Finally, we have it from the horse's mouth: the 1990s retold -- or reimagined -- by Mirjana Markovic, the widow of former Serbian leader and indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.
The title of her new book, This Is How It Was (Bilo Je To Ovako, in Serbian), assures us that we might as well forget everything we know about that tragic period as Markovic presents her version of Serbia's recent history over roughly 1,000 self-indulgent pages.
Its revisionism is almost certain to foment Serbian nationalism, particularly given Markovic's enormous influence near the center of events in Belgrade at the time and the official support the book is receiving.
Immediately after her husband's extradition to The Hague in 2001 over war crimes charges, Markovic remained in the Serbian capital. Two years later, however, facing charges of corruption herself, she sought sanctuary in Moscow. (Milosevic died of a heart attack in his prison cell in The Hague in 2006, before the conclusion of his trial by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.)
The book covers her childhood, marriage, and her husband's rise and fall. But make no mistake about it, it is all about Mirjana Markovic.
I recall a time in the early 1990s when she shared her musings with the Serbian public through columns in the magazine Duga, in which she rambled pseudo-philosophically on the horrors of war, socialism, her love of the Croatian resort of Dubrovnik (which her husband's army bombed), the manliness of her "wild mustang" of a son, Marko, and the apparently slightly less admirable high-spiritedness of her daughter.
In her new book, she describes a deal she had struck with the editor of Duga: Instead of paying for her columns, she writes, the magazine promised to avoid criticism of Milosevic. She says the editor accepted the deal because he was confident that circulation would rise with her as a contributor.
Alas, that proved to be the case. Duga's readership grew, since by reading Markovic's articles one could predict whose political fortunes were about to improve or which prominent figure was slated to lose his or her job. In the same vein, in her book she purports to have made ministerial promotions and other major political decisions -- whispered over the pillow to her obedient husband.
She seems oblivious to the fact that her book makes her appear as culpable as Milosevic himself for the crimes of the regime. But it is not written for people, like me, who remember the war and the horrors of the 1990s, when Milosevic was the master of our destinies.
Officially, Markovic headed the neo-communist Yugoslav left -- comprising high-ranking military and secret police officers and businessmen who were integrated into the Milosevic regime, enjoying huge behind-the-scenes influence during her husband's rule.
In her book, she blames the West for starting the war in the former Yugoslavia. Milosevic, as his widow tells it, was merely looking after the interests of all Serbs.
Her Serbian publisher says: "After 15 years of silence in exile, in a bid to fulfill her late husband, Slobodan's, last wish, Mira Markovic shares with the public the previously unknown story of her life and family."
The book, which ends with Milosevic's death and Mirjana's life in exile, will benefit from official support. The Serbian Culture Ministry each year recommends titles to be added to the country's public-library collections, and this time around taxpayer money will be used to ensure that each and every library in Serbia has a copy of Markovic's memoirs.
Historian Milos Kovic, the president of the Culture Ministry's commission in charge of book acquisitions, told RFE/RL in Belgrade that the decision was not politically motivated but was based on the belief that the book provides valuable documentation of a period in Serbian history.
The commission apparently chose to ignore the fact that Markovic is currently the subject of two ongoing investigations in Serbia, or that the book is a brazen attempt to vindicate the policies and actions of the Serbian regime in the 1990s. (Riding a wave of Serbian nationalism, Milosevic first became president of Serbia, then in 1997 became president of rump Yugoslavia. He led the country into disastrous wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and finally Kosovo, which ended with the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.)
Apart from the wars that Milosevic conducted, it has been established in courts of law that he ordered the murder of Ivan Stambolic, a prominent Serbian political figure, and an attempt on the life of Vuk Draskovic, who was then a leader of Serbia's opposition.
Draskovic, who later served as foreign minister, said of the decision to supply a copy of Markovic's book to every library in Serbia: "It is a political decision, in line with current trends. A new past is being tailored, very different to how we remember it, or as we survived it during the terrible 1990s. It is being fabricated for new generations who were not born at the time when Mirjana Markovic and her husband occupied the top of an evil pyramid of power."
One could add that Markovic's choice of Moscow for her exile was no accident. Indeed, her book is very much in line with official Russian views and policies in the Balkans. As an inflammatory, revisionist account of the 1990s, it might contribute to stoking nationalist fervor and anti-Western sentiment in Serbia, which is very much in Moscow's interest.
But above all, the book reveals an unrepentant, even mockingly defiant, Lady Macbeth, reveling in her declared role as the power behind the throne.
