Jovan Stanojković-Dovezenski
|
Vojvoda Jovan Dovezenski |
|
|---|---|
Dovezenski in Chetnik gear
|
|
| Birth name | Jovan Stanojković |
| Nickname(s) | Dovezenski |
| Born |
April 8, 1873 Dovezence, Ottoman Empire (now Kumanovo Municipality, R. Macedonia) |
| Died | May 2, 1935 (aged 62) Kumanovo |
| Allegiance |
|
| Years of service | 1904–1918 |
| Rank | vojvoda |
| Military history | Chetnik Action, Balkan Wars, World War I |
Jovan Stanojković (Serbian Cyrillic: Јован Станојковић, 8 April 1873 – 2 May 1935), known by his nom de guerre, the demonym Dovezenski (Довезенски), was a Serbian Chetnik commander (vojvoda), and participant in the Balkan Wars, in the Battle of Kumanovo, and World War I. He was originally a teacher who turned into a guerilla fighter following Bulgarian oppression on Serb people in Macedonia. He rose in ranks and became one of the supreme commanders in Macedonia.
He was born on April 8, 1873, in Dovezence near Kumanovo, at the time part of the Kumanovo kaza of the Sanjak of Üsküp, Ottoman Empire (now R. Macedonia). He belonged to the Velčevci family. He went to primary school in the nearby village of Murgaš, and in the Gradište Monastery, where they taught in Old Slavonic. By the time of the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885), he had finished all schools possible in his home region. In 1888, he moved to the Principality of Serbia, for further education. He entered the theological teacher school of the Society of St. Sava, available to youngsters from Old Serbia and Macedonia.Jovan Babunski, a future fellow Chetnik, also went to the same school, among others. In 1897 he became a teacher in his home village. He remained a teacher until March 3, 1904, when he joined the Serbian Chetnik Organization.
Pavle Mladenović established the first local Serb-oriented cheta (band) in Kumanovo in springtime 1903 when the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) started assassinating and murdering people who identified themselves as Serbs in the Kumanovo region. After Mladenović, Jovan Stanojković, who had been a teacher up until then in Rudar, formed a band in the Kumanovo region. He adopted the nom de guerre "Jovan Dovezenski". Dovezenski spontaneously decided to command his own band after Bulgarian commander Atanas Babata massacred Serbs in his village on 11 August 1904. After the establishment of bands in Kumanovo, self-organized bands were established in Skopska Crna Gora and in the Palanka kaza. All of these bands had the objective of self-defense, and they worked independently from one another. In the summer of 1904, resistance to the Bulgarian oppression emerged with the first Serbian-organized secret band in Drimkol, led by Đorđe Cvetković-Drimkolski from Labuništa. Henceforth, the movement was coordinated.
...
Wikipedia