Inventory of the Milovan Djilas papers

Finding aid prepared by Hoover Institution Library and Archives Staff

Hoover Institution Library and Archives

434 Galvez Mall

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305-6003

hoover-library-archives@stanford.edu

URL: http://www.hoover.org/library-and-archives

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

box 1, folder 1

Two CD-Rs containing 378 digital image files depicting Milovan Djilas' life and family, circa 1931-1989

Access

Original disks closed. Use copies of electronic files available in the Hoover Archives reading room.

box 1, folder 2

Tito: The Story From the Inside (Druzenje s Titom), annotated typescript undated

box 1, folder 3

The New Class (Nova klasa), annotated typescript undated

box 2, folder 1-2

"Thieves' Fate," annotated typescritpts undated

box 2, folder 3

"Barovic: Fearlessness Against Lawlessness," 1979, undated

Scope and Contents

Includes translation by Mate Mestrovic and edited translation by Drenka Willen

box 2, folder 4

Articles for New York Times and Esquire, typescripts and clippings undated

Scope and Contents

Includes "USSR-China: The Essential Differences," "Yugoslavia:An Economy Still Weighed Down by Dogmatism," and "Testimony of Four Peers"

box 2, folder 5

Tromedja 1980

Memoir of a Revolutionary

Scope and Contents

Original English language version, translated and edited by Drenka Willen.

box 3, folder 1-5

Annotated typescript 1972

box 4, folder 1-5

Photocopy 1972

Worlds and Bridges, (Svetovi I mostovi), Volume III

box 5, folder 1-2

Typescript in Serbo-Croatian circa 1974

box 5, folder 3-5

English translation by Lovett F. Edwards undated

Ideas and Times: Political Essays and Articles

box 6, folder 1-4

English translation by Dorian Cooke 1973-1975

Scope and Contents

Includes correspondence and annotated typescripts

box 6, folder 5-6

Annotated typescripts in Serbo-Croatian 1972-1975

Montenegro, (Crna Gora)

box 7, folder 1-2

Annotated typescript in Serbo-Croatian undated

box 7, folder 3-5

Annotated typescripts in English undated

Sound tape reels

Scope and Contents

Contains 3 1/4-inch by 7-inch sound tape reels

box 8, folder 1

"Reading in English From Recent Prose Work (Introduced by William Jovanovich)," (2 reels) 1968

box 8, folder 2

Unlabeled reel undated

box 8, folder 3

Typescripts, correspondenece, and clippings 1962-1971

Scope and Contents

Includes "Soviet Power Without Ideology," "The New Left--A Mixture of Enthusiasm and Manipulation," Land Without Justice footnotes, and Montenegro introduction and preface,

box 8, folder 4-5

Wartime, correspondence, annotated typescript fragments, and list of corrections 1975-1978

box 8, folder 6

"Und wer verandert die Revolutionare," in Christ und Welt 1969

Personal file

Scope and Contents

Includes correspondence and clippings

box 9, folder 1

1966

box 9, folder 2

1960-1962

box 9, folder 3

1962-1963

box 9, folder 4

1963

The Stone and the Violets, (Kamen i ljubičice)

box 10, folder 1

Annotated typescript in Serbo-Croatian circa 1968

box 10, folder 2

Annotated typescript, materials not included in published volume circa 1968

box 10, folder 3

Annotated typescript in English 1972

Scope and Contents

Translated by Lovett F. Edwards

box 11, folder 1

"Soviet Union Today," typescript circa 1955-1956

box 11, folder 2

Letters to Vlado Dedijer 1955

box 11, folder 3

Notes on Vlado Dedijer 1955

box 11, folder 4

Trial proceedings and Djilas' speech at trial 1954-1955

box 11, folder 5

Letter to Josip Broz Tito 1967

box 11, folder 6

The New Class, first concepts in essays form, annotated typescripts undated

box 11, folder 7

"Nordiski San (Nordic Dream)," typescripts and introduction circa 1954

box 11, folder 8

"Sveznanje Gluposti," annotated typescript undated

box 11, folder 9

Writings, letter to Vlado Dedijer, and contents list 1955-1968, undated

box 11, folder 10

Diary from 1953 to 1954, typescript and manuscript 1952-1961

Scope and Contents

Includes letter from Stevo Dedijer to Djido

box 12, folder 1-2

Rebellious Youth, (Pobunjena mladost), manuscript in Serbo-Croatian circa 1955

Scope and Contents

Second volume of autobiography. See also Box 22.

box 12, folder 3-5

Personal file 1964-1965

Scope and Contents

Includes correspondence

box 13, folder 1-3

Conversations with Stalin, (Susreti sa Staljinom), annotated typescripts 1961

box 13, folder 4-5

Lost Battles, (Izgubljene Bitke), annotated typescript in Serbo-Croatian 1967

Scope and Contents

Published as Under the Colors

box 14, folder 1-5

Pre-war writings, typescripts and photocopies 1931, undated

box 15, folder 1-2

Pre-war writings, typescripts and photocopies, (cont'd.)

Paradise Lost (Izgubljeni raj)

Scope and Contents

Translation by Djilas

box 15, folder 3

Correspondence, memoranda, and production notes 1968-1969

box 15, folder 4-5

Annotated typescript in Serbo-Croatian undated

Correspondence

box 16, folder 1

Letters to Vlado Dedijer from Djilas 1973-1977

box 16, folder 2

Letters to senators from William Jovanovich 1962

box 16, folder 3-4

"The Mountain Wreath," correspondence and introduction 1964-1966

Scope and Contents

Concerns the translation of the Njegoš work into English

box 16, folder 5

The Leper and Other Stories, (Gubavac i druge pripovetke), typescript undated

Correspondence

Scope and Contents