The book "Disintegration and War" was recently published in Belgrade. It's a diary entry Milovan Đilas which he led from 1989 to 1995. The publisher of the book is "Vukotić medija", and the book was edited by the son of Milovan Đilas, dr Aleksa Djilas. The book is softcover and has 598 pages.
And right at the title of the book, the editor made a gross oversight. And a serious mistake. It is true that the book includes the daily political events of Milovan Đilas from 1989 to 1995. and his reflections, in this connection. But the book far surpasses the banality of the title in terms of its use value (usefulness). Based on the depth of experience of the writer of Dnevnik, his education, morals, courage and, above all, his sense of responsibility for the fate of the country and its people, the book should have had a better title. For example "Textbook on (Yugoslav) politics" or "Textbook on the Yugoslav elite". Maybe "Politics in 100 pictures".
The other, far more significant and deeper side of this book is Đilas's writing ("autobiographies") about at least two people who disagreed on almost nothing politically, but had a great friendship. It is about the "autobiographies" of Milovan Đilas i Matija Bećkovića. These two - each in their own way - responsibly and very worriedly considered the fate of "their" people. Matija Bećković primarily belonged to the Serbian people, while Milovan Đilas had a broader overview and a different quality of political perception. Their concern was all the greater as they saw the drama "behind the hill". And the dangers of the coming ghosts of national deaths. This always happens - you can clearly see from Dnevnik - when the Yugoslav - and primarily the Belgrade and Zagreb "new class" - did not mentally prepare the YU-nation(s) to understand the post-Tito reality and what awaits the people in that new, future reality.
Milovan Đilas could not accept Bećković's (Serbian) "conservatism" as a code for the modern solution of the Serbian and any other people in Yugoslavia. But this discrepancy was not the reason for the split or enmity of these two people. On the contrary. It could be said that different political considerations brought them closer together rather than separating them. (And one note. From Dnevnik we learn the banality that these two in their daily communication for several decades always addressed themselves as Vi. Therefore, "Vi" was the "Sistine" finger of appreciation and respect, which is often not the manner of Balkan behavior. On the other hand, "Vi ” was not even a sign of distancing and repulsion.)
Đilas' attitude towards numerous other people who came to see him in Palmotićeva Street no. 8 to hear his opinion about some current event in the country. Let's list just a few personalities: Dobrica Ćosić, Momir Bulatović, Lord Owen, Zimmerman, Loren Sulsberger, Desa Trevisan, Mirko Tepavac, Latinka Perović, Kosta Čavoški, Žika Pavlović, Miladin Životić, Slobodan Inić, Adil Zufikarpašić, Muhamed Filipović, Vuk Drašković, BM Mihiz, Nadežda Gaće, Esad Ćimić, Sergej Grizunov, Viktor Bondarjov, David Binder, Oleg Dziza, Karl Geršman, Nikola Milošević, Georg Strohm, Hajka Flotau, Ljuba Tadić, Stojan Cerović, Jelena Bondarjov, Gordana Suša, Milorad Pupovac, Lejf Hovelsen, Savo Drljević, Richard Shipter , Klara Mandić, Olaf Ighlau, Kosta Hristić, Jovo Kapidžić, Koča Popović, Tasa Mledenović, ambassadors of many leading world countries who are accredited in Belgrade, to name a few.
(From the list, it is easy to conclude that the old man "with one foot in the grave" leads a very dynamic and restless life. And secondly, the leading church figures did not come to "talk" to him. Nor Vojislav Seselj, normally.)
At the end of the introduction about Dnevnik, let's mention one surprise. It was usually considered that Milovan Đilas was a "dry rationalist" who was ashamed of his tears. Until Dnevnik, it was believed that he did not know, nor could he cry or blink. Now we see that it is not so. On the contrary. Milovan Đilas did not run away from his emotions nor was he ashamed. At the end of his life, he also revealed that side of his personality in Dnevnik when his wife died Stefanija in 1993.
Whenever we are talking about the diary of a great historical figure - and Milovan Đilas was undoubtedly it - we are talking about daily records that go beyond superficiality and even banality. This is because the diaries of these personalities hide a whole new "universe" and a different view of the present from the usual one. Because these personalities are different for themselves and each in their own way. Understanding their diaries presupposes and implies understanding the entirety of their personalities over and through their historicity.
So, people who stepped out of history and were fed up with its superficiality, people who headed and even stepped into the "kingdom of death" not to mention immortality, each of their daily ordinariness has a completely different meaning and content.
Here's an example. Let's remember Njegosha who in the elite Venetian hotel "Principe" bent down to measure the thickness of the carpet he was treading on. Normally, it is not about Njegoš's banal curiosity, but rather about Njegoš's observation (measurement) of himself and Montenegrin history in collision with the modern age. In other words, Njegoš asked himself where "we" are and where "they" are and whose "heads are chosen" are better, more significant and more humane. Let's briefly conclude. In this simple example, Njegoš sees the "absence" of (modern) man. But he sees the presence of his own and Montenegrin superiority. See “mask” (V. The whistle) who defeated the man, but does not see the man who overcame the mask.
All of the above seen through the historicity of Đilas's Diary gives us the right to conclude something different and more intimate. And that's how the spirit of such people is timeless and beyond the daily mundaneness of man. Be careful - Đilas keeps a diary only near the end of his life. As if when he "saw" his death. Just then, from a distance and from the height of his enormous political experience, he draws attention and reminds society with a "diary deed" that our political reality is ridiculous ("abbessically") ridiculous. She is mortally dangerous.
In Dnevnik, Đilas warns the society - with lines from his everyday life - that Balkan nationalisms are a step backwards, and that without a spiritually and politically revalued YU-society, there can be no success and no modern progress. Long before the communists, it was known that Balkan nationalisms - especially Serbian and Croatian - were narrowed, truncated, fake, meek, basement, closed, anti-liberal, aggressive and non-self-critical consciousnesses that know how to erupt from time to time, leaving devastation behind. Even streams of ("national") blood.
In short, Dnevnik Milovan Đilas is a chronology of the decline of a society and a system.
That is why Đilas's Diary is a precious testimony of the twilight and demise of an ideological era and Tito's rule. But a sudden death that will drag more or less the entire Yugoslav society from Triglav to Đevđelia into the abyss. Let's try to connect Đilas' thoughts and views on Yugoslav politics and the role of leading individuals in the tragedies that befell our nations in one thread ("one dash").
So, following the chronology of events in Belgrade, Serbia and Yugoslavia from January 1, 1989 to April 10, 1995. Milovan Đilas's "diary notes" would read in one sentence: "to me, all this Serbian politics seems superficial and hopeless... (prevails - VP) separatism and nationalism... used to consolidate power”; "code S. Milosevic is a catastrophic loss of ideas, new ones. In fact, he is a party conservative"; "communists-autocrats are the main obstacle to democratic currents"; "Serbs have tightened up - they are cutting off all ties with Slovenia... that would be the beginning of the end of Yugoslavia, certainly with bloody inter-ethnic confrontations"; "And speaking of that personality (S. Milošević)... Matija admires him... Žika Pavlović is closer to me... Dobrica is more cautious, but he also supports Milošević: the weakness of Serbian democrats is that whenever they have to choose between democracy and the nation... they choose the nation (actually nationalism)”; "I have a hunch, I think that the current Serbian policy is leading the Serbs to a disaster - to the loss of 2,5 million Serbs (outside of Serbia) as well as the loss of Kosovo";
“Arrested Hair.... I consider it a mistake”; "The army in a multi-national state such as the South, which is also intended for internal politics, cannot be the same army of all nations"; "I'm thinking about Dobrica: it doesn't take long"; "Matija came, they are calling us Saturdays”; "Constitution of Serbia as a republic is not a constitution, but an end to Tito's party monolithism"; "Obviously Milošević is switching to traditional nationalism"; "Matija's enthusiasm for Milošević seems to have subsided"; “She stopped by Jelisaveta Karadjordjevic”; "Social meeting in Nikšić: confusion, demagoguery, bad texts... the young leadership is not to blame, but it doesn't even know how to find a way out of them"; "Dobric stopped by tonight, so I told him everything from lunch at Zimmerman's (and Dobric was surprised that Milošević did not want to receive Zimmerman)";
"The Serbian government made a mess by breaking into the financial system... This is a serious blow to Yugoslavia"; "Ante Markovic is, in my opinion, pro-American and as such pro-Yugoslav"; "Dobric stopped by... I greeted him with angry friendship: Well, those in Knin - those are provocateurs! They want to turn Milosevic into a prisoner. They already converted him... they expelled him Rašković the only prudent one”:
"Matija was in a dark-humorous mood, the kind that catches him whenever something is wrong with the Serbs"; "Thinking once again about the relationship between Montenegro and Serbia: it would have been better if Montenegro had declared independence and sought recognition, and then moved closer to Serbia. And the name is also absurd... Because in the end, this "unification" is done by politically exhausted governments, as a "confirmation" that they are for Yugoslavia, which they actually broke up";
"General Mladic threatens London and Washington with bombing, and Šešelj with an assault on Sarajevo: insane babbling anticipating defeat and personal responsibility”; "Dobrica was dismissed: it was not even necessary to accept dirty work: but the ideology, whose founder is the desire to do something great, groundbreaking for the Serbian people and for a place in history..."; "At 12:XNUMX Lord Owen and T. Stoltenberg under the threat of Hindus as secretary... They were accompanied by two security guards. Stoltenberg began... Owen asked... the Lord fixes his gaze, while Stottenberg is more direct";
"Stefka my (wife M.Đ. - prim VP) it's been a long time, here in this notebook I don't talk to you or cry for you"; "Stefka, as I write this I look at your picture and remember your and Alexa's faithful and painful regular visits to the Penitentiary and remind myself of my love for you, my dear, the only light and faith in the dungeon and solitude... then and now" .
They would conclude from Dnevnik that the nations have done well and are still doing well, as was their "new class"/"elite", considering that under "Tito's overcoat" nothing "living", modern and liberal could even emerge and survive. Somewhere in Dnevnik, Milovan Đilas writes that Dobrica Ćosić is the most important Serb in the second half of the XNUMXth century. This is largely true, and it is even colloquial D.Ć. rightfully received the title "father of the nation". But Đilas is of the opinion that - considering the consequences that D. Ćosić left behind - he also seems to be the most tragic personality of that half of the XNUMXth century.
Therefore, the concept that D. Ćosić imposed for the most part on Serbian society and that prevails in the spirit of the Serbian cultural and political "elite" in the direction of its solution to the Serbian national question is wrong, anachronistic and unachievable, Milovan Đilas states in Dnevnik. The consequences are, unfortunately, colossal and tragic. Primarily for the Serbian people. But also other surrounding nations.
And at the very end, this too.
If the Diary is read as a reading that clarifies the period from 1989. until 1995, it is easy to get a wrong picture of the writer in the sense of "now you have come to your senses, Milovan" because he was part of the top of Tito's government. This is profoundly untrue, considering that almost from the beginning of "his" rule in 1946, the writer of Dnevnik pointed in various ways and for various reasons to the ideological+nationalist, dogmatic and anti-liberal background and wrong direction of movement of Tito's (Yugoslav) government.
In this connection, let us only cite the letter dated March 20, 1967, which M.Đ. directed JBTita warning him what will happen to Yugoslavia and its peoples if the Leader and his system do not reassess and accept the modern direction of social development. (It is a real shame that the editor of Dnevnik did not print this letter in the preface. Especially since the letter has only 3-4 pages.)
In other words, whoever is tired of reading 598 pages of the Diary, it is enough to read this letter and everything will be clear from the Diary. If even that is not enough, the reader can read, for example, Đilas's "New Class" (1957), "Articles of Struggle" (1953), "Contemporary Themes" (1951), "Anatomy of a Morality" (1954), etc. The diary will be superfluous to him, except as an example of one man's political experience, knowledge and morals for the sake of liberal social progress.
Bonus video:
