Žikica Jovanović Španac

Živorad "Žikica" Jovanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Живорад „Жикица" Јовановић; 1914 – 13 March 1942), better known as Španac (El Espanol) was a Yugoslav partisan, Spanish trained commando and republican volunteer in Spanish Civil War and is credited for initiating the anti-fascist struggle in Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a skilled guerilla fighter and organizer of guerilla units in Serbia, largely tied to his intense wartime activities in Spain. Sometimes he is depicted as a man with PTSD like many Spanish international volunteers. He enjoyed enormous prestige in Yugoslav communist ranks, and in 1941 he even disobeyed direct orders of comrade Josip Broz Tito to leave from Serbia to Bosnia with his units. There are controversies about his death, tightly related to his conflict with Supreme Command during the war. History remembers him as a young idealist and a man who loved Spain.

Jovanović was born in Valjevo, Central Serbia, related to an extended family of landowners and merchants he graduated from high school there, enrolling the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. However, before completing his studies, Žikica, like so many other idealists across Europe, volunteered to help the Spanish Republic rebuff a Fascist Coup launched in the Summer of 1936. Whilst in Spain he fought with some distinction in the Spanish Civil War, and became a highly respected guerrilla warfare specialist and combatant of the Madrid University City Battle between the Republican volunteers and the Spanish Army of Africa. He stayed on fighting at the head of the Balkan Volunteer Brigade in a number of campaigns such as Battle of the Ebro and Teruel until the fall of Barcelona in 1939, with the tragic collapse of the Republic.

...
Wikipedia