Jovan Dučić | Origin of Street Names

Column dedicated to giants - domestic and foreign figures whose works, personal and social engagement have had a civilizational significance, and after whom streets and squares throughout our country are named.

Jovan Dučić (? - 1943) was a Serbian writer, poet, academic, and diplomat, a true cosmopolitan whose life circumstances and career moved and shaped him probably more than any other writer from this region.

Born in Herzegovina, Jovan Dučić was born in the vicinity of Trebinje, in a poor peasant family, in the early 1870s. Having lost his father in the Herzegovinian Uprising against the Turks, he grew up with his mother and sister, with whom he moved to Mostar after elementary school, in search of an easier life.

Dučić completed secondary trade school in Mostar, and then pursued teacher training in Sarajevo and Sombor. As a teacher, he served in many places, but left the deepest trace in Bijeljina.

Video: Jovan Dučić - Selected Poems

Like most educated Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who were swept by national enthusiasm at the end of the 19th century, inspired by the restoration of Serbian independence, Jovan Dučić, like Alekse Šantić, wrote and published patriotic poems ("Oj Bosno," "Otadžbina," etc.) due to which his teaching work in Bosnia and Herzegovina was banned.

In 1899, he definitively left the teaching profession and went to Geneva to study philosophy. During his years spent between Geneva and Paris, Dučić made numerous contacts and met with prominent Serbian writers and critics - Milan Rakić, Borisav Stanković, Jovan Skerlić, and others.

Jovan Dučić's literary career found its foundation in modern lyric poetry, so authentic that Dučić was considered a completely original poet, and to many, unsurpassable, with his poetic expression at the beginning of the 20th century.

He stands out with as many as five poetry collections, several famous prose works ("Gradovi i himere," "Blago cara Radovana," etc.), as well as political brochures, in his rich literary opus. 

Video: Jovan Dučić - Selected Poems

With his return to Serbia in 1904, his political career also began, which would make him the most respected diplomatic representative of the Kingdom of Serbia, and later Yugoslavia, in as many as six European countries. Namely, Jovan Dučić served as ambassador of the Kingdom in Sofia, Athens, Budapest, Geneva, Rome, and Madrid.

He was in Madrid when the Second World War broke out. After Franco's Spain recognized the fascist NDH (Independent State of Croatia), Dučić demonstratively left Madrid and emigrated to Portugal, from where he later sailed to the United States, never to return to his homeland.

In exile, he continued to write poems and, as one of the greatest intellectuals among Serbs, he remained at the head of the Serbian emigrant organization in the United States until the end of his life.

Jovan Dučić died in America and was buried in the courtyard of the Monastery of St. Sava in Libertyville. In 2000, according to the poet's wish, his remains were transferred to Trebinje and reburied in the Herzegovina Gračanica Monastery. The same city is home to a magnificent monument to the great poet, and today numerous schools and streets in Serbia and Republika Srpska bear his name.