Ilija Čvorović: 'Everything is the opposite of what it looks like'

We focus here on the paranoid disorder of the protagonist of Dušan Kovačević's drama Balkan's spy. Although all literary critiques mention hero's paranoia, regularly and by default, this feature hasn't been deeply considered anywhere. Paranoia is, however, not only hero's conspicuous and central characteristic, but also a phenomenon by virtue of our revealing the deep semantic layers of Kovačević's drama. We show here how much the paranoid phenomenon contributes to tragycomedy, which was the literary concept Kovačević had in mind while he was creating the play. Beneath the series of comical situations, which Ilija causes by his behavior and interpretations, there is a tragedy of small man in totalitarian system, the man who was a victim, but who transformed into an abuser. Perceiving the psychological literature of the paranoid disorder, we are proving how extraordinary deeply Kovačević conceived his hero and by means of him, he gave a powerful critique of Tito's Yougoslavia.