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Milovan Djilas' autobiography Land Without Justice begins with the statement that the “soul” of such a land can be portrayed by “the story of a family.” This suggests that his familial experiences may be related to his strong reactions to the injustices he later saw in the Communist system (5, p. 3) and to his insistence on publishing critiques of the Communist system even in the face of long prison sentences. In fact, three interrelated dimensions are manifested in memories of his childhood, and focus in large measure on relations with his parents.
The first of these dimensions is sexual identity. In the Dinaric tradition, families in Montenegro were patriarchal, and the rule of a man within his household was absolute (14). There were, however, conflicts in the Djilas home, and in these the children found themselves allied with their mother. For example, although Milovan's father was engaged in fighting rebels, his mother gave them refuge in the Djilas home. Milovan's father eventually discovered this.
He immediately confronted Mother with the charge that she was in league with the rebels, all the while shouting and stomping around in his boots … Enraged, he now drove Mother out of the house. We children joined her … the Guerillas continued to come, but more rarely and with greater secrecy. Now we keep this from father by tacit agreement (5, p. 99)1
Djilas' feelings toward masculine authority are represented symbolically both in his discussion of his father, and in his later political writings on other authority figures. His most common symbol is strongly rooted in Dinaric culture.