Bud Protich
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Budimir Protić also known as Bud Protich[1](Serbian Cyrillic: Будимир Протић; Principality of Serbia, 25 May 1875[2] - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 16 September 1938[1]) was a Canadian veteran of the Great War[3], a police and provincial court interpreter in Saskatchewan and an influential Serbian community leader and activist in Regina. He was a polyglot, who spoke more than "six languages" and various Slavic dialects.[1]
Biography[edit]
Budimir Protich was born in Serbia in 1875 to a military family (Budimir's brother, Bogoljub, was a sergeant in the Royal Serbian army, and his uncle, a military surgeon). Budimir graduated from the First Belgrade Gymnasium (1893) and Grande école, where he studied languages. In Canada, through the interpreting work he picked up Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Greek while conversing with Austro-Hungarian naturalized subjects. He credits his uncle Dr. Milenko Protich, who encouraged him to study languages at the university, then known as Visoka škola (now University of Belgrade), where he perfected his language skills before emigrating to Canada in 1904.
Budimir Protich arrived in Canada with his wife Freda and her one-year-old daughter in 1904, and when the First Balkan War broke out, he was interviewed on 28 October 1912 by a Regina reporter of The Morning Leader about the First Balkan War conflict. The reporter wrote, "Although deeply interested in the success of the allies, Bud will not return to help. He was naturalized here in 1909, is raising his family as Canadians, and does not consider himself called upon to go to another country to fight. However, he is always available to help anyone regardless of their ethnicity, Greek or Bulgarian." At the time, Budimir Protich was employed by law firm Messers. Bruce, Bruce, & Counsell [4] and the Regina police department as a court interpreter.
For a number of years, Protich worked with the police department and was of very material assistance on many occasions. Able to speak numerous languages he had no difficulty in looking after the interests of the police among the foreign-born while on the other hand, he proved of great assistance to this class of citizenship in their various dealings.
Protich was also hired by the municipal court of the City of Regina where he lived at 1972 Cameron Street with his wife Freda until he moved to Vancouver. During the First World War, he enlisted[5] in Winnipeg on 13 March 1916 in the rank of "lieutenant", deployed in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) with "the 122th Battalion".[6]
He saw action the following year at Vimy Ridge, where he was wounded and was invalided home as a civil servant. On 4 February 1918, he was officially appointed as a government interpreter in connection with court work in the province of Saskatchewan[7]. It was at this time that he was in corrspondence with Serbian consul Anthony V. Seferovitch and Božidar Markovich and took up the Serbian community grievance on the issue of the internment of Austrian-born Serbs during wartime.[8]
In 1919, he spoke to Serbian Canadian veterans and asked the Great War Veterans to help Serbia and its people.
In his civil service career, he was also an activist who sought justice for the down-trodden regardless of their ethnicity. With Member of Parliament Walter Davy Cowan, Bud Protich was politically influential by initiating a case in the Parliament of Canada to have the stigma of being branded as an "enemy alien" removed from Austrian- and Hungarian-born Serbs living in Regina at the time. He also was instrumental in obtaining redress for the so-called "enemy aliens" who were unjustly sent to far-flung internment camps in Canada during the Great War only for having the misfortune of being born in the Austrian Empire, then at war with the United Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada and all the rest of the Allies.
After the Great War, he tried to locate some of his 40 known family members[9] but in a letter from Belgrade, he was informed that "only one nephew could be located. He is employed in the government offices at Belgrade."[10]
Budimir Protich died on 16 September 1938[11] and the interment took place at the Returned Soldiers' Plot in Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery. He was survived by a stepdaughter who lived in Chicago. His wife Freda died in 1921 from cancer.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, BC". www.interment.net.
- ↑ "Personnel Record FWW Item". Library and Archives Canada. 29 June 2016.
- ↑ "Local Serbians Preparing To Go To Old Land". The Morning Leader. 11 Nov 1918.
- ↑ "Vano v. Canadian Coloured Cotton Mills Co". The Ontario weekly notes. 1910. p. 763.
- ↑ For All We Have and Are: Regina and the Experience of the Great War. Univ. of Manitoba Press. 30 November 2011. p. 24. ISBN 9780887553202. Search this book on
- ↑ "Personnel Record FWW Item". Library and Archives Canada. 29 June 2016.
- ↑ Hinther, Rhonda L.; Mochoruk, Jim (28 February 2020). Civilian Internment in Canada: Histories and Legacies. ISBN 9780887555930. Search this book on
- ↑ Civilian Internment in Canada: Histories and Legacies. Univ. of Manitoba Press. 28 February 2020. ISBN 9780887555916. Search this book on
- ↑ "Hard Matter Since War to Locate Men of Serbian Family". The Morning Leader. 27 Oct 1919.
- ↑ Pitsula, James M. (2011-11-30). For All We Have and Are: Regina and the Experience of the Great War. Univ. of Manitoba Press. ISBN 978-0-88755-320-2 Search this book on ..
- ↑ "Budimir Protich (Unknown-1938) - Find a Grave". Find a Grave.
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