2021Renowned Serbian Personalities - First Day Cover

Jovan Dučić (Trebinje, 15 February 1874 – Gary, Indiana, USA, 7 April 1943), was a Serbian and Yugoslav writer, poet and diplomat. He finished elementary school in Trebinje, Teacher’s school in Sarajevo, and law school at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology in Geneva. He was one of the founders of the National Defence, a nationalist non-governmental organization in the Kingdom of Serbia. He is one of the most important Serbian modernist poets.

He published his first collection of poetry in Mostar in 1901 in a literary magazine Zora and his second in Belgrade in 1908. He also often wrote prose, literary essays, travelogues and literary criticism. He was a corresponding member of the Serbian Royal Academy, and since 1931 a regular member. He started working in diplomacy in 1907, and in 1910 he was appointed attaché in the embassy in Constantinople, and then he moved to the same position in Sofia. He was an ambassador to Budapest, then in Bucharest, in 1939, he was appointed the first Yugoslav diplomat in the rank of ambassador. During the occupation of Yugoslavia, in 1941, he was a plenipotentiary ambassador to Madrid. His remains were transferred from the United States and buried in Trebinje on October 22, 2000. Dučić’s most famous works are: King Radovan’s treasure, Leutar Mornings, Path by the Road, I Believe in God and Serbianness, Poems.

Motif on the stamp: a portrait of Jovan Dučić, with the original signature and dedication of the writer to Queen Marija in the background. From the collection of autographs of writers and artists, owned by the Museum of Serbian Literature of the Adligat Association.

Expert collaboration: Association for Culture, Arts and International Cooperation Adligat, Belgrade.

Artistic realization: Boban Savić, MA, academic painter

Stanislav Vinaver (Šabac, March 1, 1891 – Niška Banja, August 1, 1955), erudite, writer and translator, received his high school education in Belgrade, studied mathematics and physics at the Sorbonne, and graduated from the University of Belgrade in 1930. He took part in the Balkan Wars and the First World War as one of the 1300 Corporals. He was a lieutenant in the famous School Battalion, crossed Albania, was engaged in Corfu as the editor of Srpske novine (Serbian Newspaper) and worked as a clerk of the State Press Bureau. After the war, he dedicated himself to journalism and literature as a member of a diverse group of young and new modernist Serbian writers (Miloš Crnjanski, Dragiša Vasić, Rastko Petrović, Rade Drainac). He became a member of the Journalists’ Association of Yugoslavia on November 20, 1920. He was also oneof the founders of the Ošišani jež (Shaved Hedgehog) satirical magazine, and between the two wars he worked as a special correspondent for the Vreme (Time) magazine in Bulgaria, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Soviet Union, after which he was employed by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Geneva and Berlin. He spent the Second World War in captivity, in the German concentration camp Osnabrück. After the war, he lived in Belgrade and was engaged in literature, satire and translation from French, English, Russian, Czech, Polish and German.

The poet and essayist Vinaver, the founder of the expressionist movement, wrote the Manifesto of the Expressionist School. He strongly advocated a break with traditional artistic expression. He was the first to translate The Good Soldier Schweik, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Alice in Wonderland, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer into Serbian.

Among Vinaver’s numerous works, the most famous are: Mjeća, Stories That Lost Their Balance, Evil Wizards’ Small Town, Lightning Rod of the Universe, Icarus’Flight, European Night, Our Needed Language and, as the crown of his contemplations about the Serbian language, Laza Kostić’s Enchantments and Spites.

Motif on the stamp: a portrait of Stanislav Vinaver, with the original signature of the writer in the background. From the collection of autographs of writers and artists, owned by the Museum of Serbian Literature of the Adligat Association.

Expert collaboration: Association for Culture, Arts and International Cooperation Adligat, Belgrade.

Artistic realization: Boban Savić, MA, academic painter

Branko Pešić (Zemun, 1 September 1921 – Lignano, Italy 4 October 2006) was one of the most prominent Serbian architects, who left behind an extensive and complex work in various fields of architectural achievements, the most striking of which today are the landmarks of Belgrade.

He enrolled at the Technical Faculty in Belgrade – Department of Architecture, in 1939, and graduated after the war, in 1947. He worked as a designer, head of construction sites and bureaus in the Directorate for Construction of New Belgrade from 1947 to 1951. At the Faculty of Civil Engineering, he was elected an assistant in 1951, then a lecturer and professor in the subject of Civil Engineering, where he worked until his retirement in 1986. He is the author of textbooks for the subject of Civil Engineering, as well as a number of professional publications and papers. Among his most significant projects are: Yugoslav pavilions at numerous international fairs, projects of several buildings in Belgrade, the most important of which is the Belgrade palace (Beograđanka). He designed 27 church buildings, among which the church in Priboj on the Lim stands out, the endowment of the family of Nikolaj Velimirović in Lelić, the Church of St. Petka on the Čukarica slope.

He is the author of the project for the continuation of the construction of the Temple of Saint Sava in Belgrade. He was the main organiser and supervising engineer on the construction of the Temple from 1984 to 1996. Pešić did not receive any kind of compensation for his work on the Temple, and apart from professional work, Pešić actively raised funds for the Temple, for which he held lectures and exhibitions, from Australia to the United Kingdom. He was a long-term president of the architecture section of the Association of Applied Artists and Designers of Serbia (ULUPUDS), the president of ULUPUDS (1976–80) and then the president of Alliance of Applied Artists and Designers of Yugoslavia – SPIDJU (1981–82). He received several medals and diplomas for his work and engagement in the cultural and professional field. He was awarded two Medals of Labour, the Order of Labour of the First Grade, the Order of Merit for the People, the Order of St. Sava of the First Grade and posthumously, in 2006 with the Order of the White Eagle of the First Grade.

Motif on the stamp: Portrait of Branko Pešić, with a sketch of the Temple of Saint Sava and the signature of the architect in the background. From the Legacy of the architect Branko Pešić, owned by the Legacy House of the Adligat Association.

Expert collaboration: Association for Culture, Arts and International Cooperation Adligat, Belgrade.

Београд. Уметничка реализација: мр Бобан Савић, академски сликар

Dobrica Ćosić (Velika Drenova, 29 December 1921 – Belgrade, 18 May 2014), was a Serbian writer, journalist, essayist and politician. As a 20-year-old, he joined the partisan anti-fascist movement and in 1951 he published The Sun is Far Away, the first modern novel on Serbian revolution. After that he published the novels: The Roots, The Divisions (trilogy), The Fairy tale, A Time of Death (tetralogy), A Time of Evil – trilogy: The Sinner, The Renegade, The Believer, and A Time of Power I and A Time of Power II.

He wrote political essays, journalistic texts, portraits of contemporaries and diary notes collected in the books: Action, Responsibilities, Power and Anxiety (banned 1971) Real and Possible (banned 1982), Writers’ Notes 1–5, Time of Snakes, Writers of My Century, Serbian Question I and II, Kosovo, Friends, In Another Century, Bosnian War, Kosovo 1968 – 2013 and posthumously – In Another Century II.

He received the NIN awards for literature for the novels The Roots and The Divisions, and Njegoš award for A Time of Evil. He is a member of The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) since 1970. He also received the Pushkin award for exceptional contribution to Slavic literature and in 2010 he was awarded with a medal by Russian President Medvedev for the fight against fascism. He is a writer with a biography of a highly engaged intellectual. At the XIV plenary assembly of the Central Committee of Serbia in 1968, he criticized Albanian separatism for which he was accused of being a nationalist and was banned from all public activities for two decades.

He fought for the gathering of the Yugoslav critical intelligentsia with the aim of democratizing Yugoslav socialism. As a nonpartisan person, he accepted the duty of the first president of FRY 1992–1993.

In the last decade of his life, he published books of diary entries covering the time of his novels (1951–2010) – The personal history of my time.

Motif on the stamp: a portrait of Dobrica Ćosić, with the original signature of the writer in the background. From the collection of autographs of writers and artists, owned by the Museum of Serbian Literature of the Adligat Association.

Expert collaboration: Association for Culture, Arts and International Cooperation Adligat, Belgrade.

Artistic realization: Boban Savić, MA, academic painter