Stanislav Krakov: A biography

Abstract

The key goal of this paper is the reconstruction of key moments in Stanislav Krakov?s (1895-1968) biography. He was a famous Serbian man of letters, prominent interwar journalist, war hero and finally an emigrant publicist. The paper is based on personal testimonies, biographical notes, archive material from Stanislav Krakov Collection kept in the Archives of Yugoslavia, documents from the National Library of Serbia and the Yugoslav Cinematheque, periodicals and contemporary newspapers, as well as on testimonies of Krakov?s contemporaries. This paper shows the life of Stanislav Krakov from his early life circumstances: volunteering in the First and Second Balkan War, participation in the World War I as an officer, concluding with the perilous journey through Albanian mountains to the Adriatic Sea, and breakthrough on the Macedonian Front in 1918 via Kaymakchalan. Wounded and decorated several times, he did not stay in the army. He dedicated himself to literature and journalism. The stressful and jagged atmosphere in interwar Yugoslavia Defined Stanislav Krakov. While being a kind of a Balgrade dandy he was also a prominent patriotic figure - a decorated young veteran, editor of Politika and editor- in-chief of Vreme newspapers, writer of war novels, travel memoirs, theater critic, and so on. Family and ideological connections with general Nedic determined his journalist career and personal life during the World War II - when he was the editor of Obnova and editor-in-chief of Novo Vreme - as well as after it. As a collaborator, after the WWII, this well-known hero of the WWI and the Balkan Wars passed away as a fugitive and emigrant, never bringing to an end the intended monograph about general Nedic, nor his own memoirs.