Helena Stolnik Trenkić
I am a PhD Candidate supervised by Dr Celia Donert, researching vernacular and contesting dimensions of the human right to self-determination developing in socialist Yugoslavia (1960-1990). My research contributes to histories of European and global socialism, human rights and the international order, Yugoslav social movements, and connects histories of nationalism, federalism, and internationalism. I am fully funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Isaac Newton Trust. I hold a double-first in the Bachelor of Arts (History Tripos) (2017-2020) and Distinction in the MPhil for Modern European History (2020-2021), both at the University of Cambridge.
I am a member of the CMY Junior Scholars Seminar in the Contemporary History of Europe in the World, which brings together a fifteen young scholars (five from each of the participating universities) in seminars at Cambridge, Munich (LMU) and Yale in 2024-2025 to debate and apply recent conceptual developments in our field. From June to September 2023 I was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Additionally, I co-convene the Modern European History Workshop for postgraduate students, am the Graduate Communications Officer for the Modern European History subgroup (Twitter: @MEHCambridge), and am a Postgraduate Member of the Royal Historical Society.
Outside of my academic work, my interest in human rights has led me to internships and advocacy work at the United Nations, the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (a work placement approved and funded by the AHRC), the AIRE (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe) Centre, the National Council of Women GB, and other groups.
History of Yugoslavia; European and global socialism; human rights; everyday life in socialism; production of knowledge; international organisations; social intellectual history; civil society, social movements and dissent; international-national linkages.
T14. Europe's Modern Age of Violence (1914-1949)
'Self-determination and socialist (inter)nationalism in Croatian student politicisation, 1966-1972.' | National communism in socialist federations, Institute for Contemporary History of Czech Academy of Sciences (Prague) and Study Center for National Reconciliation (Ljubljana) (Prague, September 2023). Conference report here.
'Crisis of narratives, reform of history: moving from the Eastern Bloc to the Non-Aligned world in Yugoslav history textbooks 1945-1980' | Socialism on the Bench/Socijalizam na klupi, 6th International Conference: 'Crises and Reforms', CKPIS Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli (Pula, September 2023).
'Socialist Yugoslavia and the development of the human right to self-determination, 1960-1974.' | Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights, LSE Human Rights (online, May 2023).
'Contributing to the non-aligned project: the University of Zagreb International Student Friendship Club, 1966-1981.' | Mikrohistorija socijalizma i postsocijalizma: 8. doktorska radionica, CKPIS Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli (Pula, August 2022).
'Negotiating acceptable forms of activism: student contributions to Yugoslav non-alignment, 1964-1981.' | Comparing cultures of solidarity: socialist internationalism and solidarity across the Eastern Bloc and beyond, CRASSH University of Cambridge (Cambridge, June 2022). Conference report here.
‘Articulating a competing worldview: the narratives of Yugoslav history textbooks after the Tito-Stalin split, 1948-1975.’ | University of Cambridge Modern European History Workshop (online, February 2021).
Contact
Tags & Themes
Jesus College
Publications
Book/Conference Reviews
Helena Stolnik Trenkić, 'Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries ed. by Paul Stubbs (review)', Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 101, No. 1 (January 2023), pp. 183-185.
Helena Stolnik Trenkić, 'Lazic, Milorad. Unmaking Détente: Yugoslavia, the United States, and the Global Cold War, 1968-1980 (review)', East Central Europe, Vol. 51 (October 2023).
Helena Stolnik Trenkić, 'Tagungsbericht: Solidarity and Voluntarism in State-Socialist Societies [Graz, 12.09.2023-13.09-2023]', H-Soz-Kult (20 December 2023).
Blogs and public history articles
'The Yugoslav response to 'limited sovereignty', Central and Eastern European Affairs Review, September 2023.
'Who liberated Belgrade - and who cares who liberated Belgrade?', Doing History in Public, May 2021.