Miodrag Perišić

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Miodrag Perišić

Miodrag Perišić (born 31 July 1948 in Subotica, Serbia, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia — died 6 May 2003 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) was one of the founders and a former vice president of the modern Democratic Party of Serbia and a former Ambassador of FR Yugoslavia in Canada. He was a prominent member of the modern democratic movement in Serbia and author of several books. His Excellency Mr. Miodrag Perišić died of a heart attack on a treadmill during workout^[1] at the University of Ottawa, while carrying out his duty, a month short of his two year mandate. He was married to Žaneta Đukić-Perišić, with whom he has twin daughters.

1 Biography
2 Political life
3 References
4 External links
5 Further reading

[edit] Biography

Miodrag Perišić was born in Subotica and he completed primary and secondary school in Belgrade. He received a BA degree in philosophy at the Belgrade University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy. During the studies he participated in editing and publishing of the journals Student and Vidici, and later worked as editor of the journal Knjizevna Rec (Literary Word). Perišić freelanced until 1978 when he started to work as Secretary of the Ivo Andric Foundation in Belgrade until 1984. In the period from 1984 to 1992 he was editor-in-chief of the journal Knjizevne novine (Literary Gazette). Perišić was also an active member in the Serbian PEN Centre and a vice president of the International PEN, the worldwide association of writers.

In fall 1991 Perišić was a guest at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at the University of Stanford, California. In fall and winter 1991/92 he was a guest at several universities in United States and gave lectures about roots of Yugoslav crisis, role of the intellectuals, and causes of disintegration of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In November and December 1999, Perišić visited the seminary at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and gave lectures at the Taft University.

Miodrag Perišić authored several books, and published anthology of modern Serbian poetry. His latest book title is "Razvaline Ideološkog Raja" (The Ruins of Ideological Paradise), in 1995.

[edit] Political life

With a group of like-minded persons, including Zoran Đinđić and Vojislav Koštunica, Miodrag Perišić founded and declared the Democratic Party. In summer 1992 he was elected as a member of the first Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as the Minister of Information in the Cabinet of Mr. Milan Panić. In the same year, he was elected as the Democratic Party representative in the Federal Parliament. From 1994 to 2000 he was a Vice President of the Democratic Party, and in the period from 1996 to 2000 he was a federal representative elected by the Coalition "Zajedno" ("Together").

Miodrag Perišić is one of the founders of the Council for Democratic Changes in Serbia, a non-governmental organization where he was the president of the Political Committee until December 2000. On October 5, 2000, he was amongst the citizens who welcomed the liberation from the oppressive regime of Slobodan Milošević on the great stairway of the Federal Parliament building. He was appointed an Ambassador of FR Yugoslavia in Ottawa, Canada in 2001 where he was highly appreciated by the Serbian immigration, working steadily on greater interconnectedness of the diaspora and its integration into political and social life of Serbia and Montenegro. Former Foreign minister Goran Svilanović emphasized that Perišić "with his dignity of an intellectual, had opened many doors which for others had been closed, in such a way succeeding to bring one small country, as it is Serbia and Montenegro, into the society of the great".^[2]