A former Yugoslavia president, Mr Dobrica Cosic, whose nationalist ideas won him the title "the father of Slobodan Milosevic" has dramatically lent his support to radical young people in Serbia by joining the anti-Milosevic resistance movement Otpor.
Otpor - a youth and student-based activist movement - has been gaining support across Serbia since it became public in November last year. It claims to have at least 20,000 members and organises protests that provoke and challenge the regime.
In recent days many leading regime officials, including the Serbian police chief, Mr Vlajko Stoiljkovic, have branded Otpor members as "terrorists" and "fascists".
Analysts say the decision of Mr Cosic (79) to join Otpor provides it with credibility and legitimacy because of his stature in the country. He is a renowned novelist and anti-fascist writer whose ideas have led many people to call him: "father of the Serbian nation."
Mr Cosic was sitting at one of his favourite restaurants in Belgrade on Tuesday morning when a student leader of Otpor, Mr Vukasin Petrovic (24), decided to approach him.
"I said, `Good Morning'. He immediately began praising us, saying that we were doing a good job. `You are the future of this country', he said to us. I asked him if he would like to join, and he said, `Yes, with pleasure'," recalls Mr Petrovic.
Mr Cosic later told local journalists: "My decision to join Otpor is to offer human and moral support to those young people who are motivated by patriotism, democracy and civilised behaviour and who do not want to accept the system that exists at the moment, and a society without hope. I believe that the movement Otpor does not only oppose the present situation but also fights for a free, prosperous and humane society."
Mr Cosic was among the authors of a memorandum written by academics of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts in 1986. This was highly influential in fomenting nationalist thought.
"His nationalist ideas provided a climate of opinion that Milosevic could then manipulate," says Prof Srbijanka Turajlic, a member of the Otpor Council - a group of respected advisers to the youth movement. But she welcomed his membership of Otpor.
Many liberals will be uncomfortable with Mr Cosic's membership of Otpor, because of his close past links with Mr Milsoevic. He was president from June 1992 to June 1993, at the start of the Bosnian war when Mr Milosevic was President of Serbia and some believe Mr Cosic could have sought to exercise the authority vested in his office to try to prevent it.