ŠPANSKA GROZNICA U KRAGUJEVCU 1918.

Abstract

The Spanish flu pandemic occurred during 1918-1919, spreading all over the planet in three waves and continuing for the next couple of years. It did not bypass Serbia, either, and approximately 3% or more than 100,000 residents died. This work aimed to determine the occurrence and the aftermath of the world pandemic in Kragujevac and the villages that belonged to the parishes of two churches in Kragujevac, based on the analysis of the available church records, memoirs, and registers of the deceased. From the memoir materials, the memories of Milica Jakovljević Mirjam, have been preserved and are available, indicating that the deadly outbreak of the pandemic came before the arrival of the liberators from the Thessaloniki front. People welcomed them in masses and festively, which only contributed to the additional accelerated spread of the disease, from which, as Duke Petar Bojović reported to the Supreme Command from Kragujevac, the entire population and the army had fallen ill. For many citizens, this disease was fatal, like Milica's mother Simka, who died on October 28th (November 10th). Her daughters recovered from the flu relatively easily, while the Head of the Medical services of Drina division, colonel dr Milan Pecić, suffered from it for several months. Analysis of the two church registers of the deceased from Kragujevac showed that in Kragujevac, the pandemic, in its deadliest outbreak, claimed at least 72 lives (0.053%) in the fall of 1918, while 107 parishioners (1.19%) died in villages near small towns. The assumption was that in further, remote rural areas the mortality was even higher. The next outbreaks of the pandemic, the third wave from the beginning of 1919, and the fourth, from the end of 1919 and the beginning of 1920, also had deadly consequences in the Kragujevac region, but were much milder than those from the fall of 1918.