OSA / Collections / Fonds / HU OSA 300-10

HU OSA	300-10 C
Authority entry:	Balkan Section

Related records:

HU OSA 300-10

Date(s) and Place(s) of existence

Balkan Section was established in 1991and dissolved in 1994.

Business location

RFE/RL Inc., Oettingenstr. 67, Am Englischen Garten, 8000 Munchen 22, West Germany

Mandate, functions and sphere of activity

During the decades of the Cold War Radio Free Europe did not broadcast to Yugoslavia and Albania and there were not respective desks within the Programming Department. In 1956 -1973, however, Yugoslav Monitoring Section was in operation within the News and Information Service in Munich. Its closing forced both the Yugoslav affairs analysts (Slobodan Stankovic and Zdenko Antic) and Albanian affairs analyst Louis Zanga to depend mostly upon Western news agencies and translations from the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service of the Evaluation and Research Department.
With creation of Information Resource Department of RFE/RL Research Institute in 1990 it was decided to expend and strenghten its capability to support broadcasting for the former Yugoslavia, and the draft plan was developed for consideration by Analysis and Research Department on centralized archive based on records and materials collected by the respective analysts. At the same time East European Archives has added countries of the former Yugoslavia into its coverage along with Albania and hired several people that organized a working group named the Balkan Section. A Serbo-Croatian reference collection was created to support the new Balkan service and increased need for Balkan materials. In addition press clipping service from Croatia and Serbia was developed to include articles from the Albanian and Macedonian press, and several new newspapers were ordered to support broadcasting. The section started to monitor Croation and Serbian television programs.

Administrative structure

Slobodan Stankovic (retired in 1989), Zdenko Antic and Milan Andrejevich (left 1994) covered the topics related to the Yugoslav affairs. Louis Zanga started to work for the Radio Free Europe in 1961 as Albanian research analyst and later was also responsible for maintaining Albanian, Kosovar and Macedonian archives.
Analysts produced many studies, Background Reports and monthly roundups which were published as the RFE/RL Situation Reports. The series of the subfonds include both the analysts’ articles and the materials upon which their work was based.
All of them filed materials and documents according their own filing system that later became the part of centarlized archive. In most cases the subject and biorgaphical files reflects their original arrangement.
Following the decision to organize the centralized Balkan archive part of the analysts materials were filed according the new filing system and was taken to Prague where it became a part of East European Archives collection.

In 1992 IRD hired a contract archivist for Serbian and Craotian materials and in 1994 another one with Albanian and Macedonian language skills joined the staff. Dr. Stan Markotich became Research Analysts for Balkan Affairs effective 4 May 1993.

Rules or conventions

ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families General Intenational Standard Archival Description; OSA Internal Rules.

Dates of description

Prepared by Bosko Spasojevic, 1997; updated by Olga Zaslavskaya, May 2002
Online version updated 19 April 2012