Tito govori šta narod misli: kult Josipa Broza Tita 1944-1949

The monograph analyses the development of the personality cult of Josip Broz Tito in postwar Yugoslavia. In his attempt to show the connection between the establishment of the communist system and the emergence of the fatherly figure of its leader, the author focuses on the early years of the cult’s evolution. The author strives to answer the intriguing question how it could happen that the scarcely known figure of Josip Broz Tito was elevated to Messianic heights and endorsed by the population in a very short span of time. By rejecting the Marxist interpretation of this change as a resolution of deep structural antagonisms, as well as the notion that the system was merely imposed by force upon an unwilling society, the author sees the development of the cult of personality as a "religious-ideological phenomenon." To prove his point of view, Nikolic examines the mechanisms behind building the cult through the memoirs of close associates of Josip Broz Tito and analyses the newspapers from the period under examination. Hence he follows both conscious decisions made in the direction of cult creation by Tito and his associates and the media transmissions of such policies. He analyses the impact of this practice on Tito’s lifestyle as well as on the overall development of societal dynamics in Yugoslavia. By focusing on the crucial 1944-1949 period, he presents the period of coinciding promulgation of both Tito’s and Stalin’s cult which ended in their clash in 1948-1949 and led to the definite establishment of what was to be Tito’s "faraonic complex."