Vuk Draà ¡kovià(, ; born 29 November 1946) is a Serbian writer and politician.
He graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law in 1968. From 1969 to 1980, he worked as a journalist in the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug. He was a member of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and worked as the chief of staff of the Yugoslav President Mika à  piljak. He is the co-founder and former leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, serving as president from 1990 to 2024. He also served as the war-time Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 during the rule of Slobodan Miloà ¡eviàand the Minister of Foreign Affairs of both Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia from 2004 to 2007.
Draà ¡koviàis also a prolific writer and has published 23 books.
Draà ¡koviàwas born in the small village of Medja in the Banat region to a family of settlers from Herzegovina. He was three months old when his mother, Stoja NikitoviÃÂ, died.
His father, Vidak, remarried and had two more sons - Rodoljub and Dragan; and three daughters - Radmila, Tanja and Ljiljana with Dara Draà ¡koviÃÂ, meaning that young Vuk grew up with five half-siblings.
Shortly after Vuk's birth, the entire family went back to Herzegovina where he finished primary school in the village of Slivlje. He graduated high school in Gacko.
At his father's insistence, Draà ¡koviàconsidered studying medicine in Sarajevo; however, the city was too "uptight and cramped" for his liking, so he went to study law in Belgrade instead.
In 1968, Draà ¡koviàparticipated in anti-bureaucratic student revolts in Yugoslavia. After Josip Broz Tito promised reforms, Draà ¡koviàinitiated people to dance the KozaraÃÂko kolo at the Faculty of Law. Draà ¡koviàwas a member of the Communist Youth Organization and later joined the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
Between 1969âÂÂ78, he was involved with journalism. He first worked for the state news agency Tanjug as its African correspondent stationed in Lusaka, Zambia. He was discharged from his post after publishing misleading information regarding the Rhodesian Bush War, creating a diplomatic incident.
He then took a job as press adviser to the Yugoslav Union of Trade Unions (Savez Sindikata Jugoslavije) and then became editor-in-chief of Rad, a trade union paper. During his time as press adviser, Draà ¡koviàspent some time as the personal secretary to the organisation's president Mika à  piljak.
In 1981, Draà ¡koviàpublished his first novel Sudije (Judges) which described a judge resisting political pressure.
In 1982, Draà ¡koviàwas expelled from the Communist party after he published his second novel Noà ¾ (Knife). The novel tells the story of a man who is raised as a Bosnian Muslim who comes to believe that Serbs killed his family, only to later learn that his ethnic heritage is Serbian and that his adoptive family was guilty of murdering his birth-family. The book caused controversy as it reignited divisive ethno-nationalist issues which Tito and the Communist Party tried to suppress. The party condemned and subsequently banned the book, which was also published in English. The book was made into a movie in 1999 entitled The Dagger or The Knife in English.
His novels Molitva 1âÂÂ2 (Prayer 1âÂÂ2, 1985) and Ruski konsul (Russian consul, 1988) also explored the suffering of Serbs during World War II, while Noàgenerala (The General's Nights) published in 1994 dealt with Draà ¾a MihailoviÃÂ's last days.
In March 1989, Draà ¡koviàalong with Mirko Joviàand Vojislav à  eà ¡elj founded the Sava Association. The group dedicated itself to the protection of the Serbian language and the defense of Kosovo and Metohija. In the late 1980s, Draà ¡koviàwas in agreement with à  eà ¡elj's sentiments about deporting Albanians from Kosovo and suggested that "a special fund" was needed "to finance the repopulation of Kosovo by Serbs". However, JoviÃÂ, à  eà ¡elj and Draà ¡koviàdisagreed with each other and their party split into three. The Sava Association became the Serbian National Renewal Party under the leadership of Joviàin January 1990. Draà ¡koviàfounded the Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski Pokret Obnove, SPO, a democratic nationalist party) in March, and then in February 1991 à  eà ¡elj created his Serbian Radical Party.
On 26 September 1990, Draà ¡koviàdeclared that his armed "volunteers" would be willing to defend Krajina Serbs, and three days later in an interview with Delo, Draà ¡koviàstated: "Serbia must obtain all territories in what is today Herzegovina, Bosnia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, in these parts of Croatia where the Serbs made a majority of the population until 6 April 1941, when the Ustasha genocide against them began...Wherever the Serb blood was shed by the Ustashas knives, wherever there are our graves there are our borders". He also claimed that most Bosnian Muslims are "burdened with Serbian origin" and that "they run away from themselves because they know that they are Orthodox and Serbs". The Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) participated in the first post-communist democratic elections, held on 9 December 1990, but finished a distant second amidst the total blackout from the pro-Miloà ¡eviàstate media. Following that failure Draà ¡koviàkept pressure on Serbian President Slobodan Miloà ¡eviàvia street protests, organizing mass demonstrations in Belgrade on 9 March 1991. The police intervened, and clashed with demonstrators with some damage to public buildings resulting in the Yugoslav People's Army being brought in. Clashes between police and protesters resulted in the deaths of a student and an officer, and injuries to over 200 people. Demonstrations ended after the government agreed to concessions.
Draà ¡koviàbecame a leading opponent of Miloà ¡eviÃÂ. His fiery and emotional speeches earned him the moniker "Czar of the Streets".
While Draà ¡koviàwas a nationalist, he also held pro-Western and anti-war views. His plan was to rapidly transform the biggest and most populous part of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia) according to Western standards so that eventual international involvement in the Yugoslav crisis would favour Serbian interests and produce a peaceful solution. His ideological opponents often cite his strong nationalist feelings (including attempting rehabilitation of Serb-nationalist Chetniks) as contradictory to his insistence on peaceful solutions. Political opponents have claimed Draà ¡koviÃÂ's political engagement at this early stage of his political career was full of inconsistencies and diametrically opposing views and actions. According to Draà ¡koviÃÂ, his stance as pro-Western and peaceful never wavered, from the start of the political crisis in Yugoslavia. He insisted that a Serbian government should promote radical democratic shift, and renew traditional alliances with Western nations (including entry into NATO) as a way of preserving some form of Yugoslav confederation rather than pursuing direct confrontation with the Croats.
His party SPO organized a paramilitary unit called the Serbian Guard, led by former criminals such as ÃÂorÃÂe "Già ¡ka" Boà ¾oviàand Branislav "Beli" MatiÃÂ. Boà ¾oviàdied in Croatia in October 1991. Matiàwas killed by Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's secret police in April 1991. Although Draà ¡koviàinitially claimed that this militia was an incitement to Serbian authorities to form a non-ideological national armed force other than the Yugoslav People's Army, he eventually distanced himself from the paramilitary formation altogether.
According to historian Dubravka StojanoviÃÂ, while Draà ¡koviÃÂ's anti-war views were sincere, he also supported a nationalist program little different in its goals to those of Miloà ¡eviÃÂ, and he and his party were never able to reconcile these opposing currents.
His anti-war views came to the fore in mid to late 1991, particularly in November of that year when he wrote a passionate condemnation of the bloody siege of Vukovar in the Serbian daily Borba.
In early 1992, he called on all citizens of Bosnia to reject nationalism. In 1993, he and his wife Danica Draà ¡koviàwere arrested, beaten and sent to a high-security prison following street riots in Belgrade. His hunger strike, and international outrage over the situation, pressured the government to release the couple.
In 1996, SPO formed an opposition alliance Zajedno ("Together") with the Democratic Party of Zoran ÃÂinÃÂiàand the Civic Alliance of Serbia under Vesna Peà ¡iÃÂ, which achieved major successes in the local elections in November of that year, but later split.
Draà ¡koviÃÂ's SPO participated on its own at the September 1997 election, boycotted by his former partners despite an array of local electronic media outlets being in opposition hands.
In January 1999, SPO, a parliamentary party, was asked to join a coalition with Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's Socialist Party of Serbia as tension with US and NATO increased, in order to use his influence with Western politicians. In early 1999, Draà ¡koviàbecame the deputy prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He did so in response to Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's appeal for national unity in the face of Albanian uprising in Kosovo and a looming confrontation with NATO. He was sacked by the Prime Minister Momir Bulatoviàon 28 April 1999.
There were two attempts to assassinate Draà ¡koviÃÂ: on 3 October 1999 on the Ibar highway when four of his close associates were murdered, and on 15 June 2000 in Budva.
In 2005, Milorad Ulemek was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of ÃÂinÃÂiàand Ivan Stamboliàand for the assassination attempt on Draà ¡koviàin 2000.
In what he himself later termed "a bad political move", Draà ¡koviàkept his SPO out of the wide anti-Miloà ¡eviàDemocratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition that formed in 2000; his candidate in the 24 September 2000 federal presidential elections, Vojislav MihailoviÃÂ, achieved little success, and the SPO was unsuccessful in the subsequent parliamentary election which the DOS won overwhelmingly. Because of this, Draà ¡koviàand his party were marginalized over the next three years.
In the fall of 2002, he attempted a comeback as one of eleven candidates in a Serbian presidential election; this election was later declared invalid due to low voter turnout. Despite a polished marketing campaign that saw Draà ¡koviàchange his personal appearance and tone down his fiery rhetoric, he ended up with only 4.5% of the total vote, well behind Vojislav Koà ¡tunica (31.2%) and Miroljub Labus (27.7%), both of whom moved on to the second-round runoff.
His next chance for political redemption came in late 2003. Fully aware of SPO's weak political standing (as well as his own) after more than 3 years in political oblivion, Draà ¡koviàentered his party into a pre-election coalition with New Serbia (NS), thus reuniting with old party colleague Velimir IliÃÂ. Joining forces for the 2003 parliamentary election, they achieved limited success, but did manage to get into the coalition that formed the minority government (along with DSS, G17 Plus), providing it with critical parliamentary seats to keep the far-right radicals (SRS) at bay.
In the subsequent division of power, Draà ¡koviàbecame foreign minister, a position he held until May 2007. In response to Montenegro's vote for independence, Draà ¡koviàcalled for a restoration of Serbia's monarchy: "This is an historic moment for Serbia itself, a beginning which would be based on the historically-proven and victorious pillars of the Serbian state and I am talking about the pillars of a kingdom."
In August 2010, Draà ¡koviàargued in favour of changing the Serbian Constitution of 2006 to remove references to Kosovo as a part of Serbia because according to him "Serbia has no national sovereignty over Kosovo whatsoever. All of Serbia knows that Kosovo is not really a province within Serbia, that it is completely beyond the control of the government and the state of Serbia".
Draà ¡koviàis married to Danica (née Boà ¡koviÃÂ). The two met in 1968 during student protests.