On this day in 1926, the Serbian statesman Nikola Pasic, one of the founders of the Radical Party in 1881 and its leader, and the creator of the Vidovdan constitution in 1921, the first constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, died.
History connoisseurs say that the Serbian people had three great statesmen – Ilija Garasanin, Jovan Ristic and Nikola Pasic.
He made a decisive contribution to the fact that in 1888 Serbia received a constitution that forced King Milan to withdraw.
Shortly after King Milan’s abdication in favor of his son Alexander, he became Speaker of the Assembly in 1889, and in 1891, Prime Minister.
He consolidated his dominant political position in Serbia after King Peter I Karadjordjevic came to power in 1903.
He has led the government since 1904 and then three more times. After the First World War, he was three times Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
He successfully resisted the efforts of Austro-Hungary against Serbia, participated in the creation of a Balkan alliance against Turkey and was a loyal supporter of imperial Russia.
In addition to King Alexander, since 1914 he was regent, leading Serbia in the victorious Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 and in the First World War from 1914 to 1918.
He represented the Kingdom of Serbia in 1919 at the Versailles Peace Conference and contributed decisively to the creation of a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In the official conversations, the chroniclers said, he spoke little, letting the interviewees present their impressions and arguments, moods and points of view to get as much notice as possible. At the Caucus or the Main Committee of the party, either the first or the last spoke.
The most beloved heads of Serbia and Yugoslavia of that time did not love him, but for the rest of his life they always stood at the disposal of a wise statesman.
Pasic was a silent and imprisoned man, married in the late 45s to Djurdjin Dukovic of a wealthy Serb family in Trieste (originally from Kotor). He was the father of three children, Radomir, Darinka and Pava, to whom he was quite indulgent.
say that the Serbian people had three great statesmen – Ilija Garasanin, Jovan Ristic and Nikola Pasic.
Along with King Alexander the First, Nikola Pasic was certainly the most respected Serbian politician among other South Slavic nations, appreciated for the historical merit of his people and the international community throughout Europe.
As a student at the Zurich Polytechnic, he approached the Socialists and accepted the ideas of Svetozar Markovic and his Russian role models.
On his return to Serbia he edited the socialist newspaper Oslobodjenje, and in 1878 he was elected to the National Assembly.
After the suppression of the Timok rebellion in 1883 he emigrated and was sentenced to death in absentia. King Milan later pardoned him.
In the last years of his life, Pasic was quite tolerant, especially in the corruption scandals of his son Radomir, which damaged his reputation among the people and multiplied opponents around King Alexander the First.
Pasic’s death itself is related to the rebuke of King Alexander the First in connection with his son Radomir during an audition on December 10, 1926, which he hardly accepted.
On this occasion, the king told Pasic in a fit of anger that he would be better off explaining his son’s criminal affairs. Pasic was so offended by this statement that he immediately left the court. Upset about that statement by the king he died the same day.
Half an hour after his death, a message came from the court with the King’s written apology for the words spoken. Unfortunately, she arrived too late.
He died at his home on the corner of Theater and Jew Street in Belgrade.
According to contemporary accounts, he left behind 826,605 then-dinars (valued at $ 16,000 at the time) in a bank account, earmarking money for the erection of a monument to Russian Tsar Nikolai in Belgrade in gratitude to the Serbian people.
TST
