Dr. Milenko Vesnic, Grand Seigneur of the Serbian Diplomacy

by Radoslav Vesnic, Junior

Milenko Vesnic, His Serbian Majesty’s Ambassador in Paris between 1903 and 1920, was an outstanding diplomat, statesman, researcher and a public figure at a time when Serbia was rapidly being transformed from a backward Balkan principality to a modern European state. It was a time when it enhanced its position in the Balkan region and in Europe and, despite huge losses, emerged victorious from three consecutive wars and actively participated in the creation of the first Yugoslav state in 1918.... That was a golden age of Serbian diplomacy, in which Milenko Vesnic happened to head probably the most important diplomatic mission for Serbia at the time and took part in the historic events to which he gave his strong personal touch, thus ranking him among the leading personalities in Serbian and Yugoslav diplomatic history.
Dr. Predrag Simic, Ambassador

The work of Radoslav Vesnic Jr. is the first in-depth and research-based biography of Dr. Milenko Vesnic, a premier lawyer, politician and, above all, a brilliant diplomat. Being the result of many years of research, this voluminous work is based on extensive archival and secondary reference materials, which enabled the author to depict and analyze the whole, extremely important, period in Serbia’s history. He provides an excellent and detailed insight into the shaping of Serbian and, later on, Yugoslav diplomacy, its main preoccupations in the first decades of the twentieth century, and reveals many unknown facts from the political and diplomatic life of that time.
Prof. Dr. Zoran Stanojevic

This work is a monograph of a historical nature with a liberal interpretation of facts, the social setting and the times in which Milenko Vesnic lived and worked. The author’s language and style are simple, easily readable and pleasing. The manuscript deserves to be published not only because of the very significance of a now forgotten Serbian diplomat and politician, but also because of the multitude of less known facts and their literary and historical interpretation.
Prof. Dr. Vasilije Krestic