Contents

Đorđe Vukadinović

We Did Fine, Considering! ..............................................................5

Nebojša Medojević

A Politician of Necessity on an Impossible Mission ...........................13

Mario Brudar

Personal Chronicle of Participants and Observers .............................17

Đorđe Vukadinović

Jovanović's Conflict with the Past - and Serbia .....................23

Saša Gajić

Selling Bricks ....................................................................33

Saša Gajić

Confession of a Dangerous Mind ...........................................................29

Mario Brudar

Memories and Notes of a Liberal from Povlen ........................39

Chronology .....................................................................................51

Abstracts ....................................................................65

Summaries

Đorđe Vukadinović

We Did Fine, Considering!

The article offers a collective review of memoirs written by former DOS leaders: Milorad Isakov, Milan St. Protić, Dušan Mihajlović and Čedomir Jovanović. Seeing their ease in describing all the things they said and done behind the back of the public, the author's principal conclusion reads: We did just fine, considering. The short but stormy history of the DOS, its revolutionary ambitions – most obvious in the case of Jovanović and Protić – where everything is permitted for “higher goals”, is only the most recent local confirmation of old and simple truths, namely that we should not play with democracy even when it slows down our aspirations and that political legitimacy in democracy is not obtained by revolutionary rhetoric or a decree from Brussels or Washington, but with transparent procedures, open institutions and tolerance towards one's political rivals. Regrettably, none of this applied to the DOS political elite. Precisely because of these large, betrayed, hopes, the Serbian public will probably remember this elite less favorably than it otherwise would, had it not started with so many promises and expectations.

Key words: politics in Serbia, democracy, and revolution, DOS.

Nebojša Medojević

A Politician of Necessity on an Impossible Mission

The article reviews Mile Isakov's book Paradox/s . If we agree with the maxim that the people have the government they deserve, we may say that not even the Serbs deserved the DOS government. Mile Isakov admits that already in the third paragraph of his book. Therefore, the author of the review find's Isakov's book a honest and true confession of a good man, morally responsible and well-meant intellectual and a politician of necessity. This book should be read to understand why the DOS actually was the impossible mission. Most of its leaders sought power to solve their own problems, satisfy their own requirements, cure their complexes. Meanwhile, what happened with the people and their problems, hopes, expectations? “Bugger them... aren't we the government,” responded one of the DOS ministers, Isakov says. The minister concerned, Dragan Veselinov could be objected quite a few things, but he certainly must be commended for his succinct, precise and truthful formulation, reflecting the logic of the large part of those who ruled Serbia both before and after October 5.

Key words: Mile Isakov, politics in Serbia, democracy, revolution, DOS.

Mario Brudar

Personal Chronicle of Participants and Observers

The article deals with Milan St. Protić's book The Betrayed Revolution (Belgrade, 2005). Its title already reveals two main views of this author, namely that the events of October 5, 2000 were a revolution and then also that this revolution was betrayed by its main actors. According to Protić, the principal culprit for the betrayal of the revolution was Koštunica, while the leading positive character is the he himself. This book, too, gives a number of data thus far unknown to the Serbian public. But, most of them testify to the degree of alienation of the DOS elite from the political and social reality of Serbia. The book is dominated by the author's egocentrism to a degree that is almost in poor taste, while its strongest points are the personally intoned, but well written portraits of the main figures on the Serbian political scene of the 1990s.

Key words: Milan St. Protić, politics in Serbia, democracy, revolution.

Đorđe Vukadinović

In his sparse and unusual book recapitulating his erstwhile political performance and at the same time disclosing the ambitions and premises in preparation of the second act of his political career, Jovanović offers a reconstruction of the recent past which mostly recalls a combination of a somewhat confuse spy story, and the official releases of the police and the government from the times of the state of emergency. The only novelty is perhaps the form he uses. Namely, Jovanović's writing is just like his speech - a bit chaotic and superficial, but actually focused, skillfully steered and occasionally witty. Jovanović's view of the DOS government is the best expressed in the title of one of the chapters – “All against us, we against all”! This obsession with the enemy lurking from all sides - which is, naturally, accompanied by a specific feeling of being chosen and having a mission that grows progressively stronger the lonelier the “chosen man” becomes - was, and to all appearances still remains, the trade mark of Jovanović's political career.

Key words: Čedomir Jovanović, democracy, Zoran Đinđić, politics in Serbia, DOS, theory of conspiracy.

Saša Gajić

Selling Bricks

The text reviews Miloš Vasić's Assassination of Zoran . Although Vasić opens with the promise to focus on known facts alone, without going into the ideologically attractive but unsubstantiated hypotheses, he, in the view of this author, links the diverse data into a semi-fantastic theory: that the force behind the Đinđić assassination is a team of “cartels”, comprising the powerful criminal-intelligence services of the old regime and conservative social forces (Koštunica, the Church, the Academy), operating to the accompaniment of the “red orchestra” embodied by the media machinery (journalist, analytical, intellectual mercenaries...). The theory is indeed media attractive, since it accuses a good part of the Serbian elite of either participation or complicity in the crime against Đinđić, but it is far from being historically relevant, in the absence of sufficient facts to corroborate it. That is why the reader can only take Vasić's word for it, although the impression is that he has lumped all his political opponents either in the above-mentioned “cartel”, or else in the “red orchestra”.

Key words: Zoran Đinđić, assassination, Miloš Vasić, politics in Serbia, crime in Serbia.

Saša Gajić

Confession of a Dangerous Mind

The article reviews Čeda Jovanović's book My Conflict With the Past (Belgrade, 2005).

The book is not only an autobiographical account of recent history written by a participating politician. It is also a part of his political marketing, i.e. Jovanović's personal promotion and political campaign mounted in an effort to stage his comeback to the Serbian political scene. In that sense the book is an interesting testimony of the psychological and ideological profile of the author – the favorite of a part of the social elite in the capital. The book abounds in emotions and passion, but lacks sufficient historical objectivity and moderation. The readers who like passionate literature and Jovanović's radical political engagement will doubtlessly like the book. But for a serious social scientist it can only be a source of bizarre details on the state of mind and relations prevailing in the Democratic Opposition of Serbia before and after October 5, 2000.

Key words: Čedomir Jovanović, politics in Serbia, democracy.

Mario Brudar

Memories and Notes of a Liberal from Povlen

The article surveys Dušan Mihailović's book Povlen's Mists and Vistas (Belgrade, 2005). In the first volume Mihailović describes his political path until the year 2000, devoting the second to the time he spent in the DOS government as vice premier and minister of the police. Both volumes are large and abound in facts and documents. Although Mihailović failed to provide the answers to numerous interesting questions and remains within the framework of the political ideology of “dosism”, the book will no doubt help social scientists to describe the events in Serbia before and after the year 2000.

Key words: Dušan Mihailović, politics in Serbia, democracy, the police.