Stevan Simić (9 May 1882, in Kratovo – 25 June 1962, in

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

) was a Serb geographer, educator and member of the

Serbian Chetnik Organization Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation) ...

Old Serbia Old Serbia ( sr, Стара Србија, Stara Srbija) is a Serbian historiographical term that is used to describe the territory that according to the dominant school of Serbian historiography in the late 19th century formed the core of the ...

and an MP in the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 unt ...

Life

Simić was born in Kratovo,

Sanjak of Üsküp The Sanjak of Üsküp was one of the sanjaks in the Ottoman Empire, with Üsküb (modern-day Skopje) as its administrative centre. Origins Starting from the end of the 10th century Skopje experienced a period of wars and political troubles. It ...

, Kosovo vilayet in 1882. He finished primary school in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

and in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

. After graduating from gymnasium (high school) he worked as a teacher in the village of Turaljevo, close to Kratovo. In 1902 he went to continue his education at the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-b ...

where he graduated in 1906. In

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

he met the founders of the Serbian Committee and soon became an active member of its revolutionary board. From 1906 to 1912 he worked as a teacher in Serb schools in

Bitola Bitola (; mk, Битола ) is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, north of the Medžitlija-Níki ...

Pljevlja Pljevlja ( srp, Пљевља, ) is a town and the center of Pljevlja Municipality located in the northern part of Montenegro. The town lies at an altitude of . In the Middle Ages, Pljevlja had been a crossroad of the important commercial roads and ...

and

in Ottoman territories. As a polyglot, during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he served as a translator to the British high command on the

Salonika front The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonica front (after Thessaloniki), was a military theatre of World War I formed as a result of an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of German ...

. After the war he served as the headmaster of high schools in Veles,

Ohrid Ohrid ( mk, Охрид ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the List of cities in North Macedonia, eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording ...

and

Prizren ) , settlement_type = Municipality and city , image_skyline = Prizren Collage.jpg , imagesize = 290px , image_caption = View of Prizren , image_alt = View of Prizren , image_flag ...

. This was also his most prolific period as a scientist in which he published a number of articles in the fields of ethnology, history and archeology. After frequent disputes with corrupted politicians he was sent to retirement in 1929. After this he was voted into the Yugoslav parliament as an MP for the county of Kratovo. At the Nazi onslaught on Yugoslavia and the Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia he escaped to

where he spent the rest of the war. Unlike many of his compatriots, Simić did not succumb to pressures of the communist regime to change his surname and declare himself an ethnic Macedonian. Barely tolerated by the authorities Simić lived in

modestly, spending most of his time in writing

memoirs A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

. He died in

in 1962. He donated his belongings and manuscripts to the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences. This corpus of over 200 manuscripts has a first rate significance for studying life and times of Simić's Macedonia.Komitsko četovanje u Staroj Srbiji i Makedoniji 1903-12, Belgrade 2012, foreword by J. Bajić, 9-25.

Works

* Историја кратовске области, Београд 1914. * Комитско четовање у Старој Србији и Македонији 1903–1912, Београд 1998.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simic, Stevan 1882 births 1962 deaths People from Kratovo, North Macedonia People from Kosovo vilayet Serbs of North Macedonia Representatives in the Yugoslav National Assembly (1921–1941) Yugoslav geographers Yugoslav educators 20th-century geographers University of Belgrade alumni Chetniks of the Macedonian Struggle Serbian military personnel of World War I