Access
Use
Acquisition Information
Preferred Citation
Biographical Note
Scope and Content of Collection
Index to Writings
Title: Milovan Djilas papers
Date (inclusive): 1931-1989
Collection Number: 80128
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: In Serbo-Croatian and English
Physical Description:
43 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box, 378 digital image files (.007 GB)
(18.3 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Writings, translations, correspondence, printed matter and photographs relating to communism, communism in Yugoslavia, and
President Josip Broz Tito.
Creator:
Djilas, Milovan, 1911-1995
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Access
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
Use
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquisition Information
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1980, followed by a large increment in 2014.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Milovan Djilas papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Biographical Note
Milovan Djilas (1911-1995) was a Yugoslav communist leader who subsequently became the first prominent dissident in the history
of communist Eastern Europe.
Djilas said that he "traveled the entire road of communism," from a youthful revolutionary, partisan guerrilla fighter against
Nazi invaders of his native Montenegro, to a zealous believer in Stalinism, to complete disillusionment and rejection of a
system "capable of destroying nine-tenths of the human race to 'make happy' the one-tenth." Djilas was for many years the
closest associate of Josip Broz Tito, the founder of communist Yugoslavia. It was Djilas who Tito sent to Moscow early in
1948 to inform Stalin that Yugoslavia would follow its own national development, outside the Soviet bloc. Soon, however, the
relationship with Tito soured as Djilas became increasingly critical of the party and its ideology. In 1954 he was expelled
from the party and his government job and, in the following year, put on trial for "hostile propaganda." Djilas spent the
next four decades in either prison or official isolation.
In 1957 Djilas was able to smuggle his manuscript of
The New Class to the West. It was published in English by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which was then owned by the author's friend, William
"Bill" Jovanovich. The book made Djilas famous. Eventually translated into sixty languages and having sold three million copies,
it was a devastating critique of the communist system.
The New Class resulted in another trial and seven-year sentence for "being hostile to the people and the state of Yugoslavia."
In 1962, Djilas published
Conversations with Stalin, which resulted in another prison term. Let out in 1966, he was allowed to travel and spent time in Britain, the United States,
and Australia. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 found him a visiting professor at Princeton. He was highly critical
of the Soviets, which on his return to Yugoslavia resulted in the revocation of his passport for the next eighteen years and
his living in isolation in Belgrade. The domestic ban on Djilas's publications was not lifted until 1988, with his full rehabilitation
the following year.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains Djilas's manuscripts and typescripts sent by him to publisher William "Bill" Jovanovich, both published
and unpublished, along with correspondence and related materials. There are more than a dozen book manuscripts and numerous
essays and articles for the American and Western press. Djilas heavily annotated and corrected most of the manuscripts by
hand. Included is the still unpublished English translation of his three-volume novel
Worlds and Bridges, and the original Serbian manuscript. Djilas considered this novel about the bloody conflicts between the Serbs and Muslims
after World War I his life's main work. The collection also includes the unpublished
Jail Diaries.
The original acquisition contained a typescript of "Nova Klasa: Kritika Savremenog Komunizma," circa 1957, and a photocopy
of a typescript of "Druþenje s Titom," 1980, relating to the communist regime in Yugoslavia and to President Josip Broz Tito.
They were published under the same titles (Belgrade, 1990; Harrow, England, 1980).
A manuscript and typescript of Djilas's diary from 1953 and 1954 can be found in box 11. The papers also contain rich correspondence,
much of which can be found in boxes 17, 18, 27, 28, 42 and 43, as well as scattered throughout the collection.
Index to Writings
Although the papers have not been arranged, this index can serve as a guide to the Djilas writings within the collection.
Djilas wrote a three volume autobiography. The first volume,
Land Without Justice, was published in 1958. The second volume was originally titled
Rebellious Youth, and was later referred to as
Land Without Justice II. In 1973,
Memoir of a Revolutionary was published, which combined volumes 2 and 3 of the autobiography. Within the collection, material from the autobiography
is listed under all three titles.
Box Numbers |
Titles |
13, 28, 38-39 |
Conversations with Stalin (Susreti sa Staljinom)
|
6, 21 |
Ideas and Times: Political Essays and Articles
|
37-39 |
Jail Diaries (Zatvorski dnevnik)
|
18-19, 22, 24, 35-36 |
Land Without Justice, (Beslidna zemlja)
|
16, 28 |
The Leper and Other Stories (Gubavac i druge pripovetke)
|
13, 30, 40-41 |
Lost Battles/Under the Colors (Izgubljene bitke)
|
3, 4, 22, 34-35 |
Memoir of a Revolutionary (Pobunjena mladost II; Besudna zemlja, knjiga III)
|
7, 41-42 |
Montenegro (Crna Gora)
|
19-21, 33 |
Njegoš
|
1, 11, 22 |
The New Class (Nova klasa)
|
15, 33-34 |
Paradise Lost (Izgubljeni raj)
|
12, 32 |
Rebellious Youth (Pobunjena mladost)
|
10 |
The Stone and the Violets (Kamen i ljubičice)
|
1, 24-25, 36 |
Tito: The Story From the Inside
|
2, 29 |
Thieves' Fate
|
19, 28, 31-32 |
The Unperfect Society: Beyond the New Class (Nesavršeno društvo)
|
8, 29 |
Wartime
|
5, 23-24, 28, 30, 36-37, 39, 40, 44 |
Worlds and Bridges (Svetovi I mostovi)
|
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Communism
Yugoslavia -- Politics and government -- 1945-1980
Communism -- Yugoslavia
Dissenters -- Yugoslavia
Tito, Josip Broz, 1892-1980