Anatomy of a dissertation

Passed the village - break the forehead;
The second passed - break the ear;
The third passed - break your shoulder,
He plays in the fourth round.

It is one of the folk songs analyzed in her doctoral thesis by Jelena Trivan, a former high-ranking official of the Democratic Party and today's director of the Official Gazette. "In the dance songs, there is a mention that dancing is performed, first, in the village itself, which fully corresponds to the traditional custom of dancing at the village crossroads, or 'sredselo'," writes Jelena Trivan in her thesis "Libraries and multiculturalism", which she defended at the end of 2013 at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade.

The problem with that excursion into Orsk songs is that the entire lyrics and "analyses" have been on Wikipedia in the article "Folk Dance in Folk Orsk Songs" since January 2005.

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Dr. Trivan's thesis contains a complete article from Wikipedia - on the entire three pages of the work, word for word, without a single quote. In the extensive list of literature that she allegedly used, Jelena Trivan included the works "Folk Dances", "Serbian Folk Melodies" and "Songs and customs of the entire Serbian people" - the only three books that are cited as sources on the Wikipedia article - but it does not appear from her thesis that she actually read those books.

According to our research, Jelena Trivan copied at least fifteen percent of her thesis without citing sources, counting only the literature available in the Serbian language. It ranged from copying from unverified forums and from unsigned seminar papers available on the Internet, all the way to the publications of Matica Srpska and the book by Boško Obradović published by Dveri. With such a thesis, Jelena Trivan completed an academic sprint that is almost unparalleled in Serbia: in three years through master's and doctoral studies, exclusively with the highest grades. Not anywhere, but at the University of Belgrade - always accompanied by his mentor, the former dean of the Faculty of Philology, Aleksandra Vraneš.

MORE THAN MISTAKES

The express way to the title of a great connoisseur of librarianship began when Jelena Trivan was the vice-president of the ruling Democratic Party at the time, and ended when the rumor that she was close to the regime of Aleksandar Vučić was already spreading. Barely a year later, she became the director and editor-in-chief of the Official Gazette, the state publishing house (see box: Friends call her "Ratrak").

"I am not interested in party involvement, in my life I decided to work for the state and for my child." I got over those childhood illnesses," she said in an interview for "Kurir" at the beginning of this year. "Today, no one wants to listen to any facts and face their mistakes, but wants to humiliate the interlocutor simply because arguments require some kind of knowledge, not just pagan language."

The facts say that Jelena Trivan's doctoral thesis contains more than just mistakes.

When in Turnitin, the leading plagiarism detection software, inserted her thesis, the program quickly paints lines with flashy colors. This means that the same lines appear in other places - portals, files, digitized books... According to the software, in the work "Libraries and Multiculturalism" there is as much as 29 percent of the text found in other sources in the Serbian language.

Turnitin it is unable to recognize parts that may have been translated from other languages. Among as many as 369 books, essays or collections that Jelena Trivan included in the list of literature, there are more than a hundred sources in foreign languages: English, Italian, Romanian, French, Albanian...

The thesis - without introduction and bibliography - has barely 150 pages. Of the 29 percent of text that overlaps with sources in the Serbian language, only a small part falls on properly cited parts. Most of it contains entire paragraphs and pages for which there is a source or a footnote, but they are copied directly without quotation marks.

"It's crazy," one professor, who wished to remain anonymous, told us Turnitin and reviewing student works.

"Direct quotes must be clearly emphasized, be in quotation marks, italics or similar," he adds. "An entire page or several pages can only be cited if, for example, you are writing a PhD on Shakespeare and analyze a specific page from his work." Otherwise, it is inadmissible."

However, the largest part of the downloaded 29 percent refers to the text from sources, often unverified and unworthy of scientific work, which are neither cited nor mentioned in the list of literature.

FROM BOSCH-and TO BOŠK

The analysis of folk dances and songs, mentioned at the beginning, is part of the chapter "The role of the library in promoting the Serbian cultural heritage", and it is entirely - it is sixteen pages - copied from other sources without citations.

From the scientific work of Marija Ristivojević ("Study of music in anthropology", 2012), two paragraphs were taken verbatim together with references to three foreign authors that M. Ristivojević listed in parentheses. In Jelena Trivan's work, neither this work by Marija Ristivojević nor those three authors are in the list of references.

Two paragraphs above, in the same chapter, the reader of Jelena Trivan's work learns that "blind copying and assimilation into other people's cultural patterns leads to the loss of the identity of a nation." Passages with that sentence can be found on numerous forums, some of which, unlike Jelena Trivan, have cited the original source. The book is called Serbian covenant, and the first edition was printed by the Serbian movement Dveri in 2007. The author is Boško Obradović.

"I have heard and seen everything and anything on the Serbian political scene, but I must admit that I myself am shocked by that information, if it is true," Boško Obradović told "Vreme". "It shows that plagiarism has reached such proportions that no care is taken to hide this type of criminal activity."

Obradović adds that he will consult lawyers and consider a lawsuit for theft of an author's work. "It's not a matter of whether I am the victim or someone else, but we need to wipe out the abnormal rule of purchased diplomas and plagiarized doctorates."

The largest part of the transcribed chapter from the work of Jelena Trivan can be found on forum-srbija.com, where the person who published the excerpts in the summer of 2012 cites as the source A musical encyclopedia Slobodan Zečević. That work is not in Jelena Trivan's literature list. Other parts can be found on various portals of folklore lovers.

Not only that chapter is disputed - the entire work is interspersed with other people's text. The two-page chapter "Media in the service of globalization" is practically copied word for word from the work "Globalization of business and global competition" (unknown author, probably 2007), which is available on the seminarski-diplomski.co.rs portal.

In the download, the author was careful to eliminate the first-person writing that is present in the original. Thus, the unknown author writes: "I repeat again, I do not believe that someone in some kind of power center consciously came up with the idea of ​​expanding the media in order to create a basis for easier acceptance of the idea of ​​globalization." It just happened that way."

This ingenious scientific sentence simply applied itself to Jelena Trivan, except that for her it starts like this: "It is not likely that someone is in some kind of power center..."

This is not the end of Dr. Trivan's wandering through the portals that high school students avoid when they write their graduation papers. In conclusion, we read that folk dances "testify to the exuberant imagination" of the people. The entire paragraph has already been written in a seminar paper in pedagogy ("Folklore in preschool children", available on the Internet since 2012) which, unsigned, is also on several websites that offer free access to seminar papers.

Authors such as Valentina Sekeres, whose work "Cultural identity under the influence of globalization" was taken from an entire page, were denied a quote. That short paper is available as a Word document on the website of the Helsinki Committee in Serbia. The information about the file itself says that it was last changed before publication in January 2012 - therefore, that text was also created before the work of Jelena Trivan, so it is clear who copied from whom.

The same is the case with the Belgrade Business School (BOŠ) publication "Aspects of Globalization" (2002), which is freely available on the Internet. From there, the definitions and introduction to the concept of globalization reached the work of Jelena Trivan.

Nada Raduški fared better, whose work ("Multiculturalism of Vojvodina and demographic development of national minorities", published in the collection of Matica Srpska 2010) is mentioned in the list of references, but not in the thesis chapter "Multiculturality of Serbia". That whole chapter, three pages, was copied by Nada Raduški.

"PLAGIARISM IS JUST ONE OF THE PROBLEMS"

There are many more examples. The entire work seems like a barely patched collage of other people's words.

"If these allegations are true, it is yet another in a series of plagiarisms by public figures, which, like the tip of the iceberg, are just a symptom of a much bigger problem in our higher education." Namely, in order for someone to get a doctorate, it is necessary to make some contribution to knowledge," Milovan Shuvakov, researcher at the Institute of Physics and former assistant minister in charge of higher education, told Vreme.

Our source, a lecturer from the Faculty of Philology, says that Jelena Trivan's thesis attracted the attention of the teaching staff because it is "banal" and "does not have a clear goal, research object or methodology". "Possible plagiarism is only one of the problems with that dissertation, and it may not even be the biggest."

However, the commission led by mentor Aleksandra Vraneš (59) did not see anything objectionable. Jelena Trivan defended her doctoral thesis at the end of November 2013, just two years after she started her doctoral studies.

"It's hard for me to imagine the circumstances in which it is possible for the vice-president of the then ruling party to have enough time for research in general, let alone for such an instant doctorate," adds Shuvakov. "In cases where someone is doing a PhD while doing demanding public work, it's hard not to suspect that someone else actually wrote, not to say rewrote, their thesis."

MRS MENTOR

The Faculty of Philology did not respond to our inquiry about Jelena Trivan's academic career. However, we had insight into the faculty's internal file, which reveals the close relationship between Jelena Trivan and Professor Vraneš. The latter comes to the position of dean just at the time when J. Trivan is deciding on a master's degree (see box: Deans for scandals).

According to the file, Jelena Trivan enrolled in one-year master's studies in December 2010. During April and June of the following year, she passed all five exams with a score of ten - all with Professor Vraneš. In June 2011, she defended her master's thesis with the topic "Copyright in culture" under her mentor Vraneš.

In December of that year, she enrolled in doctoral studies and in less than two years passed all eight exams with the highest grade - six of them with Professor Vraneš. She wrote all of her study papers under the patronage of Professor Vraneš and published several works in anthologies edited by Professor Vraneš, and already in June 2013 she submitted her doctoral thesis to her mentor Vraneš.

The committee led by Professor Vraneš gave a positive opinion on Jelena Trivan's work already in October of that year, which can be seen from the decision of the Teaching and Research Council from the meeting chaired by Dean Vraneš.

The paper was finally defended before the committee headed by Professor Vraneš.

Our source from the faculty states that "in the conversation with colleagues, the opinion prevailed that the Faculty of Philology is turning into one of the well-known private faculties where you can buy diplomas of any level of study, including doctoral degrees."

Judging by the words of her colleagues, Jelena Trivan is not the only one who, with the patronage of Aleksandra Vraneš, ran through the highest study programs, but she is probably the most powerful person in Serbian politics who became an expert in librarianship with such ease.

Relationships between the two women also existed outside the university. At the end of September 2011, Jelena Trivan and her mentor Vraneš held a press conference in Belgrade on the occasion of a meeting dedicated to the digitization of cultural and scientific heritage. Jelena Trivan was a member of the organizing committee as the president of the Committee for Culture and Information in the Assembly. Later, they participated in several more conferences together.

Many questions need answers. Jelena Trivan sent the only comment to the journalist "Vremena" in the form of an SMS: "Of course I know that I am the collateral of months-long conflicts at the Faculty of Philology and attacks on the dean who supported the SNS list and that I, because of my name, and for the purpose of reckoning with others to be declared a forger, and even illiterate if politically necessary."

Jelena Trivan wrote that "the scenario is very familiar to her" because "she was to blame for everything" in 2012, when all the vice-presidents of the Democratic Party were in the executive branch, and she was not. "At least it's not hard to hit on me," she added.

Professor Vraneš briefly told the "Vremena" journalist that she was at a session, then hung up and did not answer again.

"It leaves a bitter taste here, just like in the case of Sinisa Malog's plagiarism, that everything happens at the University of Belgrade," adds Milovan Šuvakov. "The role of the management of the Faculty of Philology makes the case more difficult. I hope that the colleagues who work there will manage to solve this case themselves, and not follow the shameful example of FON, which had to be solved by others."

Deans for scandals

Today's dean of the Faculty of Philology, Ljiljana Marković (pictured right), is, if the bibliography is to be believed, a woman with an amazing career. This Japanologist has no weaker political pedigree since 13 years ago, as a member of New Serbia, she was a candidate for ambassador to Japan - but she was rejected in Tokyo. Then, allegedly, she became close to Bogoljub Karić and even became the dean of the Faculty of Management at the University of BK. According to NIN, she was then close to the Democrats, and last year she became a councilor in Belgrade on the list of progressives. She left the city assembly this May after Rector Ivanka Popović officially warned her that she was violating the University's statute.

Our sources say that Ljiljana Marković and her predecessor Aleksandra Vraneš (pictured left) are, as the kids would say, BFF (Best Friends Forever). Together, they went to 14 conferences around the world in 2015 alone. According to the report of the State Audit Institution, in 2017 five employees at the Faculty of Philology had average monthly salaries between 300.000 and half a million dinars. The names of the "Millionaires from Philology", as they are called by their jealous colleagues, remained a secret, but it is known that such people, as a rule, have more functions and teach a large number of subjects.

Our source from the faculty is convinced that A. Vraneš and Lj. Marković those who earn close to half a million dinars per month because they teach the most subjects. According to the list we have access to, both have thirteen courses each - and that's only in doctoral studies. "It's completely unbelievable that the same person teaches so many subjects in doctoral studies and serves as dean along the way." That should be physically impossible," says Shuvakov.

A rebellion against the dean has been going on for months at the Faculty of Philology. More chairs are looking for a change.

In the midst of these demands, a bizarre scandal surfaced: it was previously known that Ljiljana Marković had listed books in her bibliography that could not be found anywhere, and recently it was found out that she had also appropriated three translations made for the Plato publishing house by a translator who was also name and surname and was born in 1953, just like the dean.

photo: nenad Đorđević / phonet (left); tanja valič / tanjug (right)