ГРЕШНИК ДОБРИЦЕ ЋОСИЋА У КОНТЕКСТУ ОТВАРАЊА НАЦИОНАЛНО-ПОЛИТИЧКИХ РАСПРАВА СРЕДИНОМ 80-ИХ ГОДИНА XX ВЕКА
THE SINNER BY DOBRICA ĆOSIĆ IN THE CONTEXT OF THE OPENING OF NATIONAL-POLITICAL DEBATES IN THE MID-80S OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: This article presents an overview of the key political issues that Dobrica Ćosić’s novel The Sinner drew attention to by the authorities at the time of its publication. The article also points out the importance of observing Ćosić at a certain political moment. Ćosić, at that time one of the most important opposition authorities, described the Communist party of Yugoslavia (CPY) in this novel as a Stalinist party, and subtly opened the question of freedom in Marxism. More important fact was that the Yugoslav issue and the issue of relations between Serbs and Croats were described in The Sinner, just at a time when the question of Yugoslav federation was reopened and when political leaders were clearly divided. Ćosić claimed in The Sinner that academic Slobodan Jovanović advocated the Yugoslav state idea, Vukašin Katić, his alter ego, the view that it was over with Yugoslavia, and the communists the idea of breaking up the Yugoslavia. These caused multiple provocations. In this novel, both of these characters distance themselves from Dragiša Vasić’s ideas about interpreting the Serbian question. Ćosić’s alter-ego in The Sinner does not want to create a national program and anticipates the collapse of the power on its own. The Belgrade authorities linked Ćosić’s novel to the issue of publishing the work of academic Slobodan Jovanović and considered it a provocation on the ideological level due to the disparagement of the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Svetozar Marković, Josip Broz Tito and Edvard Kardelj. Literary critics in NIN mostly negatively evaluated the novel in terms of ideas and history of CPY. Miodrag Perišić from Književne novine believed that the government was exaggerating and creating an enemy, obscuring real problems. These actions and their ideas influenced the emergence of different views on the activities of the opposition within the state leadership of Serbia. Jure Bilić, the Croatian representative in the state leadership gave support to the Serbian leadership in dealing with these opposition ideas, while dissatisfaction came by Hamdija Pozderac from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this paper, we leave the question whether Ćosić was clearly aware of the connection between the political moment and his novel, and thus perhaps deliberately imposed certain questions.

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