Dudich, Dragoilo

The early years

Born on December 9, 1887 in the village of Klintsy near Valevo in the family of Jovan and Vishnya Dudich ^[1] Hailing from a wealthy patriarchal community in which they believed that training and education was possible only for citizens. He himself learned to read and write, becoming the most literate peasant in his village and one of the most literate inhabitants of Serbia. He studied at a medical university in England, he learned English.

In 1909, Dragoilo was drafted into the Serbian army, serving as a military doctor. He rose to the rank of sergeant, participated in both Balkan wars. In World War I, he participated in battles against the Austro-Hungarian forces, after the retreat of the Serbian army through Albania in 1915, he was evacuated to the Solun Front. During the war, met with left-wing politicians and imbued with their ideas. After the war ended in 1919 he joined the Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia (Communists) .

Interwar

In his village, Dragoilo formed a party organization in 1920, several times was a candidate for people's deputies in 1923 and 1925. He was a member of the Valevsky City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a member of the Serbian Regional Committee since 1940. In the interwar years he published newspapers and magazines of the Communist Party: Politics, Radnichka Novine, Rad, Narodnaya Pravda. He also published a collection of short stories and poems by rural writers “Behind the Plow”.

Guerrilla Warfare

After the outbreak of the war with Germany, Dudich Sr. organized an anti-fascist movement against the German invaders. In July 1941, he formed the Kolubar partisan company, and later headed the Valev partisan detachment. In November 1941, he headed the Main People's Liberation Council of Serbia. He died in a battle with the Germans on November 29, 1941 at the Battle of Machcat .

In the People's Liberation War, the whole family of Dragoyla participated. The son, Milos , rose to the rank of colonel in the Yugoslav army, was mortally wounded in the Battle of Pripolsky , posthumously awarded the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia. Wife Stevka and daughter Zorka were prisoners in the Banice concentration camp , another daughter was a prisoner of Auschwitz .

Government events

By a decree of the Presidium of the People's Assembly of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia of December 14, 1949, Dragoilo Dudich was posthumously awarded the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia. In Serbia in 1987 and 1988, events were held to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth ^[2] . On the occasion of this anniversary , a research conference was held in Valevo on February 25, 1988 ^[3] .

Diary

In 1945, the Diary of Dragoilo Dudich was published, in which the author described in detail his impressions of the first months of the People's Liberation War. Entries in the diary were from September 1 to November 5, 1941 .

12-th of September. In the afternoon the courier arrived from the Kolubar company. The report said that the car of the Ministry of the Interior was seized along with an assistant commander of the gendarmerie, another man and a gendarme driver. The materials revealed several fake IDs and orders of the Ministry of the Interior regarding the organization of the detention of the Communists. From this, obviously, it follows that Draza Mikhailovich , the commander of the Chetniks of the Equatoria, took the side of the authorities in connection with these operations. Now everyone understood the purpose of this juggler, who was pretending to be our ally in the people's war ^[4] .

Original text (Serbohorv.)

12. septembar: U toku dana došao je kurir Kolubarske čete. U izveštaju stajalo je da su zarobili jedan auto Ministarstva unutrašnjih dela sa pomoćnikom komandanta žandarmerije, još jednim čovekom i šoferom žandarmom. Od materijala nađeno je nekoliko lažnih legitimacija i naredba Ministarstva unutrašnjih dela o organizaciji poternih odreda za komunistima. Iz ove naredbe jasno se vidi da je i Draža Mihailović, komandant četnika sa Ravne gore, u vezi sa ovom akcijom na strani vlade. Sad je svakome bila jasna uloga ovog žonglera koji se pravio prijateljem narodne borbe.

After the armed conflict between the Chetniks and partisans began, Dudich wrote the following in his diary:

A few days ago, a battle took place against five hundred Chetniks from the units of the Draze Mikhailovich. They were defeated, about 140 were captured. Our troops defeated them in Požezh, in that battle our partisans suffered huge losses. A friend of the Capellan, two company commanders and many ordinary partisans [...]

The fact is that instead of fighting against the fascist bandits we are conducting a fratricidal war; instead of shedding enemy blood, we shed only ours. Instead of intercepting and capturing enemy trucks, the people of Draž Mihajlović seize our trucks and take away everything that the Serbian people sacrificed in the name of the national struggle; instead of fighting and killing Germans, they prepare ambushes against our people and treacherously kill them ^[5] .

Original text (Serbohorv.)

Pre nekoliko noći došlo je do borbe sa oko 500 četnika iz odreda Draže Mihailovića. Razbijeni su i oko 140 zarobljeno. Naši su likvidirali četnike u Požezi. U toj borbi su naši partizani imali strahovite žrtve. Poginuo je komandant bataljona drug Kapelan, dva komandira četa i mnogo partizana. [...]

Dogodilo se to da umesto borbe protiv fašističkih razbojnika vodimo borbu sa braćom; umesto da prolivamo neprijateljsku krv, mi se međusobno krvimo. Umesto da ljudi Draž Mihailovića presreću neprijateljske kamione i otimaju, oni presreću naše kamione i otimaju ono što je srpski narod odvajao od svojih usta i davao za narodnu borbu; umesto da presreću Nemce i Nemce ubijaju, oni presreću naše ljude i ubijaju iz zasede.

Ivo Andrich wrote about the diary of Dragojla Dudic: “This is one of those entries in which neither ambition nor literary plans play any role; instead, they have tremendous literary and documentary value, and they, oddly enough, are directly related to the best literary works. ”

• Vladimir Dedier declared: "This is the truth about the story from the bottom, this is a story whose purpose is not to show how everything was supposed to happen, but how everything really happened."

Since 2011, there is the Dragoilo Dudic Foundation, which holds an annual competition of publicists on the topic of the liberation wars of the Serbian people.

The monument to Dragoilo Dudich is installed in the Vidy Jocic park in Valev .

• Folk Heroes of Ugoslavia . - Beograd: Mladost, 1975.
• Pekoviћ S. Biography // Dudi D. Diary 1941. - Beograd: Nolit, 1988.