This event will pay tribute to Milorad M. Drašković (Drachkovitch), who devoted more than three decades of his career to the Hoover Institution, on the thirtieth anniversary of his passing. From 1974 to 1984, Drašković led the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, helping to shape its vast collections and to support visiting researchers from around the world. He strengthened the ties between the Serbian, Yugoslav, and broader communities interested in the meaning of our shared history.
Attendees will also enjoy exclusive access to the newly reopened Polich Room (now the Polich Library), named in honor of Todor and Andja Polich. From 1968 to 2020, the room hosted seminars and meetings with distinguished scholars and international visitors at the Hoover Institution. Today, it carries that legacy forward as a space devoted to the study of the history of Yugoslavia.
The event will conclude with a reception with light refreshments.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Dennis Bark is an emeritus senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is the author or editor of nine books, including Reflections on Europe (1997), an edited volume to which he contributed the essay “The American-European Relationship: Reflections on Half a Century, 1947–1997.” His most recent work is Europeans and Americans Dancing in the Dark (2007).
In March 1997, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit, First Class, by the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his contributions to German-American relations. In October 2001, he received the Knight’s Cross of the National Legion of Honor of the Republic of France. He currently serves as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Earhart Foundation.
Bark received his PhD in modern European history and political science, summa cum laude, from the Free University of Berlin.
Jasmina Bojić is a lecturer in the Program in International Relations at Stanford University, where she has taught since 1991.
She is the founder and executive director of the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF), one of the oldest international documentary film festivals in the United States, which she established in 1998 and expanded in 2000 to include the UNAFF Traveling Film Festival. She is also the founder and director of Stanford's Camera As Witness Program, which she established in 2010. A journalist for more than thirty years, she has covered the Academy Awards and the Cannes, Sundance, Venice, and Tribeca film festivals, served on juries at many international film festivals, and worked as a producer and director on several documentaries and television programs dealing with human rights issues.
In 2007, she received the Community Treasure Award from Stanford University president John Hennessy in recognition of her contribution to promoting dialogue and education about different cultures and issues. In 2014, she was awarded the UNESCO Fellini Medal by the International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (ICFT) in recognition of her exceptional contribution to promoting the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the art of documentary film.
Ognjen Kovačević is a metadata librarian specializing in Slavic materials at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, where he has worked since 2018.
He contributes to various cataloging projects, outreach, exhibitions, and reference work and researches the history of the Institution and the people who shaped its collections. He began his career as a history professor and, before transitioning to academic librarianship, served as a librarian at the National Library of Serbia.
Kovačević completed his graduate studies at the University of Belgrade, the University of Latvia, and San Jose State University, where he focused on contemporary history and library and information science.
Moderated by
Bertrand Patenaude is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he is currently serving as Interim Head of Engagement at the Library & Archives. His publications include A Wealth of Ideas: Revelations from the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford University Press, 2006), a richly illustrated coffee-table book that showcases the extraordinary collections of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, and Defining Moments: The First One Hundred Years of the Hoover Institution, published by the Hoover Institution Press in 2019. His most recent book, co-authored with Joan Nabseth Stevenson, is Bread + Medicine: American Famine Relief in Soviet Russia, 1921–1923 (Hoover Institution Press, 2023), produced in conjunction with a Library & Archives exhibition of the same name.
Patenaude was educated at Boston College and the University of Vienna and received his PhD in History from Stanford University.
