Dušan Vasiljev

He died on 27 March 1924 in Kikinda, his birthplace.

He was called again to the army in 1921 to Kratovo, but was sent home the same year on grounds of poor health. He spent his time in Cenei reading and writing, but his condition worsened. He went to Zagreb to attempt treatment, but was advised to return the following Spring.

He founded the literary group "Kolo mladih Srba" ("The Circle of Young Serbs") and the journal "Sloga" ("Unity"). When the Serbian army left Temišvar, Dušan moved to Belgrade. He enrolled into the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy and began contributing to various literary journals including "Sloga" and "Dan" ("Day"). Before he had to abandon his studies he completed a course in pedagogy and, in 1920, moved to Cenei to work as a teacher until 1923. In the same year he married Milijka Maletić.

As a poet, Vasiljev came to prominence with his poem Čovek peva posle rata ("A Man Sings After the War"), published in the journal Misao ("Thought") in 1920 to critical acclaim. This work expressed the spiritual mood of the young people who, returning from a catastrophic war, had to reconcile their terrible experience with the need to integrate back into the mundane everyday life. Pessimism is characteristic of the lyrics of Vasiljev, also known as "the poet of revolt."

The outbreak of World War I saw his father mobilised to the front, leaving Dušan to care for his siblings. He attended Teachers' College and worked as a clerk at the same time, and in 1917 he too joined the army. He was mobilised in 1918 and sent to the front at Pjavi, part of the Serbian breakthrough from Salonika. He returned home exhausted and suffering from symptoms of malaria and bronchitis. On his return to Temišvar he continued working for the Serbian army as a clerk and interpreter.

Dušan attended primary school in his hometown of Kikinda, and secondary school in Temišvar, where his family moved in 1911.

Dušan Vasiljev (Serbian Cyrillic: Душан Васиљев; 19 July 1900 – 27 March 1924) was a Serbian-Yugoslavian poet, novelist and playwright. He was one of the most significant expressionists in Serbian literature.

Vasiljev was born on 19 July 1900 in Velika Kikinda in the Banat region, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now part of Serbia. His mother, Rakila, was from Perlez in and his father's name was Kosta. Dušan had two sisters, Aleksandra and Jelena, and a brother, Spasoje. His mother died in 1904 and his father remarried. This marriage produced another five children, three of which died at childbirth.