{"id":15587,"date":"2026-01-30T10:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/%d0%ba%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b1%d0%b8%d0%be%d0%b3%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%84%d0%b8%d1%98%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%99%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d0%bb%d0%b0%d1%85%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b8%d1%9b%d0%b0\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T14:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T14:30:26","slug":"%d0%ba%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b1%d0%b8%d0%be%d0%b3%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%84%d0%b8%d1%98%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%99%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d0%bb%d0%b0%d1%85%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b8%d1%9b%d0%b0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/%d0%ba%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b1%d0%b8%d0%be%d0%b3%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%84%d0%b8%d1%98%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%99%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d0%bb%d0%b0%d1%85%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b8%d1%9b%d0%b0\/","title":{"rendered":"A Short Biography of Veljko Vlahovi\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biography of Velimir Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 (1914\u20131975) takes us through some of the key political and social turmoils of the 20th century \u2014 from the student protests of the 1930s, through the Spanish Civil War and World War II, to the formation of socialist Yugoslavia and its positioning in the world during the Cold War. Vlahovi\u0107\u2019s life connects the experiences of illegal revolutionary work, wartime engagement, international diplomacy and political activity, offering to us a series of crucial events of the history of Yugoslavia, but also of the wider Europe, through the biography of one political actor.<\/p>\n

Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 was born on December 23, 1914, in Trmanje, near Kola\u0161in, into a family with a history of wars and uprisings experiences. His mother, Mijojka, was the daughter of a Montenegrin commander Be\u0107o Zuletin, a bearer of the Cross of Saint George, the highest Russian imperial decoration. His father Milinko Vlahovi\u0107 (1881\u20131930), a captain of the Army of the Kingdom of Montenegro, led the Rova\u010dki Battalion in the Battle of Mojkovac, was a duke of the Toplica Uprising, and a lieutenant colonel of the Yugoslav Army. The family tradition of freedom fighting continued into World War II \u2014 Veljko Vlahovi\u0107’s sisters and brothers participated in the uprising from its inception, and his two brothers, Branko and Du\u0161an, were killed as prominent participants of the National Liberation Struggle.<\/p>\n

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Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 as a school student, 1920s<\/p>\n

National Museum of Montenegro, Cetinje<\/p>\n

Vlahovi\u0107’s childhood and school days were marked by frequent relocations. Although he was born in Montenegro, he attended primary school in the village of Vlahovi\u0107i, in Podgorica and Banja Luka, and the high school in Po\u017earevac and Belgrade, where he began his studies in engineering. Already in 1933, he joined League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) and became a member of the generation that consolidated the progressive student movement at the University of Belgrade. As the president of the Action Committee of Professional Student Associations, he participated in the struggle for university autonomy and better living conditions. During 1935, he was imprisoned in the Vi\u0161egrad concentration camp established for students punished for their political activity. Due to a great pressure from the student community (students from all three universities in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia – Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade – went on strike) and due to hunger strike of the imprisoned students, and the fact that parliamentary elections were approaching, the camp, modelled after the German and Italian concentration camps of the time, was disbanded two months after it had been established.<\/p>\n

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Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 with colleagues on student internship, In\u0111ija, 1935<\/p>\n

National Museum of Montenegro, Cetinje<\/p>\n

In April 1936, a big student strike began at the universities of Belgrade, Ljubljana and Zagreb, and Vlahovi\u0107 had a significant role in it. On April 4, 1936, student \u017darko Marinovi\u0107 was murdered, and this event has been commemorated to this day as the Student’s Day of the University of Belgrade. The strike ended on April 28, 1936, as the students’ demands were met, but Vlahovi\u0107 was prohibited to continue studies in Belgrade, and that was why he left for Prague.<\/p>\n

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Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 on Charles Bridge, Prague, November 1936<\/p>\n

In Prague, in the student dormitory \u201cAlexander College\u201d, Yugoslav communist students used to gather: Ratko Pavlovi\u0107, Branko Krsmanovi\u0107 and Lazar Udovicki were some of the most famous among them. In 1937, a group of 26 Yugoslav students set off from Prague to Spain to join the fighters defending the Republic. The French Communist Party organized their transport to the Pyrenees, and they crossed the mountain border on skis.<\/p>\n

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Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 at a skiing lesson in the Krkono\u0161e Mountains<\/p>\n

In Spain, Vlahovi\u0107 joined the Dimitrov Battalion, a unit operating within the International Brigades. His first war experience was in the Battle of Jarama in February 1937, when he got seriously wounded. His leg was amputated and he suffered a serious shoulder injury. During his recovery, he joined the Communist Party of Spain and became an editor of the Brigade\u2019s newspaper \u201cDimitrovac\u201d, which covered the war and international anti-fascist activities. In 1938, he retreated to France with other fighters, where members of the International Brigades were interned in camps.<\/p>\n

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Wounded Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 in Alicante in front of the house given to him by night watchman Pepe, 1937.<\/p>\n

National Museum of Montenegro, Cetinje<\/p>\n

* Pepe’s son was killed when Veljko got wounded. He buried his son and laid Veljko’s amputated leg next to him. As he liked Vlahovi\u0107, and as he lost his son, he gave him the house.<\/p>\n

In Paris in 1938, Vlahovi\u0107 met Josip Broz, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, who informed him that it had been decided that Vlahovi\u0107 would go to Moscow as the representative of SKOJ in the Youth Communist International. Vlahovi\u0107 spent the next six years in the Soviet Union. In 1941, after the uprising in occupied Yugoslavia, he launched the radio station \u201cFree Yugoslavia\u201d, as a response to the narratives of Yugoslav emigration, who attributed the successes of the National Liberation Struggle exclusively to the Chetnik movement. The radio station used media from Western countries as sources, as well as the Nazi and quisling press. Particularly valuable were excerpts from letters of German soldiers killed or captured on the Eastern Front, to whom brothers, comrades and relatives wrote from Yugoslavia, informing them about the treatment of the occupying army on the Yugoslav territory.<\/p>\n

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Handing over of the war flag to the Yugoslav Brigade in the USSR, March 12, 1944<\/p>\n

Archives of Yugoslavia, Belgrade<\/p>\n

During his stay in the USSR, Vlahovi\u0107 met Mira Vajnberger, who had moved from Slovenia to the USSR as a child with a family of political emigrants. Mira was a widow and from two previous marriages she had two daughters, Svetlana and Jelena, whom Vlahovi\u0107 adopted, and together they had two sons, Slobodan and Branko. Vlahovi\u0107 returned to Belgrade on a Soviet military plane in March 1945.<\/p>\n

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Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 and Aleksandar Rankovi\u0107 in Ko\u0161utnjak, Belgrade, 1945<\/p>\n

National Museum of Montenegro, Cetinje<\/p>\n

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia put him in charge of the agitation and propaganda work, and in June 1948 he was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for the first time – and he would be elected for the rest of his life to the body. In the post-war period, he performed duties related to foreign affairs: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the FPRY (1951\u20131952), and head of the Yugoslav delegation at the UN General Assembly session in 1952. Later, as the director of the newspaper \u201cBorba\u201d he took on editorial duties (1953), and then political positions in Belgrade as the president of the City Committee of the League of Communists of Belgrade (1968\u20131970).<\/p>\n

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Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 with participants of the Conference for Women’s Social Activity, Zagreb, 1961<\/p>\n

National Museum of Montenegro, Cetinje<\/p>\n

After the Informbiro Resolution of 1948, Yugoslavia started redefining its foreign policy, becoming more open to cooperation with Western countries, while also trying to conceptualize a new, middle path on the international political scene, together with the countries of Africa and Asia. The Non-Aligned Movement was formally founded in 1961 at the First Belgrade Conference, bringing together 25 countries and 3 countries with the status of observers. The most prominent founding states were India, Egypt, Indonesia, Ghana and Yugoslavia, and numerous other participants from Asia and Africa – Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia and others, were jointly building a non-aligned foreign policy at that time. During the 1960s, Vlahovi\u0107 went to diplomatic missions in Asia to gain support for Yugoslavia’s non-aligned political course and was a member of the Yugoslav delegation at the founding conference held in Belgrade in 1961. During the preparations for this summit, Vlahovi\u0107 wrote diary notes that are kept at the National Museum of Montenegro (NMCG) in Cetinje, and which were published in 2021 under the title \u201cConference de Belgrade: dnevni\u010dki zapisi Veljka Vlahovi\u0107a sa Beogradske konferencije 1961\u201d.<\/em> The editor of this publication is Bo\u017eena Milji\u0107, who, together with Ljiljana Karad\u017ei\u0107, also authored the first exhibition about Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 \u2013 \u201cOn the Side of Justice and Freedom: The Legacy of Veljko Vlahovi\u0107\u201d, presented in 2018 at the National Museum of Montenegro.<\/p>\n

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Yugoslav delegation at the Belgrade Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement. In the photo: Josip Broz Tito, Edvard Kardelj, Vladimir Bakari\u0107, Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 and Ko\u010da Popovi\u0107, September 1-6, 1961<\/p>\n

Museum of Yugoslavia<\/p>\n

In 1968, Vlahovi\u0107 was among the students again, but this time as a representative of the authorities. Although the immediate cause of the 1968 demonstrations was a clash with the police when the participants of Youth Labor Actions were given priority over the students to enter a concert, the rebellion quickly took on a social character: the students were protesting against growing social stratification, and the most radical slogan that emerged was \u201cDown with the Red Bourgeoisie\u201d. When negotiations with students began on June 3, 1968, in New Belgrade, the delegation of government representatives included Veljko Vlahovi\u0107, who was welcomed by the students with slogans such as \u201cVeljko, Remember Spain\u201d and \u201cVeljko, Lead Us\u201d. Another high-ranking official who participated in these negotiations was the then President of the Assembly of the People’s Republic of Serbia, Milo\u0161 Mini\u0107. Both Vlahovi\u0107 and Mini\u0107 had participated in the student demonstrations of the 1930s, and that was why they were considered legitimate and trustworthy persons among the gathered students. The protest of 1968 was marked by police violence, when apart from students, some representatives of the state and party administration were injured, too. The demonstrations ended on June 9, 1968, after an address by President Josip Broz and the fulfillment of some of the students’ demands.<\/p>\n

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The Party’s political leadership (Veljko Vlahovi\u0107, Milo\u0161 Mini\u0107, Branko Pe\u0161i\u0107, Miroslav Pe\u010dujli\u0107, Simeon Zatezalo) comes to talk to students, 1968. Photo: S. Kragujevi\u0107<\/p>\n

Museum of Yugoslavia<\/p>\n

Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 fell ill in 1973 and was treated in London, Belgrade and Geneva. After a successfully performed surgery in Geneva, he dined at his surgeon\u2019s place, where he died on March 10, 1975. Already in May of the same year, a gusle<\/em> epic poem \u201cTo Our Great Veljko Vlahovi\u0107\u201d was dedicated to him. It was performed by folk gusle<\/em> player Vojo Radusinovi\u0107. Thus, the freedom fighting virtues, aspirations and ideals of the veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the national hero of Yugoslavia and the hero of socialist labor, were concluded by the tradition from which he had emerged.<\/p>\n

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Funeral of Veljko Vlahovi\u0107, Belgrade, 1975<\/p>\n

Museum of Yugoslavia<\/p>\n

At the exhibition \u201cVeljko Vlahovi\u0107, The Voice of a Free Yugoslavia\u201d, you can see photographs from the funeral, as well as a copy of a daily \u201cBorba\u201d, which dedicated its cover pages, for three days, to the death and funeral of its former editor.<\/p>\n

The legacy of Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 is kept in the National Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje, where the exhibition \u201cOn the Side of Justice and Freedom: The Legacy of Veljko Vlahovi\u0107\u201d, by Bo\u017eena Milji\u0107 and Ljiljana Karad\u017ei\u0107, was opened in 2018. The exhibition, with a slightly modified and supplemented concept, with materials from the Museum of Yugoslavia and the Archives of Yugoslavia, under the title \u201cVeljko Vlahovi\u0107 – the Voice of a Free Yugoslavia\u201d, opened at the Museum of Yugoslavia in May 2025 as the first biographical exhibition in this institution. The Museum of Yugoslavia\u2019s team of authors comprise Du\u0161ica Stojanovi\u0107 and Ljubica Vlahovi\u0107. The exhibition is open until February 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biography of Velimir Veljko Vlahovi\u0107 (1914\u20131975) takes us through some of the key political and social turmoils of the 20th century \u2014 from the student protests of the 1930s, through the Spanish Civil War and World War II, to the formation of socialist Yugoslavia and its positioning in the world during the Cold War. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1407],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15589,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15587\/revisions\/15589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzej-jugoslavije.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}