We present an external contributor to the portal, a Lika native born in Kosinj, in the village of Mlakva – Đorđe Sime Pražić (1955).
He completed primary school “Vlado Knežević” and “Nikola Tesla” Grammar School in Gospić, as well as higher military schools. He spent his entire professional career, until retirement, in the military, the Navy and the Military Academy.
He currently lives and works in Belgrade. He is active as a publicist and has authored numerous articles on Lika, Gospić, Kosinj and the history of Serbs in Croatia.
He was one of the founders of the Association of Gospić Residents “Nikola Tesla” in Belgrade and of the gospic.rs website, a highly informative portal with an emphasis on history, established in 2014. He is its administrator and has published a large number of his articles there.
He writes about the history of Gospić and Lika, the Second World War, the suffering of the population, Kosinj, and the preservation of cultural and historical heritage.
He has been particularly engaged in matters concerning the Kosinj Valley and the preservation of the remains of the victims of the NDH prior to the planned flooding of part of Kosinj. In this context, he brought together fellow countrymen and professors from the University of Belgrade and established the Kosinj Working Group.
He has also been engaged in topics concerning education in Gospić, the history of schooling, and life in Gospić during the 20th century.
Today, in retirement, he researches the modern history of the navy, Serbo-Croatian relations, with particular emphasis on the exhumation of Serbian civilian victims of Second World War war crimes from karst pits, and the preservation of the cultural heritage of the Serbian people in his native Lika. He has published numerous articles in daily and periodical newspapers, as well as a number of papers in various proceedings and on internet portals.
Đorđe Pražić’s first contribution, LIKA ADMIRALS, originally published on gospic.rs, introduces us to a number of people from Lika who pursued careers in the navies of various countries. Among them, two admirals from our region stand out: Stevan Samuil Mandarić, a native of Vrebac (USA), and Momčilo Jovan Novković, a native of Pavlovac (SFR Yugoslavia).
The article was published in the journal “Past, People and Customs.”