Nikola Pasic

Born Dec. 19, 1845, in Zaječar; died Dec. 10, 1926, in Belgrade. Serbian, later Yugoslav, political figure and statesman. Civil engineer by education.

While a student at the Zürich Polytechnic Institute from 1868 to 1873, Pašić was close to M. A. Bakunin’s group. Upon his return to Serbia in 1873, he became a follower of S. Marković for a time. In 1878 he was elected a deputy to the Serbian skupština (parliament). Pašić was one of the organizers (1881) and then the leader of the Radical Party, which originally sought some democratization of Serbia’s political and governmental system and fought against the regime of King Milan Obrenović.

Pašić emigrated in the 1880’s. He returned to Serbia in 1889 and once more headed the Radical Party. He served as premier and minister of foreign affairs from February 1891 to August 1892 and as envoy to Russia in 1893 and 1894. When the Karageorgevich dynasty returned to power in 1903, Pašić’s Radical Party, which had abandoned its former position and now expressed the interests of the big industrial bourgeoisie, became the governing party. As premier and minister of foreign affairs from 1904 to 1918 (with interruptions), Pašić supported the Pan-Serbian foreign policy of the Karageorgevich dynasty. He headed the delegation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–20. Serving as premier of the new kingdom from 1921 to 1926 (with an interruption from July to November 1924), Pašić was one of the sponsors and promoters of the reactionary domestic policy and anti-Soviet foreign policy of the Yugoslav government.