Yugoslav students from Prague in the International Brigades

Yugoslav volunteers in Spain can be grouped into three categories: those who arrived from the USSR as Communist Party of Yugoslavia operatives, those who came directly from Yugoslavia, and those who had been students or economic émigrés in other countries. News of the Spanish conflict inspired students at the Zagreb and Belgrade Universities to collect aid for the Republic, raise awareness about the dangers of fascism in Spain and Yugoslavia, and even volunteer to fight against Franco.  

Several dozen Yugoslav students studying abroad, notably in Paris and Prague, also decided to resist fascism by enlisting in the International Brigades. The departure of the Prague students in three groups in 1937 received significant attention, especially in right-wing newspapers, which used the example to illustrate how spiritually corrupt some Croatian youth had become.  For others, the Prague students served as an inspiration to become active in something much bigger than everyday life. They had been part of the Academic Society “Yugoslavia” in Prague, initially an organization with close ties to the Yugoslav regime, which by 1936 had been taken over by pro-communist students supported by the KPJ.  

In a letter from 25 January 1937, addressed to the “Youth of all the Peoples of Yugoslavia”, the nineteen student signatories declared that “leaving for Spain we believe it is our duty to direct our greetings to you, regardless of your political or religious beliefs, with a message that you must also persevere in the struggle for freedom and democracy.” This letter was reprinted in a booklet published in Barcelona in 1938, Blood and Life for Freedom: Pictures from the Life and Struggles of Yugoslav Students in Spain, along with descriptions of battles, biographies of fallen volunteers, and copies of other letters sent to university students still in Yugoslavia. Reprinted in eight editions in socialist Yugoslavia, this booklet was a key publication for sustaining the memory of the Spanish Civil War, especially among the youth. 

This photo shows seven Yugoslav students who had gone to Spain from Prague in 1937, and two workers (Blagojević and Milašinović), all of whom were associated with the anti-tank battery Petko Miletić, named after an imprisoned Yugoslav revolutionary leader. The photograph was probably taken in late 1937, when the members of the unit were based in Almansa for training after a summer of exhausting battles. Blagojević, a mechanic from Novi Sad (Serbia), had come from the Soviet Union and served as an instructor for the International Brigades. The other volunteers in the photograph had all served in the anti-tank battery and reflected the diversity of the Yugoslav volunteers in Spain. Two were from Croatia (Milašinčić and Kovačević), two from Serbia (Čolić and Krsmanović), two from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Engels and Latinović), and one each from Slovenia and Montenegro (Breskvar and Kovačević). They all survived the war in Spain, but six of them were killed fighting in the Partisan resistance movement in Yugoslavia during the Second World War, including four in 1941 when the Spanish Civil War veterans played an important role in mobilizing against the Axis occupiers and domestic collaborators.