yugoslavias implosion

president, Ćosić brought together many leading Serbian writers, scientists,
philosophers, artists, and businessmen. He also helped established
links with Prosvjeta, the Serbian cultural society in Croatia,
and launched activities to achieve the “spiritual unity of the dismembered
Serb nation.” 46
Ćosić played a central role in Belgrade “dissident” groups: He
was connected with the Faculty of Philosophy professors contributing
to the periodical Praxis, participated in the seminars of the
Serbian Philosophical Society, and attended sessions of the Free University.
His connections with all kinds of personalities in the alternative
scene added to his power and influence. His books were
published without any opposition and he was admitted to the Serbian
Academy of Sciences and Arts (sanu) as a permanent member in 1977.
His novels were influential in propagating the widespread belief that
Serbian history was nothing but Serbian tragedy.
In his novels, particularly Vreme Smrti, Ćosić elaborates on the
concept of the Serbs’ tragic history, glorifies Serbian patriarchalism
and agrarianism, and argues that the Serbs were the losers within
the state framework of Yugoslavia. The thesis set out in Vreme Smrti
became dominant in the formulation of the Serbian national program
at the end of the twentieth century, concluding that, because
the Serbian state was not strong enough to incorporate the territories
in which Serbs lived alongside other people, the Serbs must expand
their state in a northwesterly direction. 47
Upon his accession to sanu in 1977, Ćosić said that the Yugoslav
state was “essentially unfavorable for the Serbs” and observed that,
46 Mihajlo Marković, Juriš na nebo, str . 88
47 The disillusionment with Yugoslavia was couched in even stronger terms by Danko
Popović in his novel Knjiga o Milutinu (A Book About Milutin), published in 1986,
reprinted more than twenty times, and translated into many foreign languages .
The publishing house L’Age d’Homme of Lausanne, owned by Vladimir Dimitrijević,
was a major promoter of such books in the West . These books exerted significant
influence on Western public opinion because, with the exception of Ivo Andrić,
no translations of major works by Yugoslav authors existed at that time .
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