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Димитрије Ђуровић / Dimitrije Đurović 1881 - 1945 Edit

Born 15.10.1881 in Danilovgrad
Died 10.5.1945 in Mauthausen

Biography

Dimitrije Đurović was born on 15 October 1881 in the village of Kopito near Danilovgrad. As an exceptionally talented pupil, after finishing primary school in 1893 he received a scholarship to continue his education in Russia. In 1903 he graduated from the grammar school in Veliky Novgorod. He decided to study Slavic philology and comparative grammar of the Indo-Germanic languages in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Prague and Leipzig. In 1907 he gained his diploma and, in 1912, the title of Magister. One year later he was awarded a doctorate for his work on the literature of all the Slavonic peoples. In order to specialise and focus his studies he also spent time in Germany and France. He lectured on pedagogical courses at the university in Warsaw, where he remained until evacuation in 1915. Then he went to Kiev, Rostov and Odessa.

In 1920 he returned to Yugoslavia. In 1924 he taught as a professor at several grammar schools and faculties in Belgrade – he worked as a professor at the Commercial College, as a senior lecturer in Church Slavonic and Russian at the Theological Faculty, and as a professor of Russian at the Military Academy. He wrote and distributed pamphlets against the (1937) concordat, was arrested and sentenced by the State Security Court. In 1937 he was pensioned off due to his opposition to the religious politics of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. He enjoyed his status as an academic and ceased to be involved in politics.

In April 1942 two commissars working for the commander of the Security Police and the Belgrade Security Service (BdS) produced reports on Đurović. These claimed that the above-named had been arrested as a Communist, freemason, advisor and friend to the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Gavrilo Dožić, who was deported to the Dachau concentration camp during occupation together with Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović. In July another report was produced which presented Đurović’s academic work, character and politics in negative terms and characterised him as a left-wing provocateur and agent. Although he was an opportunist and opposed the Germans, the report stated, he should not be paid much attention since he had no influence. At the end of the same month, the BdS wrote to Department III C SCHR of the Belgrade Special Police asking for information on Đurović. The police wrote in the report that it was not known whether Đurović had participated in illegal political activities but that he had been arrested for illegal pamphlets which had not displayed Communist tendencies. The Belgrade BdS judged the report as contradictory and superficial and expressed its suspicion that someone in the police was protecting the professor. It was suggested that he continue to be tracked and watched by an agent of the Zbor.[1]

In summer 1943 two functionaries of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia tried several times to recruit Đurović for the people’s liberation movement. He was arrested on the charge of not having reported this contact to the police despite being familiar with their intentions. In December 1943 he was questioned by the Special Police and in April 1944 he was transferred to the Banjica concentration camp. On 31 August 1944 he was deported to Mauthausen. He was assigned prisoner number 96555. He worked in the Wiener Graben quarry and later joined the Karoffelmiete work detachment, which unloaded potatoes from trucks. As punishment he and Miodrag Jakovljević were transferred to Gusen concentration camp. A seriously ill ‘Muselmann’, he was transferred to Block 2 of the infirmary camp in Mauthausen. In order to help him he was taken in by Sveta Živković, the head doctor in Block 5 in the infirmary camp. But it was too late. He died at the age of 64.

Đurović spoke Serbian, Russian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian, German, English, French, Latin and Italian. He had published numerous academic works and translations from Russian to Serbian. He left behind a comprehensive and significant body of work, a rich and multi-faceted oeuvre in the field of Slavonic literature and linguistics. He wrote academic, literary and journalistic texts. His most important works are the university text book Russian Literary Language (1931) and his Russian-Serbian Dictionary with the Grammar of the Russian Language (1936), which has been used by generations of translators and scholars of the Russian language and is still used with students in the classroom today.

Tamara Ćirić-Danilović / Ljubomir Zečević

Udruženje zatočenika koncentracionog logora Mauthauzen Srbije

 

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

 



[1] Translator’s note: the Fascist Yugoslav National Movement.

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