Radovan Zogović

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Radovan Zogović (August 19, 1907 - January 5, 1986) was one of the greatest Montenegrin poets of 20th century.

He was born in Mašnica in north-eastern Montenegro on August 19 of 1907. Before the World War II he lived in Skopje, Zagreb and Belgrade and joined Communist Party of Yugoslavia. His first book of poetry, Glineni golubovi, was banned by Yugoslav royal regime.

After the World War II he was briefly one of the most important figures in Yugoslav government, but was expelled from the League of Communists and put under house arrest in 1948. He was accused for being pro-Russian and for Montenegrin nationalism among else.

In the late 1960s he was semi-rehabilitated and in that period his best works were published: poetry collections Žilama za kamen, Artikulisana riječ, Lično, sasvim lično and Knjažeska kancelarija.

He died of cancer on January 5, 1986 in Belgrade.

His poems have been translated in many languages, and he himself translated works from Russian, Bulgarian, Turkish and Macedonian authors, including Vladimir Mayakovsky, Anna Akhmatova and Nazim Hikmet.

Among his close friends were Serbian poets Desanka Maksimović and Montenegrin novelist Mihailo Lalić .

He was a member of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.

His wife Vera (who died in 2003) was also a translator from the Russian, and his daughter Mirka from the Italian.