OZNA – Political Repression in Serbia 1944-1946. Documents

The Department for the Protection of the People (OZNA) was founded on May 13th, 1944, and as secret police, with its ubiquitous ideology and cult of personality, it was the mainstay of the communist dictatorship at a time when revolutionary power was being established in Yugoslavia and Serbia. The book “OZNA – Political Repression in Serbia 1944-1946. Documents” published by Catena Mundi and the Institute of Contemporary History in Belgrade, authored by Srđan Cvetković, PhD and Nemanja Dević, PhD bring hitherto unknown and first published documents that reveal and reconstruct in detail the state repression during communism. Based on the documentation that the BIA forwarded to the competent archives from 2004 to 2012, the authors shed light on the organizational structure and activities of the OZNA towards the Serbian bourgeoisie. Secret police documents faithfully testify to how many Serbian citizens were killed, imprisoned, and expelled in the first years of communist rule. Also, data on OZNA agents and executors, as well as those who made decisions on the execution of citizens, are presented. The book is a documentary study of the organization and operation of the OZNA and its basic tasks as classic political police in a totalitarian society.

The program, as a type of book promotion and forum, includes: moderator Ena Mirković, Srđan Cvetković, PhD, Kosta Nikolić, PhD and Prof. Jovica Trkulja. The forum also includes a review of other editions of Catena Mundi: “Resistance to the Communist Regime in Serbia 1945-1991” by Srđan Cvetković (2021), “Life of a Rebel” by Borislav Pekić (2019) and “In the Lobby of Hell” by Sava Banković (2019).