Abstract
The goal of this chapter is to analyze the activity of Pavle Popović, the first Inspector of the Ministry of Education of Serbia in Great Britain during the First World War and future rector of the University of Belgrade. It addresses his role in the development of good relations between Serbia and Great Britain between the two world wars. Pavle Popović’s activity in Great Britain was threefold: in addition to his work as Inspector with the Ministry of Education, he was also a scholar and an effective propagandist.
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Notes
- 1.
Љубинка Трговчевић, “Школовање српске омладине у емиграцији 1916–1918” [Ljubinka Trgovčević, Schooling of Serbian Youth in Emigration 1916–1918], Историјски часопис LXII–LXIII (1995–1996) 1997, 95–113; idem, “Serbian Intellectuals in Foreign Universities in the 19th Century”, in V. Karady, M. Kulczykowski (eds), L’enseignement des Elites en Europe Centrale (19ͤ–20ͤ siecles) (Cracovie: Ksiegarnia Akademicka, 1999), 159–173; idem, “Children in Emigration: An Example of Serbian Children in World War One”, in S. Naumović, M. Jovanović (eds), Childhood in South East Europe: Historical Perspectives on Growing up in the 19th and 20th Century (Beograd – Graz: Udruženje za društvenu istoriju – Zur Kunde Sudosteuropas, 2001), 177–190.
- 2.
Јелица Рељић, “Школовање српске омладине у Великој Британији 1916–1919” [Jelica Reljić, Schooling of Serbian Youth in Great Britain 1916–1919], Balcanica XXIV (1993) 101–122; idem, Archival material of the Ministry of Education on Corfu (Beograd: Istorijski institut, Zbornik radova 5 [1987]).
- 3.
Душица Бојић, Српске избеглице у Првом светском рату (1914–1918) [Dušica Bojić, Serbian Refugees in the First World War (1914–1918)] (Београд: Завод за уџбенике, 2007).
- 4.
Pavle Popović (1868–1939) graduated from the Historical-Philological Department of the Great School in Belgrade as the university was called at the time. After working as a teacher in Šabac, he spent time in the Third and Second Gymnasium in Belgrade. He spent the years between 1894 and 1896 in Geneva and Paris, pursuing further studies. After working as professor at the First Belgrade Gymnasium, in 1904 he began working as a professor of the History of Serbian Literature at the Great School (established in 1808), and the following year became Associate Professor of History of South Slav Literature, where he remained until the First World War. Thereupon, although freed of military duty in 1891, he reported to his local military command. After the first battles against Austria-Hungary, Nikola Pašić sent him to Rome to advance the cause of a new South Slav state, together with Supilo, Trumbić and Meštrović. He worked actively in Rome from December 14, 1914, to May 16, 1915, after which he went to London, where he remained until the end of the war. He was tasked with the important work of participating in the work of the Yugoslav Committee, as well as of supervising schoolboy refugees from Serbia in Great Britain. At the end of May 1917, Popović became seriously ill. He lived in Paris from January 25 to August 3, 1919. The sources used for this chapter were his journal (Павле Поповић, Из дневника [Pavle Popović, From the Diary] (Београд: Завод за уџбенике и наставна средства, 2001); his papers at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA); archival material of the Ministry of Education of Serbia (Archives of Yugoslavia, AY) from the First World War and Serbian periodicals from that period.
- 5.
Popović writes that during passport control at Folkestone, two officials asked him whether he was Russian and, when he replied that he was a Serb, they both exclaimed: Vive la Serbia! On the train to London, he prepared a lecture entitled “The Serbian Soldier”. See Павле Поповић, Из дневника [Pavle Popović, From the Diary] (Београд: Завод за уџбенике и наставна средства, Београд 2001), 177.
- 6.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 184.
- 7.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 195.
- 8.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 210. Popović and Seton-Watson jointly picked the titles for the first publication: (1) Yugoslav Programme and Memorandum presented by the Yugoslav Committee to the Foreign Offices of the Entente Powers; (2) The Southern Slavs: Land and People; (3) A sketch of Southern Slav History; (4) Yugoslav Culture; (5) Idea of Southern Slav Unity. They also decided to publish an abbreviated manifest on the covers. As for future editions, Seton-Watson suggested the publication of ballads, translated folk songs, short stories by Laza Lazarević, etc., as well as the name Yugoslav Library for the entire library.
- 9.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 213.
- 10.
The article was published in the Sunday Times (October 24, 1915). Dixon adjudged it to be excellent, much better than Županić’s article: idem, “The strategical importance of Serbia”. Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 260. Popović also published the following articles: “Not too late” (Star, Morning Post, November 1, 1915) and “Heroic fortitude of Serbain Soldiers” (Weekly Dispatch, November 7, 1915).
- 11.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 260.
- 12.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 263.
- 13.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 290.
- 14.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 301.
- 15.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 334.
- 16.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 371.
- 17.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 418.
- 18.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 434.
- 19.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 464–467.
- 20.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 483.
- 21.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 493.
- 22.
The Serbian Relief Fund (1914–1921) was founded on September 23, 1914, on the initiative of friends of Serbia in England. Its work was financed by donations from Great Britain and British Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, South Africa, etc.). Total donations collected reached £790,000, plus another £250,000 worth of medical and other material. From its establishment to the end of its work the Serbian Relief Fund remained a private and independent humanitarian association. Seton-Watson was the Fund’s honorary secretary. Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 324.
- 23.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској” [V. Vukmirović, Serbian pupils in England], Наставник, лист професорског друштва, књига 27, Београд 1914–1919, 72.
- 24.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 430.
- 25.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 72.
- 26.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 431.
- 27.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 73.
- 28.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 431.
- 29.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 430–431.
- 30.
The role of the Serbian teachers was to supervise the Serbian students’ behavior and fulfilment of their school duties. In addition to controlling their schoolwork, they also taught them Serbian and history. They regularly submitted reports to the Inspector of the Ministry of Education in London as their employer.
- 31.
There were about ten Serbian students in Dundee, and they successfully played rugby for the local team. The most prominent among them was Nikola Simić (Belgrade 1897–1969), who attended the Belgrade Theological Seminary before the First World War (thus his nickname “Pop”, which means “father-priest” in the Greek [“papas”] and Serbian colloquial language) while also playing soccer for the junior team of the Belgrade-based BSK club. On the eve of the war he began playing for the senior team. During the war, he retreated through Albania with the Serbian Army and civilians and wound up on Corfu, from where he continued on to France. After playing for Nice, he also successfully played for ACF Monaco, ACF Grenoble and ACF Toulouse. He played a half-season for Oxford FC in 1919 and became the first Serbian professional soccer player in England.
- 32.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 73.
- 33.
Minutes of the Education Committee, Legacy of Pavle Popović (SASA).
- 34.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 431.
- 35.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 442–443.
- 36.
Павле Поповић, ibid., 495.
- 37.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 74.
- 38.
Popović wrote in his journal (May 25, 1917) that his work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was terminated, that he had transferred to the Ministry of Education and that he had not written a positive text about the Serbs and Serbia for the past two months. Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 668.
- 39.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 74.
- 40.
B. Вукмировић, ibid., 75.
- 41.
“Рад Министарства просвете од 1915. до повратка у отаџбину” [Work of the Ministry of Education from 1915 until the return to Fatherland], Наставник, 134.
- 42.
He finished studies of medicine in Vienna and Paris, becoming a doctor of medicine at age 22, in 1881, in Vienna. At the invitation of the Serbian Medical Corps, he opened the first surgical department in Belgrade in 1889, at Palilula Hospital, where he worked until 1907, when he was appointed chief of the General State Hospital in Belgrade. In 1906, he was elected President of the Serbian Medical Society. During the First World War, he worked as a reserve medical colonel in Belgrade and Niš, before joining the march of retreat through Albania. He then went to Paris and London, where he served (1916–1918) as a Serbian delegate in the inter-allied commission, making use of his wide circle of connections in foreign medical circles. In London he lectured “On the Typhus Exanthematicus Epidemic in Serbia 1914–1915”. Inspector Popović enlisted Dr Subotić to carry out detailed medical examinations of the Serbian students, who had survived the suffering of exile through Albania and the journey to Great Britain, and also to register the death of four of them: Petar Petrović (June 15, 1916), Milan Papić (December 3, 1916), Milan Avramović (June 4, 1918) and Dragoljub Novović (1918). In 1916, Dr Subotić devised a splint for the immobilization of the femur and demonstrated it at the Paris Medical Academy, which brought him election to the membership of the Paris Surgical Society. Dr Subotić was one of the first surgeons in the world who performed reparations of blood vessels in place of applying tourniquets, which brought him election to the membership of the Society of War Surgeons of the United States and England. He took part in the commission that produced the draft organization of a future medical faculty, on the basis of which the School of Medicine in Belgrade was formed.
- 43.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 75.
- 44.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 72.
- 45.
B. Вукмировић, ibid., 76.
- 46.
АЈ Министарство просвете (AY, Ministry of Education) 42, 68.
- 47.
АСАНУ (Archive Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts = ASASA), 14492/178-3.
- 48.
АСАНУ (ASASA), 14492/178-3, London 1/1/1919. By the protocol of handover of function, Popović handed over the Inspectorate archive (1916–1918), library, inventory and treasury.
- 49.
АЈ Министарство просвете (AY, Ministry of Education), 42, 68.
- 50.
The text was translated from English by Vladimir M. Vukmirović. It was reprinted from the magazine Мисао [Thought], no. 4 and 5, January–April 1919, Oxford University Press, 11.
- 51.
These topics were entered into his London journal on the first day of his arrival from Paris to Great Britain (Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 174).
- 52.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 628.
- 53.
This is clearly evident from Popović’s journal entries, where he noted that he was working on the book on a daily basis. In the foreword to the book, the author wrote that it represented only a small attempt to present the literature of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as a unified whole. The book came about under difficult wartime circumstances, far from the Serbian libraries, and with few available books for reference. As he admitted in December 1917 in London, Popović wrote the parts concerning Croatian and Slovene literature on the basis of others’ opinions. See Pavle Popović, Jugoslovenska Književnost (Književnost Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca) (Cambridge: University Press, 1918), i.
- 54.
Павле Поповић, Из дневника, 186.
- 55.
Flora Turner-Vučetić, Eric Turner, “Meštrović and the Victoria and Albert Museum”, Sculpture Journal 25:2 (2016) 161–176.
- 56.
Dalibor Prančević, “Sculpture by Ivan Meštrović at the Grafton Galleries in 1917: critical and social contexts”, Sculpture Journal 25:2 (2016) 177–192.
- 57.
Count Chedomille Mijatovich, The Memoirs of a Balkan Diplomatist (London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne: Cassel and Company, 1917). The book was devoted to Gertrude Florence Wilde.
- 58.
In 1909, Pavle Popović published his Overview of Serbian Literature (Преглед српске књижевности). However, the focus of his research and his views regarding national literature changed with the beginning of the Great War and the resulting change of the political climate in the Kingdom of Serbia. As the consciousness regarding the formation of a unified Kingdom of Yugoslavia formed, Popović, who, as a member of the Yugoslav Committee in London during the war, edited the Press Extracts bulletin, became one of the main proponents of the Yugoslav idea among the countries of the Entente. This marked the path of Popović’s further work. He departed from the idea of an independent Serbian literature and, at the beginning of 1918, with the book Yugoslav Literature = Jugoslovenska književnost, offered the thesis of the unity of the Yugoslav peoples.
- 59.
B. Вукмировић, “Српски ученици у Енглеској”, 76.
- 60.
On January 23, 1883, King Milan Obrenović brought a decree on the establishment of the Order of St Sava, along with the Order of the White Eagle. The Order of St Sava was named after the first Serbian Archbishop, Saint Sava (1175–1236), a prince of the royal and imperial house of Nemanjić.
- 61.
АЈ Министарство просвете (AY, Ministry of Education), 69, 11, 26.
- 62.
АМПКС (Archive Ministry of Education of Kingdom of Serbia) – Пбр. 436, February 10, 1922.
- 63.
Просветни референт, no. 17/99, 6 March 1929. АСАНУ, 14492/178-7.
- 64.
“Промоција г. Павла Поповића” [Promotion of Mr. Pavle Popović], Време, January 3, 1931 (Saturday), 7.
- 65.
АСАНУ, 14492/180-14.
- 66.
He finished secondary school and theological seminary at his place of birth. He became a monk while still a theological student, being ordained as a hierodeacon. He graduated from the Kiev Theological Academy, where he also obtained a master’s degree in 1904, after which he completed studies in philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. In May 1913, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Kingdom of Serbia elected him as Bishop of Niš, consecrating him on May 25. During the war he awaited the Bulgarian occupiers at his residence, after which he was taken to internment. After the Bulgarian capitulation, he returned to his diocese in 1918 and remained there until 1933.
- 67.
АСАНУ, 14492/180-14.
- 68.
АСАНУ, 14492/180-14.
- 69.
АСАНУ, 14492/180-14.
- 70.
Jean Rankin adopted an orphan, while her son, Vivian Rankin, a well-known soccer player for the Niš club Победа [Victory], spent his working days at the British Embassy in Belgrade. In 1941 she refused the orders of the German occupiers to leave Niš, as a result of which she was interned for a time at a prison camp in the city. As the Anglo-Serbian Home in Niš was closed down in 1946, she moved to Dubrovnik, where she died during the early 1950s and was buried at the Dubrovnik Orthodox cemetery, along with her son Vivian, in the family tomb.
- 71.
АСАНУ, 14492/180-14.
- 72.
АСАНУ, 14492/180-14.
- 73.
After Yugoslavia’s capitulation and the arrival of the German and Bulgarian occupiers in Niš in 1941, the Anglo-Serbian Children’s Home was used for the needs of the Germans. Having refused the German forces’ order to leave Niš, Florence Maw and Jean Rankin were for a time interned at a camp in the Crveni Krst section of Niš.
- 74.
АСАНУ, 14492/179-53(1).
- 75.
Pavle Popović preserved this newspaper page, which is now kept at his papers at the Archive of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ASASA = АСАНУ). АСАНУ, 14492/179-53(5).
- 76.
АСАНУ, 14492/179-53(3).
- 77.
The seating plan of the dinner guests, preserved at the Pavle Popović papers at SASA. АСАНУ, 14492/179.
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Čairović, I. (2022). The Role of Pavle Popović in the Development of Anglo-Serbian Relations (1916–1933). In: Chapman, M.D., Lubardić, B. (eds) Serbia and the Church of England. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05977-3_9
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