. candidate, Slavic languages and literatures) received a travel grant to conduct summer field research in Montenegro on her project "Montenegrin: Another Post-Yugoslav State Language?"
Brian Scholl, Ph.D. candidate in Economics, received a travel grant to conduct dissertation research in the summer in Serbia and Montenegro.
Steven Shackley, professor of anthropology, and Marina Milic (BA, University of Belgrade, archaeology) received funding for a project on the XRF characterization of obsidian artifacts from Serbia.
Ruth Tringham, professor of anthropology, received funding for the publication of Opovo—a Neolithic Village in Serbia, a monograph and DVD-ROM of the excavation conducted in the 1980s of a prehistoric site.
2007
Ronelle Alexander, professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, received a grant to work for fieldwork in Serbia and Montenegro with the goal of expanding a part of her recent monograph, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Grammar with Sociolinguistic Commentary.
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures received a grant to help fund the teaching of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian in the department for a period of two years.
In 2007, a grant from the Peter N. Kujachich Endowment in Serbian and Montenegrin Studies was awarded to Dr. Steven Shackley, Department of Anthropology, at UC Berkeley. The grant was given to facilitate the analysis of obsidian artifacts from prehistoric sites in Serbia. Marina Milic, PhD candidate at the University of Belgrade, initiated the project and brought the obsidian artifacts from Belgrade. During meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America in Chicago of that year, Ms. Milic presented a paper with the preliminary results of the project, indicating that the source of the obsidian was exclusively the Carpathian mountains. The paper was authored by Milic, Shackley, and B. Tripkovic and acknowledged the appreciated assistance of the Kujachich grant.
2008
Larisa Kurtovic, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology, was awarded a grant to conduct field research in Serbian communities in Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her project is entitled “Post-socialist Politics of Deferral: Bosnian Serbs and the Uncertainties of the Future in Post-War Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
An award was made to Traci S. Lindsey, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, to conduct summer field research in Serbia on the verbal expression of motion events in the Serbian language.
Andrej Milivojevic, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, went to Serbia to do field research on the role of reform-oriented socialist elites in Serbia, known as “Serbian Liberals” in the late 1960s – early 1970s.
A travel grant was awarded to Elena Morabito, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, to attend a summer language program in Serbia in order to increase her level of professional competency in the Serbian language. Upon her return, Elena is expected to teach Serbian at UC Berkeley in the 2008-09 academic year.
Brian Scholl, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics, received a grant to conduct summer field research on grassroots democracy reform in Serbia and its impact on local Serbian communities.
Lastly, Zhivka Valiavicharska, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Rhetoric, was awarded a grant to conduct extended field research in Serbia on the topic of the “regionalizing” of Southeastern Europe.
2009
Professor Ronelle Alexander received a grant to underwrite costs related to renewal of copyright permissions for materials to be used in the second edition of her Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language textbook, which will be published this year by the University of Wisconsin Press. Additionally, the Endowment helped fund the Serbian language program at Cal.
In February 2010, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures held an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental conference on Slavic Languages: Time and Contingency. With support from the endowment, a number of presentations were devoted to Serbian and to language use in Serbia and Montenegro.
Endowment funds were also used to support research projects by Professor Olga Matich, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, for her research in Belgrade on Russian émigré academics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1920s – 1940s) and their impact on institutions of higher education in the Kingdom.
Sarah Garding, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science, received funds from the Endowment for research on ties between the Serbian state and the Serbian diaspora since 1990.
Andrej Milivojevic, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, received funding for research on the attempts to liberalize the Yugoslav economy between the early 1960s and early 1970s.