Popovich, Miladin (People's Hero of Yugoslavia)

Early years

He was born on May 23, 1910 in the village of Lopate near Lievi Rijeka. He spent his childhood in Pec. He studied at the schools of Pecs, Prizren and Pristina, but was expelled several times for supporting the revolutionary youth movement. Since 1933, as a student at the Law Faculty of the University of Belgrade , he has been participating in student political activities. He joined the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia in 1933, and a year later became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. At the end of 1934, he got a job in the technical commission of the Serbian branch of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia, and then in the similar commission of the Serbian branch of the Communist Party.

In Kosovo and Metohija

In the mid-1930s, Miladin became one of the most famous organizers of the revolutionary and anti-fascist movement in Kosovo and Metohija. He was involved in forming party organizations, attracting volunteers to the Popular Front, and organizing strikes by miners. In July 1936, a wave of protests broke out against the government of Milan Stoyadinovich in Pec at the initiative of Popovich. Several times Popovich was arrested by the police from 1936 to 1937. In the summer of 1937, Miladin held a Regional Conference, at which he took the post of Secretary of the Central Committee of the Kosovo-Metohijsky Regional Committee of the Communist Party.

Illness and two arrests

In 1937, he tried to secretly flee to Spain to help the Republicans in the civil war , but in Budva he was arrested and sent to the Belgrade main prison, where he was tortured. In the detention center on the island of Ada Ciganlia, he contracted tuberculosis, but after seven months in prison he was released and sent to a sanatorium in Golnik for treatment until 1939. Upon returning from the sanatorium, he took the post of political commissar in the Kosovo-Metohijsky regional committee of the Communist Party. In August 1940, he became a member of the committees of Montenegro, Boka, Sanjak, Kosovo and Metohija. On May 11, 1940, he organized an anti-fascist demonstration in Pec, after which he again landed in a Belgrade prison and again became a victim of torture. The aggravation of the disease forced the police to release Popovich from prison again. At the Fifth Congress of the CPY in October 1940 in Zagreb, Miladin attended as a delegate from Kosovo and Metohija.

During the war years

Popovich met the war in Vitomiritsa, hiding from the police after the March protests. In Kosovo and Metohija, he began organizing an anti-fascist underground under the slogans of brotherhood and unity of the Albanians, Serbs and Montenegrins living in Kosovo and Metohija. At the end of May 1941, he went to Belgrade to meet with party leaders and draw up plans for armed struggle. On the way from Kosovo-Mitrovica to Montenegro, he was arrested in Raska in July 1941 and sent to Pecs, where he was subjected to interrogations and torture. He was later interned in Pechin (Albania), however, with the help of the Albanian Communists, he escaped from prison.

Since October 1941, Miladin worked in Albania as a delegate to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, assisting the Albanians in the struggle against Italians and Germans. On his initiative, the People’s Liberation Council of Albania, the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army of Albania, the Anti-Fascist Chamber of Albania and the National Committee were formed. In September 1944, at the request of the CPY, he went to Vis, from where he returned to the post of political secretary of the Kosovo and Metohija Regional Committee. After the liberation of Kosovo and Metohija by the Yugoslavs, he continued to work as secretary, continuing to follow the covenants of brotherhood and unity offered by the Communist Party.

On March 13, 1945, Miladin Popovich was assassinated by members of the Albanian nationalist organization Bally Combetar .

During his lifetime, he was awarded the Order of Brotherhood and Unity of the I degree by the decree of AVNOY of September 25, 1944 . Posthumously he was awarded the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia on March 12, 1946 .

• Folk Heroes of Ugoslavia . "Mladost", Beograd 1975. Godina.