When Alija Osmanovic, a Bosnian war orphan who is the protagonist of Knife, goes in search of the identity of his murdered birth-parents, a sense of thwarted justice motivates him, and expresses itself as burning passion for revenge. This is summed up by the novel's title.  The opening chapter describes the massacre of a Serbian village by Muslim Ustase on Christmas Day (January 7) of 1942. The sole survivor is a newborn male infant, spared at the last moment and given to a Muslim woman who lost her husband in the raid. The boy is named Alija, and is raised as a Muslim, and later comes to believe that his family was killed by Serbs. Twenty-one years later, Alija, now a medical student in Sarajevo, discovers that the newspapers are interested in his story. An article about him is published in a Sarajevo daily, and he begins receiving mail. Most of it is sympathetic but unhelpful, although he does receive an enigmatic letter which reads: You are certainly not what you are, nevertheless, you are what you are not. Alija seeks out Sikter Effendi, an eccentric and reclusive Muslim cleric, to help him interpret the enigma. Sikter Effendi, an irascible outsider, is, nevertheless, considered to be honest, because he has suffered at the hands of each regime: Ustase as well as Communist. He has responded by developing a fine sense of disgust for the human race, and he steeps himself in history, trying to untangle the threads of misfortune. But when Alija enters the Effendi s life, a transformation occurs. Sikter Effendi finds a spiritual heir. Through Sikter Effendi s mentorship, Alija discovers the truth: that his heritage is Serbian; that he was born not far away but in the neighboring village; and that his adoptive family was guilty of murdering his birth-family. A crisis of identity ensues. Each possible course of action open to him is bad. How is he to go on?

Knife

Literature & Fiction

Milo Yelesiyevich

Vuk Draskovic

Literary

Serbian Classics Pr

"Ratko Mladic: Tragic Hero" is the first book-length study to appear in English about the controversial Serbian general. It departs radically from mainstream news coverage of General Mladic because it presumes him to be innocent of charges of war crimes and genocide until he has been proven guilty. Furthermore, Ratko Mladic: Tragic Hero presumes that the West has been acting against its own best interests by supporting Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the former Yugoslavia, while at the same time attempting to prosecute General Mladic for alleged crimes for which there is still no proof, even after the passage of more than a decade. Genegal Ratko Mladic was the first General to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Europe. Why has he been demonized while others, who have done little or nothing—or who have even aided and abetted the rise of Islamic fundamentalism—have been praised? "Ratko Mladic, Tragic Hero" consists of an abridgment of Mr. Stojadinovic’s book, "Ratko Mladic, Hero or War Criminal?" (Evro, Belgrade: 2001) which discusses Mladic’s biography, his successes and failures as a general, the dilemmas he faced as a soldier, and tries to answer the question: how good a general was he? and is he a war criminal? It is followed by "Bringing Democracy to Bosnia," by Gregory Elich, a respected journalist whose work has appeared on counterpunch.org and Covert Action, which examines the results of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia, and demonstrates that the West has imposed a dictatorship in Bosnia that benefits only globalists and multinational corporations. Background chapters provide a context for the Bosnian War that the mainstream media has systematically ignored. "Bosniacs, Nazi Muslims, Mujahideen, and Bin Laden" traces the rise of Bosnian Muslim fascism and its connection to Islamic fundamentalism as exemplified by the Nazi SS Handzar Division during WWII, which was organized by Himmler and Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Alija Izetbegovic, former President of Bosnia-Herzegovina, began his career as recruiter for the Handzar Division and acted as a historical link, connecting resurgent Muslim fascism and fundamentalism in Yugoslavia in the 1990s to that of WWII. "Ustashi, Murderer Monks, and the Modern Croatian State" examines the Ustashi Nazi Puppet state created by Hitler in Croatia during WWII, and the involvement of the Roman Catholic clergy in the administration of the Jasenovac death camp, as well as many others like it. The contemporary Croatian state is shown to be a direct heir to the Croatian Nazi puppet state of WWII. The most controversial chapter is "Srebrenica, the Phantom Massacre," which analyzes the alleged "Srebrenica Massacre" and challenges the groundless accusation that "7,000 Muslim men and boys" were killed there. This analysis relies on mainstream news coverage of The Hague Tribunal, the work of independent analysts, and the Srebrenica Report (authored by Darko Trifunovic) that was issued by the Republika Srpska in 2002. UN High Representative Paddy Ashdown dismissed this 2002 Report without ever having read it. The analysis argues persuasively that at most about 1,800 armed Bosnian Muslim soldiers died in combat, and that about 100 were killed in summary executions. In other words, there was no massacre—only combat fatalities. Seventy pages of interviews with General Mladic appear in English for the first time, along with appendices that reprint key articles by David Binder, A.M. Rosenthal, Chris Hedges, Kosta Cavoski, and T.W. Carr. The Hague indictment is also reprinted "Ratko Mladic: Tragic Hero" will contribute to a greater understanding of General Mladic’s role in the Bosnian war that will benefit scholars, historians, journalists and students, as well as Americans who want to take a more critical look at U.S. military adventures overseas. Ratko Mladic is a tragic hero because he fought the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism and neo-fascism in the Balka

Ratko Mladic: Tragic Hero

Unwritten History, Inc.

Sherlock Holmes, in the absence of Dr. Watson presses Oscar Wilde into his service to help protect candidate Grover Cleveland from a sexual scandal in the 1884 U.S. presidential election, but everything goes wrong. Oscar Wilde proves to be Holmes intellectual equal; Professor Moriarty is the villain; and Lillie Langtry is the woman at the bottom of it all. Can Sherlock Holmes redeem himself and solve the story's mystery perhaps even the mystery of himself?

Wilde about Holmes

Comic Masque

Nikola Koljevic's Creating the Republika Srpska provides an intimate view of the aspirations, strategies, and point of view of the Bosnian Serbs during their numerous attempts to achieve peace during the Bosnian War. These eloquent memoirs describe what transpired at all the peace conferences from Lisbon to Dayton.

Creating the Republika Srpska

Translator

Nikola Koljevic

This revised edition offers new a English translation of Jovan Ducic's poetry. 
Jovan Ducic appeared at the turn of the century, a crucial point in the history of Serbian Literature when the era of Romantic and Realist poetry was coming to an end and another, Modernism, was just beginning. By introducing new themes and sources of inspiration, Ducic was instrumental in setting Serbian poetry on a new course. He was an aesthete who possessed a cultivated and refined taste as well as an aristocratic spirit. He is the foremost practitioner of l art pour l art in Serbian Literature. In his poetry, he strove for formal excellence expressed through clarity, precision, elegance, musical quality, and imagery. His subject matter and unique style reflect the manner of French verse Parnassian, Symbolist, Decadent. Unlike previous Serbian poets who were either romantically or realistically oriented, Ducic was attracted to esoteric, sophisticated, thought-provoking, and soul-searching themes, so he created his own imaginary world and reacted to it. His poetry reveals an artist with an essentially pessimistic disposition, for which he has sometimes been criticized; it also reveals his embrace of art for art s sake. His supreme craftsmanship, however, is undeniable.

Songs of the Sun, Love and Death: Selected Poems, a Bilingual Edition

JOVAN DUCIC

Vasa D. Mihailovich

Serbian Classics