Svetomir Đukić

Svetomir Đukic was born on 29 May (16 May, according to the Gregorian calendar) 1882 in Ražana near Kosjerić (father Svetozar and mother Draginja). He completed elementary education in Valjevo, and commenced secondary in Užice only to finish it in Belgrade. He enrolled in the military academy as a sixteen-year old, and, two years later, having enlisted in the army forces, became a lieutenant colonel. He fought in the First and Second Balkan Wars and the First World War, which found him defending Ada Ciganlija and liberating Zemun; his other military exploits include the crossing of Albania and fighting at the Thessalonica front. In the course of his military career, he served in numerous places in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia where he retired in 1940 holding the rank of a brigadier general. During the Second World War he joined the Chetnik Movement, emigrated in 1945 and died in Duisburg on 19 October 1960.

Ever since his early youth, Svetomir Đukic was a versatile athlete – a gymnast, runner, jumper, swimmer, rower, shooter, equestrian, fencer and cyclist which he proved over and over again participating in numerous competitions and frequently winning.
Between the two World Wars he was the leading figure of the Olympic Movement, first in the Kingdom of Serbia and the Serbian Olympic Club (Committee), and then in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the Yugoslav Olympic Board (Committee).

Svetomir Đukić is considered the founder of the national Olympic Movement. He was the first director of the Serbian Olympic Club established on 10 February (23 February, according to the Gregorian calendar) 1910 and the leader of the first Olympic delegation of Serbia to the V Olympic Games held in Stockholm in 1912. At the Stockholm Congress he became a member of the International Olympic Committee, a position he held until 1948 when he resigned voluntarily. At the founding session of the Yugoslav Olympic Board in 1919 he was elected vice-president and in this capacity he was the leader of the Olympic teams of Yugoslavia at the Games in Antwerp in 1920, in Paris in 1928, in Amsterdam in 1928 and in Berlin in 1936. He was one of initiators of the candidature of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Belgrade to host the IOC Sessions 1938 – 1939 and the XIV Summer Olympic Games in 1948.
Svetomir Đukić was awarded many highest military honours and medals.
The remains of the founder of the national Olympic Movement, Svetomir Đukić, were moved from Duisburg and buried in the Ražana churchyard on 19 October 2002, an initiative of the Yugoslav Olympic Committee, the Yugoslav Army, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Federal Secretariat for Sports and Youth.