Vladimir Rolović (21 May 1916 – 15 April 1971) was a Yugoslav politician, diplomat, and a former high officer of the

State Security Administration The State Security Service ( hr, Služba državne sigurnosti, sr, Служба државне безбедности; mk, Служба за државна безбедност; sl, Služba državne varnosti), also known by its original name ...

(UDBA). Holder of the "

Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941 The Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941 ( sh, Partizanska Spomenica 1941 / Партизанска Споменица 1941, sl, Partizanska spomenica 1941) is a commemorative Yugoslav medal instituted on 14 September 1944, awarded to tho ...

" and as a former commander of the infamous Goli Otok prison, he was assassinated in 1971 while serving as the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden by

Anđelko Brajković Angel is a given name meaning "angel", " messenger". In the English-speaking world Angel is used for both boys and girls. From the medieval Latin masculine name ''Angelus'', which was derived from the name of the heavenly creature (itself derived ...

and

Miro Barešić Miro Barešić (10 September 1950 – 31 July 1991) was a Yugoslav-Croatian émigré and neo-fascist paramilitary who in 1971 murdered a Yugoslav diplomat, Vladimir Rolović, in Sweden. He later served as a soldier in Paraguay and in the Croatian ...

, members of the

Croatian National Resistance The Croatian National Resistance ( hr, Hrvatski narodni otpor, HNO), also referred to as Otpor, was an Ustaša organization founded in 1955 in Spain. The HNO ran an armed organisation, Drina, which continued to be active well into the 1970s. The o ...

neo- Ustaša terrorist organization.

Biography

Rolović was born on 21 May 1916 in the village of Brčeli within

Crmnica Crmnica ( Serbian and Montenegrin: Црмница, ) is a historical region in southern Montenegro, one of the communes of the municipality of Bar. It is one of the four sub-regions of Old Montenegro. Geography & Demographics Crmnica is located ...

region near

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

. Born 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 ...

in a poor family, he spent his childhood in his home village, where he attended elementary school. Despite difficult conditions, he continued his education in

Peć Peja (Definiteness, Indefinite Albanian language, Albanian Albanian morphology#Nouns (declension), form: ''Pejë'' ) or Peć ( sr-Cyrl, Пећ ) is the fourth largest List of cities and towns in Kosovo, city of Kosovo and seat of Peja Municipali ...

and

Cetinje Cetinje (, ) is a town in Montenegro. It is the former royal capital (''prijestonica'' / приjестоница) of Montenegro and is the location of several national institutions, including the official residence of the president of Montenegro ...

, and enrolled in 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 ...

Faculty of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

.Biography at Znaci.net
/ref> In 1935, the 19-year-old became a member of

SKOJ League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia, commonly known in English as the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia, or simply Communist Youth, was the youth wing of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from 1919 to 1948. Although it was banned just two y ...

, the youth wing of the then-banned

Yugoslav Communist Party The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

(KPJ). Only several months later, in early 1936, he became a full-fledged member of the KPJ. Due to his involvement with the organization, he was arrested twice by the authorities of 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 ...

– first in 1935 in Cetinje and later in 1938 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 ...

. Rolović continued his climb up the party ladder and in 1940, he was elected a member of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Montenegro. After the

invasion An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

and subsequent occupation of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and its allies in April 1941, Rolović was actively involved in preparations for an armed uprising in Montenegro. In December 1941, he participated in the attack on

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 ...

. He served as political commissioner of the First Montenegrin partisan battalion. He was also a director of the Political department of the First Dalmatian and Fifteenth Majevica Brigades and Seventeenth East-Bosnian Division of the Yugoslav Army. He served as a member of the

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

government, as assistant of federal

Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...

, member of the city Committee of the Communist Party of Belgrade and ambassador of

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and finally in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. He was a commander of the Goli Otok prison used to incarcerate political prisoners. In

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

on 7 April 1971, he was attacked by a group of

members in a attack on the Yugoslav embassy, and was mortally wounded. Eight days later, on 15 April, he succumbed to his injuries. The assassins

and Anđelko Brajović were caught and convicted in

. He was awarded the

People's Hero of Yugoslavia The Order of the People's Hero or the Order of the National Hero ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Orden narodnog heroja, Oрден народног хероја; sl, Red narodnega heroja, mk, Oрден на народен херој, Orden na ...

gallantry medal on 9 April 1971, two days after getting wounded in Stockholm.

References

Literature

*''National heroes of Yugoslavia'', Mladost, Belgrade, 1975. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rolovic, Vladimir 1916 births 1971 deaths People from Bar, Montenegro Yugoslav Partisans members Ambassadors of Yugoslavia to Sweden Ambassadors of Yugoslavia to Japan Ambassadors of Yugoslavia to Norway University of Belgrade Faculty of Law alumni Recipients of the Order of the People's Hero Order of the Polar Star Assassinated diplomats Terrorism deaths in Sweden Montenegrin communists