Jozo Tomasevich
Josip "Jozo" Tomasevich (1908 – October 15, 1994; Serbo-Croatian: Josip Tomašević) was an American economist and historian who was a leading expert on the economic and social history of the former Yugoslavia. Tomasevich was born in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, part of Austria-Hungary, and after completing his schooling, earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Basel in Switzerland. In the mid-1930s, he worked at the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and published three well-received books on Yugoslavia's national debt, fiscal policy, and money and credit respectively.
Jozo Tomasevich
1908
October 15, 1994 (aged 86)
War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945
Neda Brelić (m. 1937-1994; his death); 3 children
Award for Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies (1989)
In 1938, he moved to the United States as the recipient of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship and conducted research at Harvard University before joining the academic staff of Stanford University. During World War II, Tomasevich worked for the Board of Economic Warfare and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and post-war he joined the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. In 1948, he joined the staff at San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University). He combined research and teaching there for twenty-five years until his retirement in 1973, which was broken by a year of teaching at Columbia University in 1954. Between 1943 and 1955, Tomasevich published two books on economic matters; one focused on marine resources and the other on the peasant economy of Yugoslavia and both of them received positive reviews.
Tomasevich then embarked on an extensive research and writing project on Yugoslavia in World War II – War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945 – which was planned to include three volumes. Supported by grants and fellowships, he published The Chetniks in 1975, which explored the development and fate of the Chetnik movement during the war. The book was positively reviewed by scholars such as Phyllis Auty, Alexander Vucinich and John C. Campbell of the Council on Foreign Relations. It was criticised for bias against Serbs and its length and repetition by the political scientist Alex N. Dragnich. Tomasevich died in California in 1994. In 2002, the Croatian academic Ivo Goldstein lauded The Chetniks as still the "most complete and best book about the Chetniks to be published either abroad or in former Yugoslavia". After his retirement he was appointed professor emeritus of economics at San Francisco State University.
His final book was the second volume of the series – War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration – which was published posthumously in 2001 after editing by his daughter Neda. It focused on collaboration and the quisling governments in Yugoslavia during the war with a strong emphasis on the Axis puppet state, the so-called Independent State of Croatia. The book was praised by historians such as Goldstein and Klaus Schmider, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst lecturer and German historian. The latter described Tomasevich's grasp of the sources in five languages as "stupendous" and concluded that "the scholarly standard achieved by Jozo Tomasevich in his two volumes of War and Revolution in Yugoslavia and the thought of what he would have made of volume three of the series make his death a tragedy keenly felt even by those who never knew him". The third volume on the Yugoslav Partisans remains unpublished despite being 75 per cent complete at his death. In an obituary written by Vucinich, Tomasevich was described as "a master of scholarly skills, a person of bountiful erudition, wit and human dignity".
Early life, education, career and family[edit]
Josip "Jozo" Tomašević was born in 1908 in the village of Košarni Do on the Pelješac peninsula in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, part of Austria-Hungary. Košarni Do is near the village of Donja Banda and is today part of the Orebić municipality within the Dubrovnik-Neretva County of Croatia.[1] His father, known to the family as Nado, travelled to California in the 1870s. He returned to the village in 1894, married the daughter of his first cousin and worked as a farmer. The couple had four sons.[2]
Jozo completed his secondary education in Sarajevo – then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia – before moving to Switzerland to study at the University of Basel where he earned a doctorate in economics. In the mid-1930s, he was employed as a financial expert at the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. In 1938, he was the recipient of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship and moved to the US,[3] "availing himself of the rich resources of Harvard University".[1] At this time, Tomašević assigned his share in the family farm at Košarni Do to one of his two brothers who remained there. The other brother living in Košarni Do received the share of the fourth brother, who by then was a merchant mariner living in New Zealand.[4]
Before the outbreak of World War II – and now known by the anglicised Tomasevich – he moved to California. He was on the scholarly staff of the Food Research Institute within Stanford University. During the war, he worked with the Board of Economic Warfare and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Washington, D.C. After the war, he initially worked at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco.[1] His preference was for a position combining teaching and research, so in 1948, he joined the San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University). He taught there for twenty-five years until he retired in 1973 – except in 1954 when he taught at Columbia University.[1] After his retirement, he was appointed professor emeritus of economics at San Francisco State University.[5] According to his obituary in the Slavic Review written by the historian Alexander Vucinich, Tomasevich "gave his lectures rich and pertinent content, precise organization and warm delivery".[1]
In 1937, Tomasevich married Neda Brelić, a high school teacher. They were happily married for 57 years and had three children – Anthony, Neda Ann, and Lasta. In 1976, Tomasevich contributed an essay to a book in which he conducted a sociological and historical analysis of his extended family reaching back to the early nineteenth century. He became an American citizen.[6] Tomasevich died on October 15, 1994, aged 86,[1] in Palo Alto, California.[7] His widow Neda died on July 5, 2002, at 88.[8]