The Ownership of Evil: 1968, 1989, and the Mainstreaming of the New Right

Abstract

1968 was a watershed year not only for the new left but even more so for the rise of the New Right. It turns out that, if 1968 “prepared” 1989 as the next turning point in European and world history, it was probably more through the new right’s forging of ideas that would eventually provide ideological justification for illiberal democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia is an important site in this history not only because of its early exposure to the ideas of the new right through the work of the painter and publicist Dragoš Kalajić but also because in his seminal book The Philosophy of Parochialism (1969), Radomir Konstantinović anticipated the rise of the new right and offered a penetrating critique of its fundamental premises.