Milutin Bojic

In May 2014, the inaugural Milutin Bojić Prize was awarded to a student from Čačak by the Milutin Bojić Library, a Belgrade-based learning institution dedicated exclusively to studies on Bojić's life and work. The Library is funded by the Serbian Ministry of Culture, and operates an extensive online database known as the Milutin Bojić Virtual Library. In August 2014, researchers discovered the original manuscript of "Ode to a Blue Sea Tomb" in the Library's archives. The yellowed slip of paper was immediately given to experts at the National Library of Serbia, who went about restoring it so as to prevent further decay.

At the time of Bojić's birth, his parents were living in a small flat at No. 4 Sremska Street, situated just above his father's shop in Belgrade's Stari Grad. Over the next decade, they had four more children – Jelica (b. 1894), Danica (b. 1896), Radivoje (b. 1900) and Dragoljub (b. 1905). All of their children survived to adulthood. When Bojić was a child, he and his family were frequently visited by his mother's cousin Jovan Sremac, the brother of humourist Stevan Sremac. Jovan is said to have greatly influenced the young Bojić, having introduced him to Serbian folk tales and medieval legends at an early age.

During this time, many of Belgrade's merchant elite became art patrons. Bojić's patrons were Ljuba Jovanović-Patak and his wife Simka, who used their power and influence to publicize his works. During the Balkan Wars, Bojić accompanied the Serbian Army as a war reporter and wrote several travelogues about his experiences in Kosovo and Macedonia. The expulsion of the Turks, who had occupied much of the Balkans for 500 years, seemed to fill Bojić with optimism about the future. Helena Malířová, a Czech volunteer nurse with the 17th Reserve Hospital of the Serbian Army's 7th Regiment, recalled: "His spirit was in constant opposition to everything; at the same time he was an enthusiast. He was bursting with desires, and he drank the sap of life through his senses." Historian Mihailo Đorđević writes:

All of Bojić's siblings survived the war; his brother Radivoje became a diplomat and worked in the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs until the Axis invasion of the country in April 1941, when he left Yugoslavia with his family and emigrated to the West. Bojić's youngest brother, Dragoljub, spent the rest of his life in Belgrade and became a high school geography teacher. His sister Jelica married and lived in Belgrade until her death in 1942. His youngest sister, Danica, died single in 1952. Bojić's fiancée Radmila remained loyal to him and never married after his death; she returned to Serbia after the war and died in Belgrade in 1971.

In September 1917, Bojić was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Owing to the influence of his old patron, Ljuba Jovanović-Patak, he was admitted to a military hospital in central Thessaloniki which tended exclusively to Serbian Army officers, where Jovanović's wife often visited him. Bojić continued writing poetry, and as his condition deteriorated, his poems began to take a melancholy tone. Nevertheless, he remained optimistic that he would recover from his illness and see his family again. One month before his death, he sent his fiancée and brother a telegram assuring them that he was "... only slightly ill" and promised they would be reunited. Bojić died of tuberculosis on 8 November [O.S. 25 October] 1917. Even a few hours before his death, he appeared convinced of his survival. According to a fellow patient, Bojić "... died choking in half-sleep from a fit of coughing that destroyed the tissues of his lungs." He was buried at the Zeitenlik military cemetery in Thessaloniki. His family was shocked by the news of his death, particularly his brother and fiancée, who believed him to be on the road to recovery. In 1922, Bojić's remains were exhumed and transferred to Belgrade's New Cemetery, where they were reburied beside those of his parents.

In early 1916, Bojić reached the Greek island of Corfu, where he was recruited to work for Serbian military intelligence. That summer, he was transferred to Thessaloniki, where he continued working for the military. In August, he was granted leave and sailed to France, where he reunited with his fiancée and his brother. Bojić returned to Greece several weeks later and was diagnosed with tuberculosis in September the following year. Owing to the political connections of his patrons, he managed to find care at an exclusive military hospital in Thessaloniki, but by late October his condition worsened. He died in early November at the age of 25. He was initially buried at the Allied military cemetery at Zeitenlik, but in 1922, his siblings had his remains relocated to Belgrade, where they were reburied beside those of his parents.

A native of Belgrade, he began writing poetry at an early age and published a number of literary reviews under a pseudonym while he was still a teenager. He rose to prominence during the Balkan Wars, writing about his experiences in territories newly retaken from the Ottoman Empire. The outbreak of World War I interrupted Bojić's studies at the University of Belgrade and forced him to postpone marrying his girlfriend, Radmila Todorović. The couple was separated in the chaos of war, and Bojić left Belgrade with his family and relocated to Niš, where he worked as a military censor and wrote articles for a local newspaper to pay his family's bills. In October 1915, the Serbian Army was overwhelmed by a combined Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and German invasion and forced to retreat to neutral Greece via Albania. Bojić and his younger brother joined the exodus, marching for several weeks through Kosovo, Montenegro, and northern Albania, where they were finally reunited with Bojić's fiancée. Bojić was not allowed to accompany his brother and fiancée on a ship destined for Italy because he was of fighting age, and had to continue marching to Greece without them.

The Balkan Wars inspired Bojić to write his first patriotic poetry, where he attempted to emulate Hugo's rhetorical verse. By 1914, much of Bojić's poetry revolved around patriotic themes, and by 1917 this theme had overtaken all others. In his last months, the only non-patriotic poems that Bojić wrote were about the love he felt towards his fiancée. The historian John K. Cox opines that Bojić's "personal suffering ... [embodied] Serbian history at the crossroads of greatness and disaster."

As the wars raged, Bojić wrote a historical drama titled "The King's Autumn" (Kraljeva jesen), which received considerable praise from Skerlić. The drama premiered at the National Theatre in October 1913. Another one of Bojić's works, "Ms. Olga" (Gospođa Olga) premiered soon after. In early 1914, publishing magnate Svetislav Cvijanović printed Bojić's first poetry collection, consisting of 48 works.

Milutin K. Dragutinović was one of Bojić's greatest influences during his teenage years. Dragutinović was one of Bojić's former secondary school teachers, as well as a literary critic and member of the National Theatre's artistic committee. He advised Bojić to continue writing poetry and dramatic verse. In 1911, Bojić shared the first draft of a stage play titled "Chains" (Lanci) with Dragutinović, who encouraged him to submit it to a competition held by the Literary Committee of the National Theatre in Belgrade. Bojić's play was one of forty-two works that were submitted. A number of prominent writers took part in the competition, including Ivo Vojnović, Branislav Nušić, Aleksa Šantić, and Svetozar Ćorović. "Chains" was rejected as being too "naïve" and "full of youthful exaggerations", and the prize went to another contestant. In May, Bojić's father died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 56.

By the end of his secondary school studies, Bojić was elected chairman of his school's literary club. Upon turning eighteen, in May 1910, he was deemed unfit to serve in the Serbian Army and excused from mandatory service. After graduation, in the autumn of 1910, he enrolled in the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, where he studied the works of Immanuel Kant, as well as German, Italian and South Slavic literature with varying rates of success. Shortly after entering the university, Bojić began contributing theatrical reviews to Pijemont, an ultra-nationalist daily strongly opposed to the Prime Minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, and his People's Radical Party (Serbian: Narodna radikalna stranka; NRS). Pijemont was also the quasi-official paper of the secret organization Unification or Death (better known as the Black Hand), which played an important role in Serbian political life between 1903 and 1914.

In 1902, the Bojićes moved into a small house on Hilandarska Street. That autumn, Bojić enrolled into Belgrade's Secondary School No. 2, which taught children from the ages of ten to eighteen. Over the next several years, Bojić distinguished himself as an excellent student. In 1907, he was recognized as the best student in his school, and was exempt from final examinations. By this time, Bojić's poems started appearing in his school's periodical. He also began writing literary reviews for Jovan Skerlić and Milan Grol's Daily News (Dnevni list), and became the paper's youngest contributor. All of Bojić's contributions there were written under a pseudonym because he feared he would not be taken seriously if his true age was uncovered. Bojić also authored articles in the newspapers Artwork (Delo), Wreath (Venac) and The Serbian Literary Gazette (Srpski književni glasnik). In 1908, during the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bojić penned his first stage play, titled "The Blind Despot" (Slepi despot). It was meant to be the first play of a trilogy titled "The Despot's Crown" (Despotova kruna). Bojić shared the play with his friend Radoslav Vesnić, who then showed it to Rista Odović, the director of the National Theatre in Belgrade.

Bojić began attending the Terazije Elementary School in 1898, and finished with excellent grades. He likely began writing poetry between the ages of eight and ten, and this caught the attention of some of his teachers. Jovan Dravić, who taught Serbian in Bojić's school, wrote: "One of my pupils has been writing poetry since his first year of elementary school. His father, a shoemaker on Sremska Street, is very proud of his son's work. He keeps his poems locked away in a safe as great treasures, convinced that they are of immense value and proof of his son's brilliant future."

Milutin Bojić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милутин Бојић ; 18 May [O.S. 7 May] 1892 – 8 November [O.S. 25 October] 1917) was a Serbian war poet, theatre critic, playwright, and soldier.

Bojić's matrilineal line traces its origins to the town of Tetovo, in what is now the northern part of North Macedonia. His mother's family had fled the town in 1690 as part of the Great Serb Migration and settled in Bečkerek (modern Zrenjanin). Bojić's maternal grandfather, Jovan, had lived in the border town of Pančevo since he was a child, married and started a family there. Much like Bojić's father, he was a successful shoemaker, and in 1890 he offered to marry his only daughter to him. After initial disagreement over the price of the dowry, Bogojević gave the marriage his blessing and Bojić's parents were soon married.