Dragoljub S. Ilić’s Memory of Jovan Dučić

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of memoirs and diaries for researching literary and cultural history. Thus far, the main focus has been on researching this type of material created by the writers themselves. No less significant, however, is the material created by their contemporaries who lived and worked among them but did not engage in literary work. There is great documentary potential regarding the lives and work of Serbian writers in memoires and diaries left by other significant figures of our political and cultural history (politicians, statesmen, publicists, artists, etc.). We focus on the memoirs of the publicist, politician and diplomat Dragoljub S. Ilić, written half a century after the fact. In them, Ilić recalls his clerical days in the Serbian diplomatic mission in Athens and writes about the young Jovan Dučić who had just arrived in Athens as the first Secretary of the Mission. Ilić is essentially a strict judge of Dučić’s clerical skills, but he also judges his character and his poetry.