Olga Manojlović Pintar

Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, Beograd

olgamp0208@gmail.com

“The Spanish Letter” of 1984 in Koča Popović’s diary notes

Abstract: From October 20 to 27, 1984, an assembly of the Association of Yugoslav Volunteers of the Spanish Republican Army was held in Sarajevo from which an open letter was sent to the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. This paper (re)constructs a chronology of events, following the thoughts and activities of Konstantin Koča Popović, which he wrote in his diary (from August 1984 to February 1985) during the preparations for the Sarajevo meeting, as well as his reactions to the talks held by representatives of the CC LCY and members of the Board of the Association. Today, the diary notes of Koča Popović are kept in the Family Fund – Legacy of Koča Popović and Lepa Perović in the Historical Archive of Belgrade.

Keywords: Koča Popović, Spanish fighters, Yugoslavia, 1980s, Gojko Nikoliš, diary

Summary: This paper is a supplement to the author’s book Poslednja bitka: Španski borci i jugoslovenska kriza osamdesetih [The last battle, Spanish fighters and the Yugoslav crisis of the 1980s], which contains transcripts of meetings held by representatives of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia Central Committee Presidency with Yugoslav Volunteers of the Spanish Republican Army on October 29 and November 5, 1984. The text presents parts from the diary notes of Koča Popović, which are kept in the Historical Archives of Belgrade, and which in many ways complement and confirm the conclusions presented in the book. These additions not only contribute to the understanding of the even at hand, but also to the understanding of the wider aberrations of the Yugoslav state and society during the 1980s. The article gives answers to the questions: How did Koča Popović accept to participate in the drafting of the letter? What were his reactions to the refusal of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia to engage in a public dialogue with the Association of Spanish Fighters? How did he see the future of the Yugoslav community after the failure of the Spanish initiative? The text in tersects three perspectives: that of the public, which could only partially follow and interpret the entire event based on a couple of abbreviated newspaper articles and one official party statement; the perspective of the Presidency of the CC LCY, which criticized the views expressed in the letter at several sessions and tried to delegitimize the Association as an equal political entity, and the views of Koča Popović himself as a former prominent member of the highest party and state leadership, who twelve years after withdrawing from public (political) life critically considered, reflected, pondered and tried to formulate his views on the crisis of Yugoslav state and society.