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This paper presents changes in the meaning of the term “Serbian book” in the
national bibliography and literary history, from the beginning of the 19th century to the
present day. It points out the consequences which political needs and tasks of Yugoslavian government had on the Serbian Bibliography: Books 1868–1944. Here, new conceptualisations of Serbian literature in regional and transnational literary histories have also
been presented, of which the first one is in English (History of the Literary Cultures of
East-Central Europe: junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries, eds. M.
Cornis-Popeand J. Neubauer) and the second one is in Russian language (Лексикон
южнославянскихлитератур, ред. Г. Я. Ильина). The possible consequences of uncritical
application of language codes in the bibliographic descriptions of literary works of Serbian
authors have also been shown.

The essay discusses different ways in which contemporary Serbian poetry
responded to the experiences of the wars for the Yugoslav heritage, as well as to the experiences of the consequences of those wars. A broader overview of four characteristic approaches to these topics is given, in the works of Stevan Tontić, Duško Babić, Đorđe Nešić
and Nebojša Devetak. These poets artistically articulate painful experiences of suffering,
destruction, loss of homeland, exile and the search for new ways of affirming personal and
collective identity.

The paper considers the phenomenon of collective trauma caused by genocide over the Serbian people in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during WW2
(1941−1945), which is sporadically present in the Serbian literature. The scale of its representation is diametrically opposite to the scale of this institutionalised crime (manifested as fascism and religious fanatism), which is saved in collective experience, memory
and documents. A review of the literary production in socialist Yugoslavia indicates that
only after the dissolution of Yugoslavia poetical elaborations of this topic appear, mostly
in the form of poems, like in the collection Last Rites (Opela) by Milan Komnenić, and at
the start of the 21st century by some refined, intimist opuses like the collection Pain (Bol)
by Miroslav Maksimović, or based on the archive materials of truly recorded and revived
voices of victims who were given back the dignity of existence (after mass and most violent killings, mostly without burials), like in the collection Suffering (Stradanja) by Jelena
Kovačević. On the example of these three poetry collections, different stylistic and artistic
methods, genesis and different approaches to the aesthetics of horror are observed. Conclusion is that only in the 21st century a fully mature, highly estheticized creation have
appeared as permanent contributions to Serbian literature, serving also as a paradigm for
some future works to be inspired by this topic