Description

This is an important work is one of the earliest books to describe the operations of the Underground Partisan printing presses. The author, Vladimir Dedijer, was a professional journalist who possessed extensive direct knowledge of the printing network. The work was published in Belgrade, not long after the city had been liberated, but while the war was still in progress. The book is packed with fascinating details and anecdotes concerning the day-to-day operations of the secret Partisan presses, and how they received and disseminated information. It is illustrated with one of the earliest published images of a Partisan printing operation.

Vladimir Dedijer (1914 – 1990) was a Partisan fighter and subsequently one of the most internationally prominent Yugoslavian historians and civil rights activists. He initially worked as a journalist, and this led him to travel to Spain where he supported the Republicans during that country’s Civil War. In 1941, he joined the Partisans where he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, becoming a close advisor to Marshal Tito. After the war he taught at the University of Belgrade and was appointed to the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party, but, in 1954, following a contretemps with Tito, was banished from all power circles. He left Yugoslavia in 1959, where he spent the rest of his life teaching and writing, associated with some of the world’s leading universities, such as Princeton, Stanford, Harvard and the Sorbonne. He became an internationally prominent human rights activist and an important historian of World War II and its aftermath.

References: OCLC 23575503, 441103700, 559855705.