Pera Todorovic

Pera Todorović (Serbian Cyrillic: Пера Тодоровић; Vodice, Principality of Serbia, 14 May 1852 - Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbia, 7 November 1907) was a Serbian writer (essayist), journalist, revolutionary, propagandist, organizer, and fighter for the liberation of his people from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire. He was the most influential figure of the Radical Party—more so than Nikola Pašić—in its opening phase of existence from 1881 until 1883. He was "the body and soul of Serbian Radicalism". More biographies were written about him than any other Radical. Also, he is credited for the immediate success of the Radical Party and its popularity among the general public. Today he is looked upon as a legend among Serbian journalists.

Biography

Pera Todorović was born 14 May 1852 in the ancient town of Vodice next to Smederevska Palanka in Serbia. He was the third son of Jovan, a wealthy merchant, and his wife Smiljana. His parents were members of a bourgeoisie from the town of Smederevska Palanka, not too far from Belgrade. Pera went to high school in Kragujevac and the Belgrade Men's Gymnasium where Kosta Vujić taught him the German language. From the Belgrade Gymnasium he was first suspended for refusing to take holy communion, but when he organized a student protest he was kicked out of school entirely. At eighteen he was sent to Pest at a commerce college and in 1872 he was transferred to Novi Sad, where he met Svetozar Marković. On the advice of Marković Pera went to Zurich to further his knowledge of economics and socialism. At the Polytechnical School in Zurich Pera Todorović was soon associated with Nikola Pašić, Pera Velimirović, Lazar Paču, Sima Lozanić, French émigrés, German socialists, and Russian anarchists, including Mikhail Bakunin whose efforts made Switzerland the intellectual center of the Socialist movement of the time. The anarchist wing of the First International held a separate congress in September 1872 at St. Imier, Switzerland. The anarchists rejected the claim that Bakunin and Guillaume had been expelled and repudiated The Hague Congress as unrepresentative and improperly conducted. Over two days on 15–16 September 1872 at Saint-Imier, they declared themselves to be the true heirs of the International (see Anarchist St. Imier International). It was there that Bakunin's programme was adopted, Marx was implicitly excluded.

For a while, he studied in Zurich but left the university for Serbia to join Svetozar Marković with whom he began a friendship and collaboration. He traveled through Europe where most of his time was spent in Paris with like-minded Serbian and Russian ex-pats. It was in France that Pera began "distancing himself from the sources of Russian Populism." Pera, like many other Serbs in Paris, decided to go back home in 1876.

Red Banner

In Kragujevac in 1876, after a successful municipal assembly at which a vote of confidence was cast in their municipal administration, the Radicals organized a manifestation with a red flag on which the word Self-government was written. The police arrested him as the main organizer of the "Red Banner affair" together with the entire editorial board of Staro Oslobodjenje. He was accused of high treason, but after the First Serbian-Turkish War, his trial was postponed, and he joined the army as a volunteer. He participated in the war and received a medal for bravery. He wrote a memoir under the title of Dnevnik jednog dobrovolca ("A Volunteer's Journal").

When the First Serbian-Turkish War ended, he was sentenced to four years in prison for the red flag affair. However, he then fled to Hungary, so in 1878 he started the socialist magazine Straža (Guardian) in Novi Sad. He copied the style of articles of Russian revolutionaries with his articles. Chernyshevsky and Pisarev. Serbian socialist emigration gathered around the magazine, so the authorities then expelled him first from Novi Sad, and then from Vienna. Pera Todorović lived in misery in the quartier of the old city of Paris, and after the amnesty was declared at the end of 1880, he returned to Serbia.

In 1880, he was among the founders of the People's Radical Party. By this time he had sketched a political program and became the first editor of the Radical newspaper Samouprava, and "commenced political agitation," but with a positive note. Pera wrote a party that "will rise above the dynastic intrigues, above tedious, currently violent party quarrels, above the petty, shallow and egoistic abusive authorities and the historical ruins, and would have a goal only the people's interest."

Pera Todorović became mostly associated with the founding of the five-penny press. Due to the conflict with the Obrenovićs, he decided to form a newspaper that will not be regime-oriented and that will provoke the Dynasty and the government. Because of that, he had numerous problems, but he saw in that his way of fighting for changes within the state.

Pera Todorović was implicated in the preparation for the Timok Rebellion. He was arrested and tried on conspiracy against the Obrenović dynasty and the legitimate government. His initial verdict was death by firing squad, however, King Milan who visited him in prison in 1886 granted him clemency.

As a fan of socialist ideology, Pera wrote and edited the papers of Svetozar Marković during Marković's lifetime and after his death, and he was also the founder of the first socialist newspaper Rad (Work), Oslobodjenje (Liberation), and Javnost (The public).

When he bought Male novine in 1883, he created the first popular newspaper from them, which had large circulations and an influence on public opinion.

During his emigration, he stayed in Novi Sad, together with Lazar Paču and many prominent people. There he founded the magazine Straža (Guardian), which the Hungarian authorities soon banned for fear of spreading socialist ideas.

It was also noted that during the founding of the People's Radical Party, he gave a long, almost all-day speech, and overshadowed the visitors. When a coalition of liberals and radicals was established, it separated from the main radical current and became a kind of internal opposition to them.

However, history should remember Pera Todorović as a great soldier in the fight for liberation from the Ottoman Empire. He is one of the pioneers of war reporting in our country because he wrote reports about his impressions from the fighting ranks and sent them to the press with which he cooperated. In that way, the people and officials got first-hand information about what is happening in the fight. Later, these reports of his, or better to say diary notes, were collected and the book A Volunteer' Journal was created from them. It is, in fact, the only first-hand documentary evidence from that period that has invaluable historical and documentary value, but is also written in simple language, expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a soldier, and as such claims the right to be a part of Serbian history.

It is considered that his literary work, as well as his journalistic output, was neglected because his name was tarnished by his second wife, who, after a short, dysfunctional marriage, accused that Pera Todorović was a homosexual.

Legacy

• Renowned Serbian stage director Soja Jovanović produced a Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz play entitled Obtuženi Pera Todorović (Pera Tododorović the Accused) which premiered at the Atelje 212 in Belgrade and ran for seven consecutive months from 8 March until 3 October 1986.

References

• Adapted from Srpska enciklopedija: http://srpskaenciklopedija.org/doku.php?id=%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0_%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%9B:

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