Dragiša Lapcevic

Lapčević, Dragiša 

Born Oct. 13, 1864, in Užice, now Titovo Užice; died Aug. 14, 1939, in Belgrade. Scholar and leader in the Serbian Social Democratic movement.

Lapčević was one of the leaders of the Serbian Social Democratic Party from the time of its creation in 1903. In polemics with the left wing of the party, headed by D. Tucović, he often adopted centrist and right-opportunist positions. From 1905 to 1908 and again from 1912 to 1919, he was a deputy in the skupština (assembly), where he made antiwar declarations during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 and World War I. In 1919 he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia; he left it in December 1920. In 1921 he was one of the organizers of the reformist Socialist Party of Yugoslavia. In 1922, Lapčević left politics. He was the author of many works on ethnology and the history of the economy and the workers’ movement in Serbia, among them The History of Socialism in Serbia (1922).