Marko Atlagić

Marko Atlagić (; born 30 April 1949) is a Serbian politician and historian. He is one of the leaders of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Head of the Historical Department at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Priština in North Mitrovica, with auxiliary historical sciences as his preferred field. During his tenure in the National Assembly, he was known for making derogatory remarks on political opponents.

Eucation and work Born in Ostrovica, PR Croatia, FPR Yugoslavia, Atlagić finished primary school and high school in his hometown and in Benkovac. He later graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zadar, where in 1981 he received his master's degree in history. His professional biography states that he received his PhD from the University of Priština in modern-day Kosovo (later headquartered in Kosovska Mitrovica) in 1996. There is no record of his doctoral thesis in the university’s catalog, and he has not been able to publicly produce it.

Politics

1990s As a member of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, he participated at the last convened 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In the early 1990s, after Croatia proclaimed its independence from SFRJ, as a member of the Socialist Party of Croatia he was on the List of members of the Sabor, 1990–1992 as one of many representatives of the Council of Municipalities.

In 2007, the SRS had crumbled and Marko Atlagić had supported the Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić faction as opposed to Vojislav Šešelj, becoming a member of the new Serbian Progressive Party's presidency and was assigned to deal with Refugee and IDP problems.

In 2013, he caused controversy in the National Assembly by proclaiming the first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman as an example of a "proper management of the state" and "for a good solution to personnel problems".

Atlagić was one of the ideological creators of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Higher Education from September 2018, which "legalized fake doctorates". In 2019, during the Siniša Mali plagiarism scandal and 2018–2020 Serbian protests, he attacked and spread misinformation about professors from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade who supported the protests, as well as Serbian-born university professor Raša Karapandža who published a review of Siniša Mali's plagiarized PhD.

In 2020, he was insulting to the political members of the opposition (incl. Vuk Jeremić), and actress Seka Sablić. In 2021, he continued to insult Vuk Jeremić which resulted in a warning by National Assembly President Ivica Dačić. In 2023, PEN International published an article, and Union of Concerned Scientists wrote an open letter to president Vučić because of Atlagić's personal attack which were additionally promoted by the pro-government tabloids which harassed sociology professor Jovo Bakić of the University of Belgrade due to his criticism of the government. In his statements against the opposition, he also made disparaging remarks about the LGBTQ community. His behavior in the National Assembly was described by others, like Zdravko Ponoš in 2024, as a tactic to provoke and insult opposition representatives, in order to "distract us from the essential issues and responsibilities of the current government".

In 2020 and 2021 he co-authored papers which denied that the Srebrenica massacre was a genocide. In 2021 he published a paper in which he claims that the Breakup of Yugoslavia was driven by the US, Western countries, the Vatican, and the secessionist republics of Slovenia and Croatia, who therefore bear responsibility for violating Yugoslavia’s constitution. He also claimed that over 800,000 Serbs were killed in the WWII Jasenovac concentration camp.

In 2024, he became president (chair) of the parliamentary Committee on Education and Science.

Selected works

Pomoćne istorijske nauke, co-author with Božidar Šekularac, 1997 Izvori za istoriju Srba do XV veka, co-author with Branislav Milutinović, 2002 Istorijska geografija, 2005 Pomoćne istorijske nauke u teoriji i praksi, 2007