Nikola Ljubičić (

Serbian Cyrillic The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (, ), also known as the Serbian script, (, ), is a standardized variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language. It originated in medieval Serbia and was significantly reformed in the 19th cen ...

: Никола Љубичић; 4 April 1916 – 13 April 2005) was the President of the Presidency of Serbia (1982–1984), a member of the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1984–1989), and the Minister of Defence of Yugoslavia (1967–1982). He received numerous medals both from Yugoslavia and abroad, including the Order of the National Hero of Yugoslavia.

Biography

Ljubičić was born in the village of Karan, near Užice. He fought in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

alongside

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito ( ; , ), was a Yugoslavia, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 unti ...

for the Yugoslav partisan movement and was proclaimed a Yugoslav national hero on the 27 November 1953 for his actions in the war. Nikola Ljubičić joined the Partisans at the start of the war in

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

in 1941. He served with distinction, courage and heroism in the face of death. During the war he was put in charge of numerous units, moving through the ranks of the Partisan army. Forty-one years after his first steps upon the battlefields of Yugoslavia, he retired from the Yugoslav People's Army as a four-star General of the Army and Minister of Defence. In 1982 Nikola Ljubičić took up the position of President of the Presidency of

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

. He remained in this position until 1984. From 1984 to 1989 he was a member of the Presidency of the

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

. He died in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

on 13 April 2005, aged 89, and was buried with full military honors in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens of the New Cemetery in Belgrade. There are a number of publications on his work such as the Total National Defence – Strategy for Peace (published in 1977 in numerous languages, including English,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Russian and

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

), and his own memoirs of World War II in the book ''"U Titovoj koloni"'' ("Marching with Tito"; published in 2006).

References

Biography

See also

References