Our Chair, Flora Turner, represented the British-Croatian Society at an event on February 1 to honour Dr Kathy Wilkes. Vivian Grisogono has sent this report.   You can also watch the event by going to the link given at the bottom of this page.

Dr Kathy Wilkes honoured in Dubrovnik

Dr Kathleen Vaughan Wilkes (1946-2003) was an Oxford philosopher, lecturer at St. Hilda's, who achieved a special kind of eminence. Her formidable intellect was matched with indomitable courage whenever she was faced with physical danger and adversity. Details of her adventurous life and academic career were celebrated in the St.Hilda's Chronicle following her death.

Having become a Fellow of St. Hilda's in 1972 at the age of 26, she volunteered six years later to visit Prague, then behind the Iron Curtain, to give philosophy seminars, which were considered a dissident activity. She returned to then-Czechoslovakia several times, even after she had been refused a visa, and was tireless in helping Czech academics and students right up to the fall of the Iron Curtain in the `Velvet Revolution' of 1989.

Kathy also spent time teaching in the then-Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, Brazil and China, but it was in former Yugoslavia that her courage and resources were put to the greatest test. She had become Chairman of the Executive Committee of Dubrovnik's Inter-University Centre in 1986, and spent time teaching there every year, as well as co-editing with William Newton-Smith an academic journal first entitled `Dubrovnik Papers' and later `International Studies in the Philosophy of Science'. Kathy was in Dubrovnik in 1991 when the Serb-led Yugoslav National Army suddenly attacked the city with ruthless, sickening aggression.

For the 1996 -1997 edition of the St. Hilda's chronicle, Kathy wrote a moving article about what life in Dubrovnik was like under siege from September 1991 to January 1992. Her personal account evoked the full horror of the relentless attacks from air, sea and land against one of the most beautiful historical holiday resorts in the world. No journalist's report ever matched her descriptions in bringing home the full extent of the tragedy. On October 3rd 1991, Kathy spoke with calm determination to the BBC World Service for their Topical Reports: `There's no water. There's no electricity. This is the only phone in Dubrovnik. There's fire all around. I think nobody including the Croatian President knows the extent of the damage here. The houses are on fire. About a quarter of Dubrovnik and the suburbs have been destroyed.' That was two months before the specially brutal aggression on December 6th 1991, the feast of St. Nicholas which marks the start of Catholic Christmas celebrations.

Kathy stayed in the city, helping the local people in every way possible, and sharing the misery and deprivations of the experience. She left only to collect aid to bring back to the city, travelling under very difficult circumstances. Besides being brilliant academically, she was very practical: she brought back medical supplies and even an ambulance while the siege was still on, and later on mine detectors when the area around Dubrovnik could be cleared. She seemed specially attuned to practical needs: in her article for the St. Hilda's Chronicle,  written after the end of the aggression, she highlighted the disaster of Vukovar, a city which was suffering much worse than Dubrovnik, but without the international sympathy focused on the latter. She also pointed out that refugees were still crammed into Dubrovnik's surviving hotels, and the outlying villages were totally devastated.

Kathy received several honours for her courage, tenacity, vision and help, including one of Croatia's highest awards (Red Danice hrvatske), but the one she prized most was the honorary citizenship of Dubrovnik, which was granted in 1993. After her death, Kathy's ashes were scattered in the sea under the Lovrijenac fortress. In 2011 the city officials decided to mark their continuing appreciation of her unique contribution with a commemorative plaque on an historic square near the fortress, renaming the square after her. The formal unveiling ceremony was held on February 1st 2012 during the celebrations for the feast of Saint Blaise, Dubrovnik's patron saint. It was attended by a select group of people, including children too young to have known the war, alongside some of Kathy's old friends such as Mr Pero Poljanic, Dubrovnik's Mayor at the time of the siege; Mrs Berta Dragicevic, long-serving secretary of the Inter-University Centre; and Mrs Tea Batinic, owner of the Artur art gallery, in whose house Kathy stayed during the war.  Four prominent people spoke movingly of her achievements from different standpoints: the present Mayor of Dubrovnik Mr Andro Vlahusic, the Town Council President Mrs Olga Muratti, Inter-University Centre Director Prof.dr.Krunoslav Pisk, and Mrs Flora Turner, Kathy's successor as Chairman of the British-Croatian Society.

Vivian Grisogono

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNMH_NOcroM&feature=related