yugoslavias implosion

during the 1999 air war by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
It was, in fact, the first time that the Serbian intelligentsia mobilized
publicly and homogeneously on the national issue.
Taking the Idea of Genocide a Step Further
Ćosić was busy on several tracks at the same time, conducting
preparations for amending the constitution, organizing a campaign
to raise awareness of the perceived threats to the Serbian nation,
and paving the way for the Serbian embrace of the sanu Memorandum.
As part of these activities, the Committee for the Collection
of Documents on the Genocide against the Serbian and Other Peoples
of Yugoslavia in the Twentieth Century was set up in 1985. Ćosić,
a committee member alongside Vladimir Dedijer, was entrusted
with framing the principles for the committee. Ćosić believed this
to be a politically risky job as well as a task of historic importance,
because “one ought at last to catalogue and name the criminals. As
a reminder and warning.” 61 He argued that “Yugoslavia is the only
European country which has not yet made an exact inventory of its
victims of war, or marked all the genocidal killing fields. We are still
disputing the genocide, interpreting it in a tendentious and utilitarian
manner, haggling over the number of slain, finding excuses for
Jasenovac [the Ustasha-run concentration camp], blackmailing [each
other] with revanchism.” 62
Postwar Yugoslavia’s practice of hiding documents that could
have been used to make sense of historic events, especially documents
regarding victims, as well as putting forward false or questionable
interpretations in support of the ruling ideology was not unique to
Yugoslavia in post-1945 Europe. The fact that the role of the Chetnik
movement in World War II was never fully explained created
room for manipulation and historical revisionism. The anti-Fascist
61 Dobrica Ćosić, Piščevi zapisi, 1981–1991 (Writers’ Notes) , (Beograd: Filip Višnjić, 2002) p . 150 .
62 Dobrica Ćosić, Srpsko pitanje I, (The Serbian Question) (Beograd: Filip Višnjić, 2002) p .112 .
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