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Croatian scholars made important contributions to the work of the Pugwash Movement by gathering primarily around the Institute for the Philosophy of Science and Peace of the Yugoslav (after 1991 Croatian) Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU/HAZU). In 1966, a group of Croatian intellectuals from the Institute, led by Ivan Supek, in 1966 launched the journal Encyclopaedia moderna: časopis za sintezu znanosti, umjetnosti i društvene prakse. It was published in all Yugoslav languages and dialects, but there were also articles in English. In addition to the central editorial office in Zagreb, it had editorial staffs in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skopje and Titograd. It was issued quarterly, although occasionally deviated from this schedule. The editor in chief was Ivan Supek (except in 1975, when the editor was Eugen Pusić). Since the mid-1980s, Supek was assisted by Nikola Zovko and Bojan Marotti (interview with Marotti, Bojan).

As a multidisciplinary journal, it promoted universalism and a humanistic orientation for science and the arts, as well as the complete disarmament and the creation of world peace. The first issue began with the “A Word from the Editors,” in which they stress: “we stand between military, economic and ideological blocs, and it is clear that in the event of a [global] conflict there can be no victory, but only a general disaster” (p. 1). They insisted on the universality of humankind: “Although the world is so fatally disunited, in every corner of it peaceful, humane and progressive thought is smouldering" (p. 3).

The goals of the journal were almost identical to the goals of the Pugwash Movement, and Supek insisted that every issue must contain something about the movement. “Pugwash” or “Peace Studies” or some column with a similar name was published in almost every issue. It would usually convey information, documents, declarations, or reports from Pugwash Conferences and other meetings. All of the contributions in the column were in English, in attempt to make the journal accessible to international scientific currents.

In the 1960s, Encyclopaedia moderna was relatively popular due to the prominent intellectuals who contributed articles to it. The journal strived for academic freedom and was even open to topics that the communist government considered undesirable, as was the case with religion (Kolarić 1973). The Yugoslav communist authorities did not like such intellectual independence, and the government reduced the funding for all of Yugoslavia's Pugwash organisations and publications. In 1976, Encyclopaedia moderna was forced to shut down because the government completely severed its funding (Knapp 2013, 99). In the 1980s, the very existence of the Pugwash organisation in Yugoslavia was questionable, mainly because Supek was out of favour with the communist regime. Still, the movement survived those trying years.

The journal was re-launched after the fall of communism in 1991, with Nikola Zovko as editor-in-chief, but its scope was oriented more towards Central Europe. It was published until 1998, and Marotti believes the journal was "naturally extinguished" because the themes of the journal were no longer as current as during the Cold War (interview with Marotti, Bojan).

Upon receiving the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits – the National Order of the Legion of Honour (Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur) in 1989, Croatian sociologist Rudi Supek (1913-1993) granted an interview to Radio Zagreb in which he talked about his life and, among other things, about his opposition activities. He was awarded due to his activities as one of the organisers of resistance in the Nazi concentration camp in Buchenwald and due to his contribution to the development of sociology as a science and his cultural work with France. In the interview, he said that five years earlier (1984), he was awarded for his scholarly work, which was, in his opinion, even more important. But that fact was ignored in Yugoslavia at the time. He stated that the authorities did not like him because he insisted on the stance that there is no socialism without democracy. He said that he was a sympathiser and a member of communist parties (CP of Yugoslavia and CP of France) from the mid-1930s to 1948, but that he later did not want to be involved in Stalinist and Comintern-type of parties.
He stated that he returned from France to Yugoslavia because for patriotic reasons, although he had much better conditions to continue his academic career abroad, in France, the USA or Canada. He also spoke about the problems of socialist systems in which there is a negative selection of personnel, stating that the monopoly of a single party promotes careerists and mediocrity. According to Supek, the advancement of society, especially in the economy, requires a free democratic political system. He also talked about his engagement in the environmental movement and his book, which had just been published in its third edition. He said that the crisis of socialism was a result of the fact that socialism had remained wedded to the concept of industrial society. He felt it necessary, globally, to transition to a post-industrial society that would not be based on exploitation of nature and humanity itself, to enter into a new type of socialism.

Besides Rudi Supek’s (1913-1993) cultural-oppositional activities as the initiator of the Korčula Summer School and as a member of the Praxis circle of intellectuals, he is also known for his engagement in the environmental movement. This was reflected in his book Ova jedina zemlja: idemo li u katastrofu ili Treću revoluciju? (This only Earth: Are we heading for disaster or the Third Revolution?) published in 1973. Supek was one of the first scholars in Yugoslavia who wanted to warn the public of the growing environmental problems of modern civilisation. This book shows Supek’s divergence from the then Marxist mainstream in Yugoslavia and most leftist philosophers, who insisted that environmental issues were, in fact, a capitalist ploy to diminish the revolutionary potential of the working class. The book critically considered the relationship between states and social systems in the field of ecology, and criticism was focused to socialist systems as well, especially the dominance of the state administrative apparatus (Cifrić 2016: 104). The book was successful, and two new editions were published (in 1978 and 1989).
In the foreword to the third edition, Rudi Supek explained that the first edition of his book was greeted with mistrust and scepticism “from both the left and the right”. The most of his leftist fellow philosophers and sociologists told him that he had “fallen for American propaganda,” while others were disappointed because they thought he would write about Croatia and its exploitation in Yugoslavia (Supek 1989a).

Limes was a circle of Hungarian dissident intellectuals which operated more or less actively from 1985 until the 1989 Romanian revolution. The aim of the circle was to provide a pluralist platform of cooperation for Hungarian intellectuals, which meant holding monthly/bimonthly organized meetings and publishing a journal dealing with the history and actual situation of the Hungarian minority from Romania, as well as other outstanding research work pertaining to other domains. The circle was also devoted to maintaining high standards of scientific work in Romania. As there was no chance of getting anything past the censors in Romania, the plan was to smuggle manuscripts to Hungary and to publish the journal there.

The initiator was Gusztáv Molnár, who mostly due to his job as a literary editor at the Bucharest-based Kriterion publishing house had a large personal network among Transylvanian Hungarian critical intellectuals. The core of the group was represented by the following individuals: Vilmos Ágoston, Béla Bíró, Gáspár Bíró, Ernő Fábián, Károly Vekov, Levente Salat, Csaba Lőrincz, Ferenc Visky, András Visky, Péter Visky, Levente Horváth, Sándor Balázs, Sándor Szilágyi N., and Éva Cs. Gyímesi. Through the process of editing the journal, many more intellectuals became acquainted with the activity of the Limes group.

Between September 1985 and November 1986, six meetings were held in four different localities in Romania in the homes of members of the group. The meetings encompassed a presentation (usually of a manuscript) followed by a debate, and all proceedings were recorded. The series of meetings was interrupted by a search and seizure performed by the Securitate in Molnár’s apartment in Bucharest. All documents related to Limes were taken and later studied by the authorities. By this time, the plan to make four Limes issues had already been completed, and the manuscripts for the first two issues had already been collected. The contents included transcripts of the Limes debates and studies and documents covering topics such as “national minorities,” “nationalism,” “totalitarianism,” “autonomy,” and “Transylvanianism” as a guiding ideology for the Hungarian minority in Romania. The topics also included the situation of the Csángó Catholic (Hungarian-speaking) population in Romania.

The Limes group ceased its activity after the intervention of the Romanian secret police, and in 1987, summons and warnings were issued to the members of the group. Though no more meetings were organized, after a while, Limes members resumed work on the texts. Molnár moved to Hungary in 1988, but the editorial work was continued in Romania by Éva Cs. Gyímesi Éva and Péter Cseke in Cluj. The first issues of Limes was published by Molnár in Budapest in late 1989. The content does not coincide with the initial first volume of the Limes, but the issues did contain excerpts from the debates which were held at the first two meetings.

Invaluable insights into the details of the Limes story and other events in the lives of outstanding Hungarian intellectuals are provided by the Securitate files on professor of philosophy at the Babes Bolyai University Sándor Balázs (1928–), which are available for research in the Historical Collection of the Jakabffy Elemér Foundation. This is because the Limes activities in Cluj were recorded by the county agency of the Securitate as part of the information surveillance files on Sándor Balázs. His code name was “the Sociologist” (Sociologul), but the table of contents at the beginning of the dossier refers to “the Sociologists” (Sociologii), the code name used to denote the Limes group.

Nadia Svitlychna embroidered this bookmark, while serving her sentence in the Mordovian political labor camp ZhKh-385/3 near the settlement of Barashevo in the Tengushevsk district of the RSFSR. While in the camps Svitlychna actively engaged in protests, hunger strikes, and creative acts like embroidery. This piece was made for her brother Ivan Svitlychny, while bother of them were serving lengthy sentences in separate Mordovian hard labor camps. She sent the bookmark in a letter, which luckily made it through censors, who left the gift undisturbed. Its arrival was a source of tremendous joy for both and also evidence of fluidity in the Soviet penal system. 

Born in the Lugansk region, both Nadia and Ivan were central to the revival of Ukrainian culture after Stalin and the human rights movement in Ukraine. The embroidered bookmark includes the image of a Cossack, evoking national symbols and associations with the freedom loving people of the steppe. However, both Nadia and Ivan actively participated in protests, hunger strikes, and other forms of resistance that aimed to bring attention to conditions in the camps and arbitrary abuse at the hands of guards and administrators. Although national in theme, it is important to remember that the Ukrainian opposition was considered by figures like Max Hayward as “striking both for its moderation and high intellectual level,” as the historian Anna Procyk has noted in conference remarks. She also referenced Frederick C. Barghoorn, who wrote in his introduction to the Chornovil Papers that “although the preservation of Ukrainian cultural heritage and language are central features of the outlook of many young Ukrainian intellectuals, the latter perceive themselves as struggling, not against the Russian nation and probably not against socialist principles, but rather against dictatorship and police state.” This bookmark is the byproduct of precisely that movement and ethos which the Svitlychy’s helped found.