User:Asrdjan/Mladen Atanasijević

Mladen Atanasijević (Smederevo, February 28, 1908 - Kragujevac, October 4, 1976) was a Serbian philologist and translator.

He finished elementary school and high school in Smederevo. He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, in classical languages, where he was taught Latin by Veselin Cajkanovic, and ancient Greek by Milan Budimir. He graduated in 1934.

He started teaching Latin in Bitola, then in Stip, and in 1939 he moved to Kragujevac. He spent the Second World War as a prisoner in the Osnabrück camp, and after the war, he continued to teach Latin at the Second High School in Kragujevac.

He was a translator, too. The first verses translated from Latin were published by the Kragujevac magazine Naša stvarnost. Before his death, three books of translation were published: Roman Poetry (Prosveta 1961, 1966), Virgil Maron's Aeneid Publius (Prosveta, 1966, 1970), and Selegus Propertius' Elegy (Nolit, 1966).

Atanasijević's translations are represented in some selections of poetry, especially ancient, from the 1960s, e.g., in the famous lyrics of Vojislav Đurić (Institute for Textbook Publishing, Belgrade, 1965) with five translations of poems. He translated, but the redeemed translations were lost: Ovid's Metamorphosis.

Atanasijević received the first award from the Cultural and Educational Association of the Municipality of Kragujevac for the most achievements in culture and art in 1967. He was awarded the Diploma of the City of Kragujevac for his life's work in 1972.

From the extensive legacy, which is kept in the National Library in Kragujevac, the remaining translated works were published after the translator's death.