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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.

The period from October 1944 through May 1945, represents the least researched part of the Ravna Gora Movement and the history of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland [JVuO]. At this time, most of these forces had gone through the so-called Bosnian Golgotha, where they experienced a military collapse. One of the key witnesses of this event, Major Aleksandar Milošević, in his memoirs, described the retreat of the JVuO through Bosnia and gave his insight into the cause of the defeat. Pointing out his political resume and presenting the most important parts from his memoirs connected to the events of 1944–1945, this paper will try to shed some light on one of the most controversial and underresearched episodes of World War II.