Writer, novelist, publicist, essayist, revolutionary and dissident, president of the FR Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1993, academician Dobrica Ćosić died on May 18 in Belgrade at the age of 93.
Dobrica Ćosić was born on December 29, 1921 in the village of Velika Drenova near Trstenik. He was educated at the Secondary Agricultural School "Sveti Trifun" in Aleksandrovac, Župski, but he stopped his education during the Second World War, he passed the matriculation exam on October 16, 1942 at the Secondary Agricultural School in Valjevo. He was a political commissar in the Rasin partisan detachment, editor of the newspaper "Mladi Borac" and a member of the SKOJ Provincial Committee for Serbia. After the liberation, he graduated from the "Đuro Đaković" Higher Political School, he was a member of AGITROP of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Serbia and a republican and federal deputy. Although he was a party activist at the time, he belonged to a group of intellectuals who gathered at Simina 9 in Belgrade in the fifties, consisting of Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, Voja Đurić, Mića Popović, Dejan Medaković, Voja Korać, Pavle Ivić, Dobrica Ćosić, Antonije Isaković, Mihailo Djuric, Zika Stojković, Bata Mihailović, Petar Omčikus, Mirko Borota, Dragoslav Šinžar, Vladimir Medar, Stojan Subotin, Mileta Andrejević, Spomenka Mirilović, Vera Pavlović, Jovanka Stojanović, Mira Margan, Mira Ilijević, Milica Mihajlović, Jelica Tomašević...
In 1968, with a speech in the Central Committee, he raised the issue of Kosovo, which is why he was expelled from the Central Committee. He became one of the most famous opponents of Josip Broz Tito after falling out with him. Dobrica Ćosić became a member of SANU in 1970, and in his opening speech, Literature and History today. (Glas / SANU. OJK. 308, 9, 1978) uttered the sentence that was often quoted later: "The Serbian people won in war and lost in peace". At SAN, he was a member of the committee for the study of the Serbian minority in neighboring countries, the committee for the 3rd millennium and the committee for the study of Kosovo.
He was a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia and the president of the Serbian Literary Cooperative from 1969 to 1971.
In 1984, he was the founder of the Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Thought and Expression, which stood up to protect various opponents of socialist Yugoslavia.
He became the first president of the FRY by decision of the Federal Assembly in June 1992. He was dismissed a year later (May 31, 1993) by a secret vote of both chambers of the Federal Parliament after the conflict with Slobodan Milosevic.
He entered domestic and world literature in 1951 with his first work, "The sun is far away", in which he describes the warrior's experience from the national liberation struggle and depicts the moral and psychological crisis of the personality in the conditions of war. Then, in 1954, he wrote the novel "Roots", for which he takes material from the reality of Serbia at the end of the 19th century in order to shed light on the political turmoil and schism in the Serbian people through the image of a schism in a patriarchal family. This is followed by the journalistic work "Seven Days in Budapest" (1956), then the novel "Divisions" (1961), in which Ćosić once again returns to the Second World War, the theme of which is the division into Partisans and Chetniks and the consequences of this division.
In 1964, Ćosić wrote the essays "Action" and in 1966 the essays "Responsibilities". That same year, Ćosić publishes the so-called the novel "Fairytale", and then again essays called "Power and Anxiety" (1971), a book that was banned at the time. In the period from 1972 to 1979, Ćosić wrote "Time of Death", a historical novel in four books about the First World War. In addition to historical figures, the novel also describes characters from the Katić family from the village of Prerova, first described in the novel "Roots". In 1982, he published more essays called "Real and Possible", and then the trilogy "Time of Evil" ("Believer" in 1984, "Sinner" in 1985 and "Apostate" in 1986), about personalities who started their romantic life in "Time". death", but also political conflicts within the then left.
In the period from 2001 to 2008, Dobrica Ćosić published "Writer's Notes" in diary form in six books about the period between 1951 and 1968. The second book covers the period 1969-1980, which Ćosić spent in opposition to Tito's regime, and the third from 1981 to 1991, i.e. the years in which Ćosić was the holder or participant in almost all opposition initiatives in Serbia. The fourth book of "Writer's Notes" covers the period from 1992 to 1993, the period when Ćosić was engaged in the life of a statesman.
In 2002, Ćosić's work "Writers of my century" was published, and from 2002 to 2003, the two-volume book "Serbian question". In 2004, the book "Kosovo" was published, in 2005 "Friends", then in 2007 "Vreme vlasti 2", a book covering the reign of Josip Broz Tito. Ćosić's penultimate novel was published in 2009 and is called "The Time of Snakes", actually diary notes created during the NATO bombing from March 21, 1999 to January 1, 2000. Ćosić's last novel, published in 2011, is entitled "In another's century is the diary of the former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and writer Dobrica Ćosić." In the diary, he expresses his views on current socio-political topics in Serbia and the world.
Recognitions and awards:
Seventh of July Award for "Divisions" 1961; NIN Award for "Divisions" 1962; NIN Award, 1954 and 1961; Award of the Association of Writers of Serbia in 1986; Njegoša award, 1990; 1991. Rejected the award of the National Library of the SR Serbia; Special Wolf Award, 1991; BIGZ Award 1991; Golden Cross of Tsar Lazar Award, 1993; Laza Kostić Award, 1996; Mesa Selimović Award 1996; Kočić Endowment Award, 1996; Award of the National Library of Serbia 1997; Svetozar Ćorović Award 1997; The golden ring of the despot Stefan Lazarevic, 1998.
The Sun Is Far Away (1951)
Roots (1954)
Divisions 1-3 (1961)
Action (1964)
Fairy Tale (1965)
Power and Fear (1971)
Time of Death 1-4 (1972—1979)
The Real and the Possible (1982)
Time of Evil: The Sinner (1985)
Time of Evil: The Outcast (1986)
Time of Evil: The Believer (1990)
Changes (1992)
Time of Power 1 (1996)
Writer's records 1951—1968. (2000)
Writer's records 1969—1980. (2001)
Writer's records 1981—1991. (2002)
Writer's records 1992—1993. (2004)
The Serbian Question 1-2 (2002—2003)
Writers of My Century (2002)
Kosovo (2004)
Friends (2005)
Time of Power 2 (2007)
Writer's records 1993—1999. (2008)
Writer's Notes 1999—2000: Time of the Snake (2009)
The Serbian question in the 2009th century (XNUMX)
In Another Century (2011)
Bosnian War (2012)
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts regretfully informs the public in Serbia that on May 18, 2014, academician Dobrica Ćosić passed away...
Academician Ćosić left a deep mark in Serbian literature with his visionary and magical literary style. His works, which marked the Serbian literature of the 20th century, attracted great attention of readers and were always among the most read editions.
SANU website
Academician Dobrica Ćosić was buried on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 14 p.m. in the family tomb at the New Cemetery in Belgrade, according to his own wishes, without accompanying speeches.
The funeral was attended by more than 1.000 citizens, according to the RTS report, and Bishop Irinej of Bačka officiated. flutist Bora Dugić, actresses Jelena and Ivana Žigon, President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić, ministers Ivica Dacić, Nikola Selaković, Ivan Tasovac, President of the Assembly of Serbia Maja Gojković, former President of the FRY Vojislav Koštunica, ex-President of Serbia Boris Tadić, Dragan Đilas, President of the Republika Srpska (BiH) Milorad Dodik, member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska Aleksa Buha, former President of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska Momčilo Krajišnik, Milorad Vučelić, critic Đorđe Vukadinović, Miroslav Mišković, numerous writers, actors, composers...
Passage
The woods and the road were burning behind me. I'm not a snake to bury my tail in the ground. My teeth were loose, but I looked like a chicken. Far behind, in the corrals, Mir remained desolate. And man dies only when he has to and when he doesn't want to. Although my chin is as long as my seventh rib, my legs could carry it and the knife. I poked along the last river. No lantern has broken the night, no lamp. The wind is in the wind, so it doesn't commit crimes either. I have to move forward because, I said, the snow is burning behind me. I'm leaving, but for me, the long one, the step is short. The crackle of ice spreads quickly. I walk more slowly; I didn't know the beard was so heavy, and I didn't know everyone was so afraid of the knife. The tremors are getting louder. I mean, the bones of the fish are cracking, because under the icy skin, warm as blood, is a trapped river. I want to pierce her with a knife and warm my fingers on her warm gush. I stop and listen to how the icy shiver swells in the blood under the opanas.
There is a black man on the shore in the snow. A strong man. Raised his hand, remains silent and does not move. It was never in my nature to turn my back on a man and I continued to step on the crunch of dry fish bones. And that I don't reach the shore and a man with a raised hand — is he calling or threatening? — it's warm under the ice. Life was never my cup of tea anyway. And nothing of mine will remain on any shore. I am uncomfortable just hearing so much fear. I'm in the middle. Under the soles of the feet is the back of the nut, it is the deepest there. I would sit down and think about something. It would be worth it, now, and right here over her, I would understand something. And I'm being pulled by a man with a raised hand. I don't step, I hide, I sneak up and listen to how the fear thickens, grows, and then suddenly erupts into a crash and brittleness. Ice hoes snap grumpily at my head and hands, and she drags me by my legs into her chained belly. Well, you don't want me now, I say loudly and curse, because that's how it was when a cannonball fell into my trench on Šumatovac, and not only then, because on the shore behind me the forests were left burning and the ropes swaying like pears. So I swing to hit, the way I know how, even though my teeth hurt at the root.
When I found myself wet and angry on the shore, my right hand guarding the handle of the knife, I saw that the motionless man with his hand raised was just a willow tree with a single short branch. Something lingered inside me. And Prairie wild goose hunters scattered the story around the hearth with a wide and sooty gullet. On the same day, they determined that I, who was the first to cross the young ice on the Morava at night, drowned and was saved, was not from Prerov. I'm not hiding that I'm not. I'm not even because, as they themselves said, only a heart bigger than a dulek or a barker at the heels can connect the two shores on the first ice. They wove all kinds of stories, secrets and conjectures around me, and after ten years they are still wove, because this world by the river is small, it is tight with human heads and tongues in a valley that resembles a linden tree. To the west, the forest and the monastery are always lordly, and the bottom is revealed by Palanka, also lordly. I have never seen such an oblong shell as the sky, where all the winds follow the path of the sun and the moon.
I am a servant, and I do what I want. Except Aci, no one commands me, and his ox is my seducer. When he brought me into the house at night ten years ago with frozen chakshiras, he whispered something to Djordje, and told Simka loudly, so that I could hear: he should do what he wants and eat what we bosses eat. She measured my strength with her eyes and saw that I was big and healthy, so it wasn't right for her. And only after a few days, my wife concluded that my temper was evil, because I didn't talk to anyone but her, rarely and always strictly. The people of my roots must defend themselves by remaining silent.
Sometimes, usually after dinner, Acim calls me to his room. If someone looked through the window, he could only see: two beards swaying towards each other. And nothing more. And if I disappear for ten days, always at night, because the grass also grows at night, I return again at night, so do the animals, me, a badger with a beard, in the basement to bed. Above it is the new and largest house in Prerov. Above my bed is Simkina and George's room. A little to the right, the room for Vukašin. What is expected, but does not come...
