Wartime

by Milovan Djilas and Milovan Đilas

Book Overview

An account of the partisan campaign in Yugoslavia during World War II, written from the author's unique perspective-as a key leader of Tito's forces. Index; photographs. Translated by Michael B. Petrovich.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151946094
• ISBN13: 9780151946099
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
• Length: 470 Pages
• Weight: 1.93 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Gripping

Wartime is the WWII memoir of the great Yugoslav dissident, Milovan Djilas. A leading prewar Communist activist and a high ranking member of the Yugoslav Communist leadership after the war, Djilas was expelled from the party and imprisoned (in the same prison where he had been jailed by the pre-war dictatorship) for his dissident opinions. During WWII, Djilas was a leading figure in the Communist (Partisan) resistance and participated in many of the major events following the German conquest of Yugoslavia. Written many years after the war, this is no panegyric but rather a stark and honest accounting enriched by Djilas' mature reflections on the outcome of the war and the subsequent development of an authoritarian Communist state in Yugoslavia. Wartime has several striking features. Violent death is a constant companion. Hardly a page goes by without a death or mention of someone who dies in the course of the war. While the Partisans did fight the Germans and Italian occupiers, most of the combat described in Wartime is fratricidal. Christians versus Muslims, Croats versus Serbs, Serbian (Royalist) Chetniks versus Serbian Partisans, ethnic Germans versus everyone else. In Djilas' description of war in his native Montenegro, its implicit that conflict followed the contours of traditional clan rivalries. The Partisan leadership were convinced Communists, though the intellectual Djilas was perhaps the only real student of Marx. Ideology mattered greatly to them. While the leadership tended to be drawn from the more educated strate of Yugoslav life and somewhat educated industrial workers like Tito, the mass of the Partisan armies were poorly educated peasants. This gives rise to incongruous features. An army led by avowed Marxist revolutionaries carries Orthodox priests on its staff and major celebrations include recitation of traditional folk epics featuring bandits and the struggle against the Ottomans. Djilas was a gifted writer. The often horrifying events in Wartime are presented in a matter of fact, quotidian manner that only emphasizes the grim nature of Yugoslavian life during the war. Djilas has a talent for the revealing anecdote and concise description of character. Djilas periodically interrupts his narrative to make rhetorically powerful statements about the nature of the events described. For example, of his native Montenegro he writes. "...Montenegro, where, from time immemorial, ideas found consumation in violence..." In its way, this book is a masterpiece.

A good way to understand the past of Yugoslavia

I read this book after I had served in Bosnia, for the US Army. This book gave real insight into the creation of the Tito-era Yugoslavia, and what came afterwards. I was surprised at the violence of the three-way civil war that was within WW II in Yugoslavia, and how it played out into the war of the 1990's. I highly recommend this book to others interested in a good account of the history of the socialist Yugoslavia.

Fascinating Eye-witness account of Yugoslavia in WWII

Djilas was Tito's 2nd man in the communist partisan movement in WWII. They fought against Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Royal Serbs (Tschetnizi) and national Croats (Ustashi) and succeeded. Often left alone by their allies (east and west), they faced death more than once. But this is not a heroic recount of that time, no pro-communist biased official praise. Djilan, who was arrested in the 50ies and 60ies for openly opposing comunism/stalinism here gives an evenhanded account on how things were, not sparing out the atrocities done by the partisans.The book is easy to read, but a little short on background information, so you'll have to check some facts, names, places yourself. One of the best books on WWII I've read.