It appeared in 1952, the year the Yugoslav authorities, responding to a public address by the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža, allowed more freedom of expression in politics and the arts.

A theme occupying Pavlović and many other intellectuals in the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, and Albania is the continuity between the ancient peoples of the Balkans and their modern-day descendants.

In Pavlović's work, as well as in that of the Macedonian poet Bogomil Gyuzel or the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, there are frequent references to the ancient and medieval past.

These poems are often allegorical in nature, referring to our own times with their tales of manipulation, deceit, and especially fear.

Written directly in the present are poems such as 'Prisoner' (untitled in the Serbian original), 'Requiem', 'Strah' ('Fear'), 'Pod zemljom' ('Under the Ground') and 'Kavge' ('Feuds').