MILORAD PANIC, SUREP
Milorad Panić
Milorad Panić, poet and prominent cultural worker and activist, was born in Glogovac on 27 January 1912 years. Already in his high school days, he showed great interest in literature. As a high school student, he participated in literary evenings in Šabac and surrounding towns. Since he was brought up and brought up in libertarian traditions, he added the name of his ancestor Surep, an insurgent and mačvan hajduk, to his name. For the rest of his life, he will proudly carry this name, which means the old wolf leader. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in 1936. already as a well-known young poet, he got a job in the Editorial Office of Politics. In the first post-war years, Surep was still actively engaged in literature. Therefore, it is not surprising that he was elected as the first secretary of the Writers’ Association of Serbia.
In the summer of 1947 Surep was entrusted with a new responsible duty – the establishment and organization of the Institute for the Protection and Scientific Study of Cultural Monuments of Serbia. Under his leadership, the first lists of our old cities, monasteries, churches, treasuries, icons, manuscript books and other significant remains of our rich culture were made. heritage.
In June, 1956. He was appointed as the Republic’s Minister of Culture and spent three years in that position. With his arrival at the head of the National Library of Serbia, the earlier idea of the SR of Serbia to build a new Library building in Belgrade was activated.
Surep was always engaged in poetry. They called him the poet of Mačva, and he never denied his attachment to his homeland, and he knew how to say about it: “the spruds of Mačva are something that is constantly present in me like a landscape. And just by evoking their image, I feel a change in my mood. I am very happy when… I call to mind the Drina with its ramps, banks, adams, plum trees, huts, and all that is characteristic of that region…”
In his pre-war poetry collections, Surep evokes a rural environment where superstition and belief in unholy forces still lives. He gazed over the ripening fruits, rapturously painting the waving grain and blossoming meadows. Against the idyllic picture of life in the countryside, in his poetry there is also a city, with low dark vaults. Social motives are also present. He sang about the confiscation of land from the peasants, the cutting and exploitation of forests and the general exploitation of subordinates. Post-war poetry is characterized by calmer tones, he curbed youthful freedoms and introduced more complex meditations.
Surep is the winner of a large number of awards and recognitions, among them the October Award of the City of Belgrade and the Vuk Award. His most significant works are: The wind whistles, songs, 1931; Prosto, songs, 1933; You are coming, songs, 1937; Žito, poem, 1939; Ada, poem, 1945; Stories about the village of Misha (children’s poems, 1946; Earthly light, poems, 1948; Filip Višnjić – poet of the rebellion, monograph, 1956; Serbian folk tales, anthology, 1951, Slovo o polko Igorov, translation from Old Russian, 1957 .; When the living envied the dead, yearbook, 1963; Ćirilo and Metodije, 1964.
Milorad Panič Surep died on 22 April 1968 in Belgrade. With a dignified farewell, he was buried in Velikana Alley at Novi Groblje.