The world and times of Slobodan Jovanović : (1869-1958) : on the occasion of 150th anniversary of his birth

Abstract

Slobodan Jovanović (1869–1958) was one of the most eminent scholars and professors of the University of Belgrade. He was President of the Serbian Royal Academy, Rector of the University of Belgrade, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Editor of the Serbian Literary Gazette (Srpski književni glasnik), President and Vice-President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, respectively) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and founder and president of the Serbian Cultural Club. He wrote papers in various scholarly fields – theory of state and law, constitutional law, political philosophy, general history and Serbian history of the 19th and 20th centuries, sociology, the interpretation of the literary work and literary and theatre criticism. The literary style of Slobodan Jovanović is known as the ‘Belgrade style’. During the 1930s, he published collected works in seventeen volumes. After the coup d’état of the 27th March 1941, he accepted to enter the multi-party government as the second Vice-President of the Council of Ministers (Government). Following the April war, the government continued its work in England, where, since the start of the Second World War, in 1939, for longer or shorter periods, the seats of governments of almost all occupied European states were located. The government was among the first 26 signatories to the 1942 United Nations Declaration, the chief agreement of the Allies on the joint battle against Hitlerism. Slobodan Jovanović participated in the work of four governments, twice as president and twice as vice-president. At a political trial held in July 1946 in Belgrade, Slobodan Jovanović was sentenced in absentia to twenty years of forced labour, whereas his entire property was confiscated. He died in London in 1958. Before the war, he held a leading position in scholarly and cultural life. In the post-war period his name was systematically ‘erased from memory’. In the early 1990s, his collected works were republished in Belgrade. He was rehabilitated in 2007. His mortal remains were buried in Belgrade in 2011.