Search

In mid-1944, Serbia was at a historic turning point. The Allies’ decision to support the communist side influenced the outcome of the years-long civil war and enabled the communists to take over the state. The previously dominant Chetnik movement suffered a number of major defeats at the hands of Partisan forces penetrating Serbia from Bosnia and Montenegro. Meanwhile, local Partisan forces strengthened; following the example of other parts of the country, guerrilla detachments evolved into divisions and corps of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army. Finally, in September 1944, the Red Army came to their aid, accelerating the liberation and making a key contribution to the expulsion of German occupying forces. Based on existing literature and archival sources, the paper aims to provide an overview of thesituation in Serbia in the summer and autumn of 1944 and to highlight key factors leading to the Partisan takeover.

This paper analyses suicides among members of the People’s Liberation Movement (Narodnooslobodilački pokret, NOP) during the Axis occupation of Serbia in the Second World War. We will identify different types of suicide, determine the motives behind them, and identify those that can be linked to some forms of self-sacrifice. In particular, we will consider whether suicides within the NOP were influenced not only by Communist ideology but also by national traditions in the Balkans and the circumstances of war.

Sreten Žujović (1899‒1976) was one of the leading collaborators of Josip Broz from the territory of Serbia in the period before and during the Second World War. The facts from his biography show that the Yugoslav communists prepared for the revolution and civil war well before 1941, and that the Comintern played a crucial role in their training and ideological formation. Through the life of Sreten Žujović, we can also see how factional struggles within the KPJ weakened the influence of the party in Serbia, and that the conflict between Broz and Gorkić was particularly fatal for their organization. It was shown, however, that Broz was ready to accept cadres who previously belonged to another current, so Žujović was included in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the KPJ, and in June 1941. he became the commander of the Main Staff of the NOP detachment in Serbia. One of the most important demonstrations of loyalty, on the other hand, was the constant reckoning with the ‘Greater Serbian bourgeoisie’, the political elite and the bourgeoisie class from among its own people. Furthermore, from 1942, Žujović held various leadership positions in the Partisan movement, showing how political institutions take precedence over military ones. He continued his political career even after the war in 1945, as Tito’s minister, deputy and close associate. But when there was a big turn in the relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia in 1948, this communist official showed that proletarian internationalism can be applied in relations with his compatriots, but not with the “first country of socialism” in which he was educated and formed. Not accepting the course of the conflict with the IB, Sreten Žujović was dismissed and sentenced to prison. With that, he became another symbol: the way in which KPJ treats dissenters from its ranks, but also how rehabilitation is possible after “revision of positions”.

Битка на бојном пољу током грађанског рата у Југославији 1941–1945. одвијала се паралелно са дипломатском борбом. Политичка борба требало је да се усклади и са циљевима великих сила чији су договори о успостављању новог поретка након сваког рата одређивале судбину региона. До средине 1942, главни креатор политике савезника према Југославији била је Велика Британија; надаље су је замењивале Сједињене Америчке Државе и Совјетски Савез и, у завршници рата, поготово након што је војно интервенисао на Балкану, искључиво СССР. Односи унутар антифашистичке коалиције били су сложени, али су њихов крајњи договор и њихов компромис у другој фази рата, те подела на интересне сфере, одлучили судбину Југославије и српског народа. Другим речима, интереси „великих“ и политичке одлуке утицали су на исход расплета у грађанском рату више него било која од акција покрета отпора на терену. Њима је преостало једино да се снађу у новим условима и прилагоде новонасталим околностима. Овај текст замишљен је као осврт на постепено усклађивање политике великих сила и њене главне токове у расплету грађанског рата у Србији.

The plot of Dobrica Ćosić’s novel The Sun is Far Away is deeply rooted in the events of 1942-1943, with reference to other war and post-war years. The second layer consists of the writer’s subsequent political ideas and thoughts, which were then attributed to his literary heroes. Ćosić’s early work, with an emphasis on the novel The Sun is Far Away, cannot be viewed as dissident; according to his motives and conclusions, he is politically engaged and completely “on the Party line”. However, the then open dilemma (whether to fight for freedom at all costs) will follow the author in the following period, and his conclusions presented in 1951 will change in the future. The number of identified historical contents in the novel exceeds the initial expectations and it could be said that for all the basic ideas presented in the book, the author had as inspiration specific historical events and personalities. He shaped them through artistic freedoms, but also in accordance with the ideology of the movement to which he belonged. In our opinion, the motives for the creation of the novel in the early post-war years were also political: to present the Partisan Movement to the Serbian people as part of its historical epic vertical; to make a departure from the USSR and present the Partisan struggle as an independently executed, authentic revolution; to point out the betrayal and crimes of the counter-revolution and the Ravna gora Movement (presented in a politically constructed symmetry as “Serbian Ustashas”), and thus to contribute to the war propaganda that was waged against them even then. In that sense, the novel The Sun is Far Away should not be viewed only as a literary fiction, but as a part of engaged literature which had far-reaching consequences in the formation of the historical consciousness of post-war generations.