Dimitrije "Mita" Đorđević ( sr, Димитрије Ђорђевић; 27 February 1922 – 5 March 2009) was a

Serbian 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 ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

of modern European history, especially of the Balkans.

Biography

Đorđević was born in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...

to a prominent

family. When he was a law student, the Germans invaded

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

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and he joined the resistance movement of Dragoljub Mihailovic. Đorđević was captured by the Germans and was imprisoned, ultimately in

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern German ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. He survived the war, but was in turn imprisoned by the communist regime in post World War II Yugoslavia. After he was pardoned and released, Đorđević was eventually allowed to commence study 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-ba ...

, where he was a student of

Vaso Čubrilović Vaso Čubrilović ( sr-Cyrl, Васо Чубриловић; 14 January 1897 – 11 June 1990) was a Bosnian Serb scholar and politician. As a teenager, he joined the South Slav student movement known as Young Bosnia and was involved in the conspir ...

(one of the members of the Young Bosnia who conspired to assassinate

Franz Ferdinand Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria, (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I. Fr ...

which led to the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

). Đorđević was awarded his doctorate in 1962. In 1970, Đorđević took up a position as a Full Professor of History at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, joining a strong faculty in European History including Joachim Remak, Frank J. Frost, Leonard Marsak, Alfred Gollin, and C. Warren Hollister. He was elected a member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts in 1985. A popular undergraduate lecturer and graduate mentor at the

, in 1992 many of his former students contributed to his ''Festschrift'' entitled ''Scholar, Patriot, Mentor: Historical Essays in Honor of Dimitrije Djordjevic''. In retirement, Đorđević published his autobiography, ''Scars and Memory: Four Lives in One Lifetime'', describing his World War II and post World War II experiences. Professor Đorđević died in Santa Barbara on March 5, 2009.

Publications

*Dimitrije Đorđević, ''The Growth of Serbia to the Adriatic Sea and the Conference of Ambassadors, 1912'' (Belgrade, 1956). n Serbian*Dimitrije Đorđević, ''Austro-Serbian Conflict over the Novibazar Railway Project'' (Belgrade, 1957). n Serbian*Dimitrije Đorđević (with Jopjo Tadić), ''The Customs War Between Austria-Hungary and Serbia'' (Belgrade, 1962). n Serbian*Dimitrije Đorđević, ''Milovan Milovanović'' (Belgrade, 1962). n Serbian*Dimitrije Đorđević, ''The National Revolutions of the Balkan Peoples'' (Belgrade, 1965). n French*Dimitrije Đorđević, ''History of Serbia, 1900-1918'' (Thessalonika, 1970). n Modern Greek*Dimitrije Đorđević, ''The Creation of Yugoslavia'' (Santa Barbara, 1980). *Dimitrije Đorđević, (with Stephen Fischer-Galati), ''The Balkan Revolutionary Tradition'' (NY, 1981). *Dimitrije Đorđević, (co-edited with Bela K. Kiraly), ''East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars'' (NY, 1987). *Dimitrije Đorđević, ''Scars and Memory: Four Lives in One Lifetime'' (NY, 1994).

References

External links

Biography on the website of SANU
1922 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Serbian historians Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Yugoslav emigrants to the United States American people of Serbian descent University of California, Santa Barbara faculty 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers Yugoslav historians {{Serbia-academic-bio-stub