Page 61 - AECA.org.uk ¦ Koinonia 63

Nenad Petrovic

1925 – 2014

THE SERBIAN community in London su?ered a grievous loss with the
death of Nenad Petrovic on 21st March 2014. He was born in 1925 in
Zagreb in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
His father was an army o?cer and his mother a teacher. Nenad com-
pleted his high school education in wartime Belgrade in 1944 and hav-
ing joined the royalist resistance movement he had to withdraw, like so
many young men of his generation, ?rst to Slovenia and then in May
1945 to Italy. He was only 19 at the time.

England became his home in 1947 when he arrived here as a pen-
niless refugee from displaced persons’ camps in Italy and Germany. Af-
ter a brief spell as an agricultural labourer Nenad settled in London
where he worked for the Lyons food company as an administrative o?-
cer. At the same time he studied political science and economics as an
external student.

As a political emigre from communist Yugoslavia, Nenad’s pre-
eminent interest was to ?nd ways of in?uencing political developments
and encouraging democratic changes in his homeland. This meant join-
ing forces with similar minded people in the Yugoslav emigration. They
formed a political association called Oslobodjenje (Liberation) and
started a monthly journal called Nasa Rec (Our Word) which propa-
gated the ideas of democracy in Yugoslavia. In the early sixties Nenad
became a member of the Democratic Alternative, a grouping of Serbs,
Croats, Slovenes and Bosnians who advocated a democratic alternative
to the one party state in Yugoslavia.

But Nenad was not interested only in politics. He loved literature,
history, art and culture in general and was the author of a number of
books and many articles. After political changes in Yugoslavia two of his
books were published in Belgrade and in 1989 he was made an honorary
member of the Writers` Association of Serbia. In London he was active

59