Draft:Pera Todorovic

Petronije "Pera" Todorović (Serbian: Петроније Тодоровић; Vodice, Serbia, 2 May 1852 - Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbia, 24 October 1907) was a Serbian journalist, writer, politician, and one of the founders of the People's Radical Party. He was the principal theoretician and agitator of the party until the late 1880s and the author of the 1881 program. He participated in the Timok Rebellion against the Obrenović dynasty to bring a more equitable system in a dictatorial monarchy. Besides journalism and writing essays, Todorović is best remembered for promoting tabloid journalism in Serbia in the second half of nineteenth century.

Biography
He was born into a well-to-do family in Vodice in the environs of Smederevska Palanka. Todorović studied pedagogy at the universities in Belgrade, Pest and Zurich. There he met the very early Russian revolutionaries known as the narodniki who influenced him with their socialist ideas. Also, he met students from Serbia (Nikola Pašić, Pera Velimirović and Lazar Paču) with whom he would later collaborate under the socialist movement led by Svetozar Marković and later in the Radical Party. After Marković's death, Todorović became his successor and the most ardent disciple.

As a journalist and an activist, Todorović participated in the event called Crveni barijak (Red Banner), a celebration in honour of the independent candidates who came out the winners in the Kragujevac elections (Kragujevac at the time was the capital of Serbia). For his participation in that event, he was arrested and put on trial. After making a speech in his own defence at the courtroom, he became an instant cause celebre. The kind judge waved the mandatory nine-month sentence if Todorović volunteered to fight in the First Serbian-Ottoman War of 1876. After the war Todorović went to Zemun and then Novi Sad in Voivodina where he launched a newspaper Staža (Guardian) but the radicalism of his socialistic ideas didn't go well with the Austrian authorities either, and a year later, he was forced to leave the empire for Paris where he spent most of his time while also visiting Western Europe.

In 1881, the People's Radical Party was founded with Nikola Pašić being chosen the Chairman of the Radical Main Board, and Pera Todorović was elected Vice-President. The movement spread all over Serbia like wildfire, thanks to Todorović's publicity campaigns, and in less than two years it became the most numerous and popular political organization. From 1882 King Milan Obrenović and the State sponsored Progressive Party aroused an opposition of such magnitude that a year later (1883) resulted in the Timok Rebellion. The rebels were motivated by "such vestiges of feudalism as payment in labour and bondage imposed for the nonpayment of debts, as well as an unbearable tax burden, bureaucratic tyranny, and the growing power of commercial and usurious capital". Among the demands were the reduction in taxes, greater local self-government and the maintenance of citizen militia. The first major conflict took place at Lukovo on 21 October 1883, when the rebels as luck would have it outnumbered a small detachment of the Royal Serbian Army sent speedily to quell the revolt. Nevertheless, it took the reformed army only two weeks to crush the poorly organized rebellion, led by Aca Stanojević, Žika Milenović, Ljuba Didić, Priest Marinko Ivković, and Nikola Pašić. After the failure of the uprising against the king, many followed Nikola Pašić who fled the country and went back to his ancestral homeland Bulgaria. The local leaders were court-martialled and sentenced to prison in Zaječar or managed to escape over to Bulgaria like Stanojević and Nikola Pašić whose ancestral home was originally Bulgaria. Pera Todorović, Raša Milošević and Nikola Pašić were sentenced to death by firing squad. Kosta Taušanović was sentenced to seven and Pavle Mihailović to five years in prison while Giga Geršić and Andra Nikolić were freed.

Pera Todorović was targeted more for his writings than for his participation in the uprising. However, clemency was granted to Todorović and several others by King Milan Obrenović. In 1886, an offer for Todorović's freedom included a truce between the Crown and the Radicals and the formation of a coalition cabinet. When Todorović was pardoned by the Crown and released from prison, he was also expelled from the Radical Party by his former colleagues.

After leaving politics altogether, he started his own newspaper, a tabloid named Male novine. Also, he was the founder and editor of numerous other newspapers, namely Rad (Labour), Oslobodjenje (Liberty) and Javnost (Herald).

Together with Čedomilj Mijatović he published a series of articles after interviewing Miloš and Mitar Tarabić entitled Prophecy from Kremna.

In later years, when homophobia was still very strong in Serbia at that time, a prominent writer Janko Veselinović accused Todorović of being "a very nasty social disease... A retard both mentally, morally and sexually", and for that libel Todorović sued him.

Pera Todorović died in 1907 in Belgrade. He was 55.

Personal life
Pera Todorović was married twice: first to Draga Ljočić and then Milica Ninković

Works
In literature, he mostly dealt with historical topics and translated the Russian writer Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky. He is the owner and editor of the Great People's Calendar in pictures under the name Smiljevac since 1893. The calendar was extremely comprehensive.


 * Život i trulež jedan redić iz nauke od društvu (1882)
 * Uništenje estetike (1882)
 * Silazak s prestola - novel (1889)
 * Iz prošlosti - uspomene (1895)
 * Karađorđe - Smrt Karađorđeva (1924)
 * Dnevnik jednog dobrovoljca- posthumous reprint (1938)
 * Dnevnik iz srpsko turskih ratova, sa fronta
 * Listovi iz "Hajdučije (reprint, 1985)
 * Izabrani spisi - društvo i politika (reprint, 1986)
 * Izabrani spisi 2 - književnost (reprint, 1986)
 * Krvava godina (reprint, 1991)
 * Ogledalo zrake iz prošlosti (1904, reprint 1997)
 * Srpska stvar u Staroj Srbiji/Uspomene na kralja Milana (reprint, 1997)
 * Pisma - ličnosti i ličnost (reprint, 2000)

Literature

 * Перовић, Латинка (1983). Пера Тодоровић. Београд: ИП Рад. стр. 196.
 * Тодоровић, Пера; Приредила: Перовић, Латинка (1997). Огледало: Зраке из прошлости. Београд: Медицинска књига [Репринт издања из 1903/4]. стр. 959.
 * Stokes, Gale (1990). Politics as Development: The Emergence of Political Parties in Nineteenth Century Serbia. Duke University Press.