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The Nonconformists: Dobrica Ćosić and Mića Popović Envision Serbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Nicholas J. Miller
Nicholas J. Miller*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Boise State University
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Extract

There is little to debate about the nature of Serbian political life since the mid-1980s—it has been highly nationalized, to the point that one can argue that a consensus existed among Serbian public figures that the Serbs' very existence was threatened by their neighbors. This consensus links political, cultural, and intellectual elites regardless of their ideological background. It draws together figures representing great diversity in Serbia. This powerful movement has usually been either dismissed or demonized: dismissed as superficial, the product of the cynical adaptation of politicians to new times, or demonized as something inherent in Serbian political culture, a historically predetermined mind-set, ancient and therefore ineradicable. But there is too much evidence that nationalism in Serbia is neither superficial nor ancient. What of the large number of Serbian intellectual and cultural figures who traversed the path from socialism to nationalism after 1945? Were they collectively one of the most cynical generations in any society's modern history, or were they simply possessed by the ancient demons of Serbian nationalism? Neither explanation is satisfying. Instead, postwar Serbian nationalism began as a legitimate and humane movement, neither incomprehensible nor artificial, and it should be understood in the context of communism's effect on Serbian society and its failure to fulfill its own promises, particularly to bring modernization and a universal culture to the peoples of Yugoslavia.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , Fall 1999 , pp. 515 - 536
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1999

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References

1. Until recently nearly all attention paid to Yugoslavia's collapse focused on political and economic causes, with very little comment on the cultural context. Wachtel, Andrew Baruch, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford, 1998)Google Scholar provides an excellent antidote to that disinterest. This article is intended to contribute to furthering our understanding of cultural processes at work in Yugoslavia.

2. In actuality, they had no name for themselves as a group. Dobrica Ćosić, who first contributed to the creation of a minor legend surrounding these men, called them “nonconformists” in Djukić, Slavoljub, Ćovek u svom vremenu: Razgovori sa Dobricom Ćosićem (Belgrade, 1989), 32 Google Scholar; at another point he described them as “people without compass” in Ćosić, Dobrica, Mića Popović, vreme, prijatelji (Belgrade, 1988), 28 Google Scholar; Mića Popović dubbed them “heretics” in Milo Gligorijević, Odgovor Miće Popovića (Belgrade, 1983), 49.

3. Popovićmade this comment in an extensive interview contained in Jevtić, Miloś, Sa Mićom Popovićem (Belgrade, 1994), 26–27.Google Scholar

4. Autobiographical writings include Mihajlović Mihiz, Borislav, Autobiografija—o drugima (Belgrade, 1993–95)Google Scholar; Medaković, Dejan, Efemeris: Hronika jedne porodice (Belgrade, 1992)Google Scholar. Extensive interviews include Djukić, Ćovek u svom vremenu; Gligorijević, Odgovor Miće Popovića; and Jevtić, Sa Mićom Popovićem. They have written extensively about each other as well: Gavrić, Zoran et al., Mića Popović (London, 1987)Google Scholar; Ćosić, Mića Popović, vreme, prijatelji.

5. See, for instance, his retelling of the events surrounding his polemic with Duśan Pirjevec, in Djukić, Ćovek u svom vremenu, 121–37.

6. Ibid., 99.

7. Dobrica Ćosić, “Nalog i poruka nase revolucije,” in Odgovornosli: Akcije II, vol. 8 of Sabrana dela Dobrice Ćosića (Belgrade, 1966), 9.

8. On literary life in Serbia and more specifically the Udruźenje knjiźevnika Srbije, see Radovan Popović, Pisci u sluźbi naroda: Hronika knjiźevnog źivota u Srbiji, 1944–1975 (Belgrade, 1991).Google Scholar

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14. “Zajedno i drugačije, ili o aktuelnostima nase savremene kulture,” Praxis, 1965, no. 4/5: 519–34. Like most of what Ćosićhad to say about the national question in Yugoslav culture, this article provoked a Slovenian response: in this case from Josip Vidmar. See Vidmar, , “O nasem sovinizmu,” in O slovenstvu i jugoslavenstvu: Izbor iz radova (Zagreb, 1986), 392–97Google Scholar. Vidmar criticizes Ćosić for accusing him of being a narrow-minded nationalist.

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17. Arhiv Jugoslavije, Belgrade; Collection of the Savez književnika Jugoslavije: “Savez književnika Jugoslavije: VII Kongres” Titograd, 1964, 187.

18. Quoted in Lukić, Savremena Jugoslovenska literatura, 154.

19. On this polemic, see Milojković-Djurić, Jelena, “Approaches to National Identities: Ćosić's and Pirjevec's Debate on Ideological and Literary Issues,” East European Quarterly 30, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 63–73Google Scholar, and Dimitrij, Rupel, Od vojnog do civilnog društva (Zagreb, 1990), 96–113.Google Scholar Two of Ćosić's contributions to the polemic are published in his collected works: Dobrica Ćosić, “O savremenom nesavremenon nacionalizmu” and “Nacija, integracija, socijalizam,” in Odgovornosti, 18–85.

20. Dobrica Ćosić, “Kako da ‘stvaramo sebe, '” in Stvarno i moguće: Članci i ogledi (Ljubljana-Zagreb, 1988), 11–12.

21. Ibid., 11.

22. Ibid., 12.

23. Ibid., 11.

24. Ibid., 6–7.

25. Ibid., 25.

26. “Literatura u ostavci,” Književne novine (Belgrade), 8January 1966, 1.

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29. Ibid., 91.

30. This speech can be found in Dobrica Ćosić, “Književnost i istorija danas,” in Stvarno i moguće, 121–33. See also Slobodan Stanković, “Conflict over ‘Serbian Nationalism’ Sharpens,” Radio Free Europe Research (RAD BR 198, 4 October 1977), and Zdenko Antic, “The Danger of Increasing Serbian Nationalism,” Radio Free Europe Research (RAD BR 63, 24 March 1983).

31. Ćosić, “Književnost i istorija danas,” 126.

32. Ibid., 126–27.

33. Ibid., 129.

34. Mića Popović, Slikarstvo prizora (Belgrade, 1971). The exhibition lasted from 29 April to 24 May 1971.

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39. In fact, he publicly debated the merits of socialist realism with Radovan Zogović, one of the new regime's ideologues. Popović implied that socialist realist art was no different from Nazi art. See Gligorijević, Odgovor Miće Popovića, 30; Gavrić, Mića Popović, 19.

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46. Novaković, “Mića bez iluzija!” 25.

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51. Draža Marković, Dragoslav, Život i politika, 1967–1978 (Belgrade, 1987), 2: 32.Google Scholar

52. This text is now incorporated into Ćosić, Mića Popović, vreme, prijalelji. See also P. R., “Dim Dobrice Ćosića,” Komunist, 22 August 1974, 4.

53. See, for instance, the review of Sava Dautović, “Izložba političkog pamfletizma,” Politika (Belgrade), 10 December 1979, 12; also, R. K., “Filosofija ‘svevidećeg oka, '” Komunist (Belgrade), 14 December 1979, 18–19.

54. Ćosić, Mića Popović, vreme, prijalelji, 198.

55. Dautović, “Izložba političkog pamfletizma,” 12.

56. On the Martinović affair, see Spasojević, Svetislav, Slučaj Martinović (Belgrade, 1986).Google Scholar

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58. Ibid., 110 (emphasis in the original).

59. Ibid., 128.

60. Ćosić, Mića Popović, vreme, prijatelji, 175

61. Pavle Ivić and Dejan Medaković were the nonconformists on the Committee for the Preparation of a Memorandum on Contemporary Social Questions, which was appointed on 13 June 1985. The committee had sixteen members, including Antonije Isaković, Mihailo Marković, Radovan Samardžić, Vasilije Krestić, and Kosta Mihailović, but not Dobrica Ćosić. Information on the committee is from Srpska akademija nauke i umetnosti, Godisnjak 92 (1986): 105.

62. Miroslav, Hroch, “From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The Nation-Building Process in Europe,” New Left Review 198 (March-April 1993): 14.Google Scholar

63. Katherine, Verdery, “Nationalism and National Sentiment in Postsocialist Romania,” in What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton, 1996), 102.Google Scholar

64. On the nationalism movement and its eventual cooption by Slobodan Milosević and the Serbian League of Communists (later Socialist Party of Serbia), see Nebojša Popov, Srpski populizam (Belgrade, 1991).

65. See, especially, Zeev, Sternhill, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar; also, Zeev, Sternhill, The Birth of Fascist Ideology (Princeton, 1994)Google Scholar.