Text prepared by: Jelena Jovanović, Tijana Kovčić, Vladimir Mijatović
Editor-in-chief: Dragan Gačić, M.A.
Year of publishing: 2017
Editor-in-chief: Dragan Gačić, M.A.
Year of publishing: 2017
Kosta St. Pavlović was born in 1905 in a prominent Belgrade family. He finished Elementary and Secondary school in Paris, where his father was a diplomat. He completed the First Belgrade Gymnasium and then graduated from the Faculty of Law in Belgrade. He was in diplomatic service from 1928 until 1945. He served in Brussels and Luxembourg and at the beginning of the WWII he was working in Bucharest. After he had arrived in London, he was chosen to be the chief of the Cabinet of the Prime Ministers Dušan Simović, Slobodan Jovanović and Miloš Trifunović until 1943, when the Serbian Government was transferred to Cairo. Soon after he started to work as the First Secretary of Yugoslav Embassy in London. After the war, he completed postgraduate magisterial studies at the University of Cambridge and was the librarian in the Slavic Library. Since 1961 he was proclaimed to be a permanent member of the Faculty for Contemporary and Medieval Languages and permanent member of the Regent House of the Cambridge University and the Selvin College.
He was the General Secretary of the Yugoslav National Defense, honorary member of the French Institute in London, and a member of Polish Society for Science and Literature. He published articles in various Serbian, French, Belgian and American magazines. He collaborated on Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1963. He was one of the founders of the Liberation newspaper. With the assistance of the British Academy of Science, he published 28 articles and research studies on Yugoslav-British relations during the Second World War and 30 literary portraits under the title As I Knew Them. He died in Southampton in 1988.
Kosta’s son, Stevan K. Pavlović, professor emeritus of the Balkan Studies on the University of Southampton, in 2005 handed over to the Historical Archives of Belgrade the legacy of Kosta Pavlović, consisting of abundant archival material and the diaries. The diaries were kept from 1930 until 1933 (at the beginning of his diplomatic career) and from 1940 until 1954.
Kosta’s son, Stevan K. Pavlović, professor emeritus of the Balkan Studies on the University of Southampton, in 2005 handed over to the Historical Archives of Belgrade the legacy of Kosta Pavlović, consisting of abundant archival material and the diaries. The diaries were kept from 1930 until 1933 (at the beginning of his diplomatic career) and from 1940 until 1954.
The diary notes of Kosta Pavlović are not entirely unknown to the audience. In 2011 Stevan K. Pavlović prepared for publishing his father’s notes under the title War Diary 1941–1945 (the book includes the period from 14th May 1941 until 10th March 1945). The book was published by Službeni Galsnik and publishing company Otkrovenje. Historical Archives of Belgrade have published diaries that follow the War Diary. The London Diary starts on Saturday, 10th March 1945 when Pavlović made a final decision not to return to his Motherland and it ends on the last day of 1946.
By using diplomatic sources and meetings, as well as the British press, Kosta Pavlović in his Diaries analyses and discusses the activities of Serbian emigrants, affairs of the family Karadjordjević as well as the events in postwar Yugoslavia. These notes reveal the destiny of his contemporaries – Slobodan Jovanović, Draža Mihailović, Branko Lazarević, Ilija Šumenković, Mladen Žujović, Milan Gavrilović, as well as other foreign diplomats and prominent European politicians. All these political events mingle with personal experiences, memories from childhood and nostalgic feelings for his family and Motherland.
Diaries of Kosta Pavlović contain eight notebooks with hard covers. The text is written by hand and typed, in Latin and Cyrillic letters, in Serbian, English and French language. The original spelling and style of Kosta Pavlović is preserved entirely. The corrections have been made only in cases of obvious spelling mistakes. These Diaries represent significant source of information for the researchers and experts in this period, as well as for wider audience. The book presentation was held in the Roman Hall of the Belgrade City Library on 26th April 2017.Djordje Pavlović and historian PhD Milan St. Protić discussed about this publication.
On this occasion, another Archives’ publication was promoted – Nežider – Austro-Hungarian camp for Serbian prisoners of war.
On this occasion, another Archives’ publication was promoted – Nežider – Austro-Hungarian camp for Serbian prisoners of war.
Photographs from the book presentation
Video from the book presentation
