Occupation politician Children 5 | Spouse(s) 1 Name Dimitrije Tucovic | |
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Full Name Dimitrije Tucovic Born 13 May 1881 ( 1881-05-13 ) Gostilje, Zlatibor, Principality of Serbia Died 20 November 1914(1914-11-20) (aged 33)
Vrace brdo, Kingdom of Serbia | ||
Dimitrije tucovic
Dimitrije "Mita" Tucovic (Serbian Cyrillic: Dimitriјe Tutsoviћ, [dimitrije tuːtsovitɕ]; 13 May 1881 – November 1914) was a Serbian theorist of the socialist movement, prominent leader and a publisher. He was founder of the Serbian Social Democratic Party and the editor of Radnicke novine and Borba.
Contents
Tucovic devoted his entire life to fighting for workers' and human rights, gender equality, universal suffrage, social justice and civil liberties in the Kingdom of Serbia. Some of the ideas that he advocated as a pioneer, today are widely accepted values in contemporary Republic of Serbia.
DIMITRIJE TUCOVIĆ i oni drugi - Dokumentarni Film
Life
Dimitrije Tucovic was born 13 May 1881 in the Gostilje village on Mount Zlatibor, near Cajetina.
Tucovic was already an adherent to socialist ideas when he came to Belgrade in 1899 to finish high school. He agitated for socialism with Radovan Dragovic, who was a big influence on him. In 1901, the Belgrade Workers' Society was renewed and Tucovic recreated a socialist group of gymnasium students and became one of the leaders of the Society. He attempted to create modern unions.
In 1902 he organised student demonstrations in the Senate against Nikola Pasic. With Tucovic's and Dragovic's help, the "Panel for Movement Leadership" was created again and they made the "Central Committee", with a goal of setting the grounds for creating a party. Tucovic led the March demonstrations against King Aleksandar Obrenovic on the 5 March 1903. He was forced to emigrate to Zemun in the neighbouring Austria-Hungary, and afterwards to Vienna.
On the 2 August 1903, the Social-Democratic Party was formed, with Dimitrije Tucovic and Dragisa Lapcevic as one of the leaders. The editor of the their newspaper, "Worker's Newspaper" was Tucovic. During the Second Congress of a workers union SSDP (1904), Tucovic gave a lecture on union organisations. In polemics with the left wing of the party, headed by Dragisa Lapcevic, Tucovic often adopted a centralist and right-opportunist positions.
In 1906, he graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. After coming back from Berlin, he gave up on his doctorate and started spending his time in socialist and labour movement, as a secretary of SSDP.
Tucovic was the organizer and leader of the first Balkan Socialist Conference, held in Belgrade from 7-9. January 1910, aimed at creating a Balkan federation.
In 1910, the party established a theory magazine Borba — Tucovic was the editor. He participated at the International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen the same year and gave an important speech criticizing the position that Austrian social-democrats took on the national issue, especially the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a debate with Karl Renner he pointed out the colonial-enslaving politics of Austro-Hungary and the fact that social-democrats were supporting the government on the issue.
After the outbreak of the Balkan wars 1912, he was mobilized in the Serbian army and participated in the Serbian military campaign in Albania. He sent letters from the front about war crimes against civil population which were regularly published in the Worker's Newspaper. Writing of the massacres of Albanians during the Serbian takeover of Kosovo from Turkey (1912), he stated:
After returning from the Balkan war, he published his influential book Serbia and Albania: A Contribution to the Critique of the Conqueror Policy of the Serbian Bourgeoisie, which analyzes the roots of Serbian-Albanian conflict and consider "among the most important Marxist contributions on the national question in the Balkans".
He died on the frontlines in World War I at Vrace Brdo. He died as a member of Morava division in November 1914 in a Battle of Kolubara against Austro-Hungarian army at Ljig's bank. In 1915, Leon Trotsky wrote about the political impact of his death:
The Slavija Square in Belgrade used to be named after him. He has streets named after him in Skopje, Uzice and Belgrade.