Ivan Ivanovic, Author of The Red King, Dies in Belgrade
The author of the “People’s Revolt” trilogy died in Belgrade in his 90th year. His 1972 novel “The Red King” cost him his teaching post in Kursumlija.
At a scholarly panel devoted to his work, held in Prokuplje in 2022, Ivan Ivanovic said he had spent his whole life trying “to move literary Toplica from the South to the North.” The author died in Belgrade in his 90th year, and news of his death was published on September 29. The exact day of his death and the date of the funeral have not been given in published reports.
Who was Ivan Ivanovic?
He was born in 1936 in Nis, spent his childhood in Zitni Potok and went to school in Prokuplje. He graduated in world literature from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, then taught literature for ten years in Aleksandrovac and Kursumlija before moving to the capital to devote himself to writing.
His first trace in print is tied to Prokuplje: in 1968 the “Rade Drainac” Literary Society published his “Icarus’s Flight.” The portal Juzna Srbija Info, though, lists “The Red King” as his first novel, so sources disagree on what his debut actually was, and neither Danas nor RTS calls “Icarus’s Flight” a novel.
Why did The Red King cost him his job?
He became widely known for the novel “The Red King,” published in 1972. According to Juzna Srbija Info, court proceedings were opened against him in Prokuplje, and the District Court sentenced him at first instance to two years in prison. The Supreme Court of Serbia overturned that verdict and acquitted him.
He still lost his job at the Kursumlija gymnasium. The same portal reports that he was pursued by Communist Party structures and the State Security Service of the day, and that he left Toplica with his family and moved to Belgrade as a result. Danas and RTS record only that the book left him without his teaching post.
What did he leave behind?
According to the City of Prokuplje, he published 18 novels, two plays, a collection of poetry and a number of political writings. He is remembered above all for the “People’s Revolt” trilogy, made up of “Chetniks,” “The Toplica State” and “Partisans,” which deals with the Toplica Uprising of 1917. He explained that in it he wanted to treat real events in literary form, inventing neither events nor characters and leaving himself the role of commentator.
His titles also include “Arizani,” “The Nis Gambit,” “Jugovac, or How to Enter History,” “The Jugovic Brothers, or How to Exit History” and “The Duke of Leskovac,” which, according to Juzna Srbija Info, is a novel about Ilija Strelja Petrovic. The poet Rade Drainac was a chapter of his own: Ivanovic began researching Drainac’s work in the 1960s, and in 1997 he published the novel “The Black Days of Raka Drainac.” He also wrote “Drainac Between Chetniks and Partisans” and “How to Put Drainac to Rest,” and devoted the books “Boza” and “Probing the Terrain in Zitni Potok” to the painter Boza Ilic of Zitni Potok.
He also edited the magazines “Serbian South” and “Toplica Notebooks,” which, according to the Prokuplje National Library, ran to 14 issues in total. That same library organized the 2022 scholarly conference “The Literary Work of Ivan Ivanovic - A New Reading,” and the conference proceedings were published two years later.
How did people say goodbye?
Sasa Stankovic said farewell on Facebook with these words:
Ivan Ivanovic has left us, a great chronicler of the south of Serbia. He left us the novels: “Arizani,” “The Duke of Leskovac” (a novel about Ilija Strelja Petrovic), “The Red King”… At least once I managed to bring you to Vlasotince, which you wrote about more than once. Farewell, my friend, at last you will be in the company of Bora Stankovic and Stevan Sremac, with whom you immortalized our southern hardship.
In an “In Memoriam” piece on the portal Juzna Srbija Info, which is also tagged with the name of the writer Bratislav Todorovic, the text reads:
I have just learned that Ivan Ivanovic, the most significant Serbian prose writer and one of the most gifted Serbian literary creators, has died in his ninetieth year. I had the honor of organizing his last public appearance in Zemun, at the “Sveti Sava” library.
Ivan Ivanovic is survived by his wife, son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.
