Žikica Jovanović Španac, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetŽikica Jovanović Španac
Yugoslav partisan
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Valjevo, Kolubara District, Serbia
About Žikica Jovanović Španac
- Živorad "Žikica" Jovanovic (Serbian Cyrillic: ??????? „??????" ?????????; 17 March 1914 – 13 March 1942), better known as Španac (??????; "The Spaniard") was a Yugoslav partisan, Spanish-trained commando and republican volunteer in the 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.
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