Milan Pirocanac was remembered by the Serbian people as the president of the first progressive government in the period from 1880 to 1883, known as an “intellectual of rare shrewdness and originality” and a renown judge and lawyer.

Born as Milan Nedeljkovic in Jagodina in 1837, Milan studied at the law department of the Lyceum, and later in Paris, where he graduated. During his education, he changed his surname to Pirocanac, after his father, Stevan Nedeljkovic, who was originally from the Pirot region and participated in the uprisings as head of the county.

After Ilija Garasanin pursuaded him to accept his first job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he very quickly became the head of the ministry. After that, he was a judge of the Court of Cassation, Prime Minister, and Minister of Justice.

His government started the modernization program of Serbia. Liberal laws were passed on the press, political speech, political associations, and independent courts. At that time, a controversial secret convention was signed with Austria-Hungary (1881), which tied Serbia politically to this superpower,  because of which Pirocanac resigned. The construction of the first railways was started and the first loans were taken out on the European money market. During his term of office, Pirocanac tried to reform the constitution, but he did not succeed due to the resistance of King Milan.

King Milan Obrenovic

He was one of the leading intellectual figures of Serbia in the second half of the 19th century, the driving force of the young conservatives gathered around the newspaper “Videlo” and the founder and leader of the Serbian Progressive Party.
Together with Cedomilj Mijatovic, Stojan Novakovic, and Milutin Garasanin, he advocated a combination of pronounced liberalism and moderate conservatism.

He practiced law in Belgrade and was one of the best Serbian lawyers, as evidenced by the fact that he represented Queen Natalia in the divorce case against her husband, King Milan.

Queen Natalia Obrenovic

He wrote several historiographical books, a strategic study “The International Position of Serbia” as well as three polemical books, mostly with Jovan Ristic. He also kept a diary, which was published under the title “Notes”, late in 2004.

It is said that Pirocanac was “the purest type of intellectual of the Obrenovic era: educated, democrat, with liberal-conservative views, incorruptible in matters of principle, openly opposed to the autocracy of King Milan, but also elitist in criticizing the primitivism in the environment.” The majority of contemporaries considered Pirocanac a sharp thinker, but (like Slobodan Jovanovic) an unsuccessful statesman, because “he parted company with King Milan and with the people, who, at the moment when the reforms of society heated up, turned to the radicals”.

The house of Milan Pirocanac in Belgrade

Photo https://uksrbije.org.rs/

His house in Belgrade, in 7 Francuska street, has been the seat of the Association of Serbian Writers for decades. In the second half of the 20th century, as the home of Serbian writers, this building became a symbol of great ideas.