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384 | YugoslaVia dragoslav Mihailović (b. 1930) As a Soviet sympathizer at the time of Tito’s break with the Soviet Union in 1948, Mihailović, a Serb, was packed off to penal servitude on Goli otok in 1950. Until 1956, it may be recalled, the island was used for the imprisonment of political prisoners, above all Stalinists and Communist Party members and others favorably disposed to the Soviet Union. Mihailović spent two years there and later made it the basis of a massive interview-oriented documentary about prison life on the island (published in 1990 with the title Goli otok). The greater part of the book is divided into three sections: each consists of a personal narrative (in italics) by Mihailović about a former Goli otok inmate being interviewed by him and a fairly lengthy dialogue between Mihailović and the interviewee. The first interview—the longest of the three at nearly two hundred pages—titled “Kad čovek prestaje da bude čovek” (“When a Person Ceases Being a Person”)—is devoted to the loyal Bolshevik Jovan Dimitrijević and took place in February 1979; the second, “Bosanski lonac” (“The Bosnian Urn”), was held in 1984 and is devoted to Nikola Nikolić, a member of the Medical Faculty at the University of Sarajevo; and the third, “Mali vodar dugo pamti” (“The Little Water Carrier of Long Memory”), devoted to Nikola Mićanović, the head of accounting on Goli otok, also took place in 1984. Goli otok remains one of the grimmest books ever published about the notorious island prison camp under Tito. Mihailović also deals with prison life in his well-received short-story collection Lov na stenice (Hunt for Bedbugs, 1993). Apart from Goli otok, Mihailović is best known for his novel, Kad su cvetale tike (When Pumpkins Blossomed, 1968), about the life of a Yugoslav expatriate boxer in Sweden. The following excerpts are from Goli otok (Belgrade: NIP Politika, 1990), 238–44, 275–77, 279–81, and have been translated from Serbian by Harold B. Segel. from Goli otok Spotted Typhus on Goli otok Then the UDBA [panicked]. “Where are these people from? Where did the spotted fever come from?” “It’s here and there, you know. Then the UDBA there in the camp, you know, held it in check. And they arrived here, in Belgrade . And now my friends are saying: ‘Spotted fever on Goli otok! You see, for God’s sake, our Nikola. However he’s the one who [figured it out well]. Can’t you see it?’” And then [Dr. Jovan] Bijelić arrived, the one who was Tito’s doctor. He was connected with me party-wise, a really honest person. YugoslaVia | 385 He came to Goli? Yes, he came to me, he says . . . He came to the camp or did they call you there? No, no, they called me there, on orders. And he says: “God be with you,” he says. “There, you see, I’m telling you the truth, we thought you went off your rocker. Don’t you see what we found?” Well, then, it was all stopped, here, there . . . That was in April of ’51. A huge quarantine was proclaimed for the whole camp that lasted ten days. Nah, what do you mean ten days, it lasted two months. Lasted two months it did. I mean, everything was shut down for ten days. Yeah, I know that. Anyway, there was isolation. And then we were inoculated . Everyone was then inoculated . . . But during that time people were already dying . . . all at once. If someone got a year, he was finished, y’know. He couldn’t last. Two Hundred Thirty Dead How many people died from that epidemic? I think about two hundred thirty . . . I had a room here. A mortuary . . . Two hundred thirty? Yeah, yeah. Just from spotted fever? Yes. How do you think the fever appeared? Someone there must have had infected lice. You think so? Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Or maybe some intelligence agent. I think, some intelligence agent, y’know. English or American, y’understand. Infiltrated there. But how could they get in there? Ah, screw you, they got spies, as many as you want! In general here you don’t know who’s a person and who’s a spy. But, man, you really are strange! I wanted to tell you something. In those years, a former middle-level politician blabbed to a friend of mine in confidence how this spotted fever could have been intentionally spread around, since the UDBA...

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