This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a context for the author's discussion on representations of history in the literature of the 1980s in which he examines cultural policy towards literature pursued by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) after the Second World War. It concerns the writing of historical fiction in Serbia during this decade. Scholars have tended to examine the narrative fiction of this period with reference to political events and the emerging discourse of nationalism leading to Yugoslavia's collapse and the outbreak of civil war. The book provides a detailed analysis of the function of the ghost as an unsettling figure bringing the violence of the past into the present, and focuses on the construction of an uncanny and sublimely terrible history typical of literature. It explains uncanny motifs in literature about the Wars of Yugoslav Succession.