Žikica Jovanović Španac dating history

Details

Živorad "Žikica" Jovanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Живорад „Жикица" Јовановић; 17 March 1914 – 13 March 1942), better known as Španac (Шпанац; "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.