Stojan Protić

Stojan Protić (Serbian Cyrillic: Стојан Протић; 28 January 1857–28 October 1923) was a Serbian statesman and writer. He served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes between 1918 and 1919, and again in 1920, later called Yugoslavia.

Biography

Stojan M. Protić was born in Kruševac. His great-great-grandfather (čukundeda), Toma Dečanac, moved from the village of Dečani with his wife and two sons, to Kruševac.

Having studied history and philosophy in Belgrade's Grande école (Velika škola), Protić briefly worked in government service before dedicating himself to journalism and becoming editor of Samouprava ("Autonomy"), the official daily newspaper of the People's Radical Party. In 1884 he became editor of another paper, Odjek ("Echo"), and advocated changing Serbia's constitution. He ran in the 1887 elections and was elected to Parliament. As secretary of the Constitutional committee in 1888 Protić participated in drafting the Serbian Constitution, perhaps one of the most liberal constitutions in the late nineteenth-century Europe.