Todor Kuljić

THE SELF-PERCEPTION OF ENGAGEMENT – ONE SEGMENT OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE 

Abstract: Engagement is an important component of autobiography as a historical source. How we remember what we are also depends on how we remember what we did as intellectuals. We shall discuss the ideological and moral side of engagement, the change in the content of engagement after the collapse of socialism, and criticism of the conversion of intellectuals. This paper is also a self-reflective attempt at the writer’s self-perception of professional engagement in scholarly and journalistic contributions and practical activity. Self-reflexive awareness of engagement is not a prisoner of correct hegemonic terms that turn the authentic into a socially acceptable autobiographical past. 

Keywords: engagement, autobiography, self-reflection, conversion 

Summary: This theoretical-empirical contribution to professional autobiography combines hermeneutics, discourse analysis, constructivism and criticism of ideology. We shall discuss the ideological and moral side of engagement, the change in the content of engagement after the collapse of socialism, and criticism of the conversion of intellectuals. In autobiography, engagement is reconstructed not only by a simple selection of illustrious events from the past, but also by applying the terms used to evaluate and explain that same past. Working towards an authentic past and authentic engagement also requires the preservation of authentic notions of the past. One must be critical of the hegemonic cognitive and value stratagem that influences the choice of important content for autobiographical memory. In other words, one should distinguish the authentic from the correct past of one’s own. This paper is also a self-reflective attempt at the writer’s self-perception of professional engagement in scholarly and journalistic contributions and practical activity. The author argues that he has acted as a system-theoretical whistleblower, not encouraging action guided by timeless virtue or agreed procedure, but by social justice and civil equality. He did not defend the constitutional or national, but social and civic emancipatory patriotism. Class-bound, but not organically, he felt obliged to speak adeptly and critically about power by request, rather than as an organized political party activist. However, he was not a free-floating intellectual, but a critic of capitalism and nationalism, and not totalitarianism or globalism. Looking back on his own engagement, the writer tried to be objective in regard to his own expectations and his own experience.