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1. Introduction
A man's honor is something that stands above life
- Zygmunt Cracow -
Sigmund /Zygmunt/ Krakow was born on 3/15. April 1849 in Warsaw,
from father Ludwik "an old revolutionary from the Polish uprisings
of 1830 and 1863" and mother Pauline (1813-1882) "from the
Radjejowskis, who gave Poland cardinals and marshals, and who
herself was a famous Polish writer" (Krakow, 2004, 28). Her literary
works are: ''Pamiętniki młody sieroty''; ''Powiesci starego wędrowcа'';
''Rozmowy matki z diećmi''; ''Niespodzianka''; ''Wieczory domowe'';
''Obrazy i obrazki''; ''Proza i poezyja polska, wybrana i
zastosowana do uźytku młodzieźy źeńskiej''; ''Wspommenia wygnanki'';
''Nowa ksiaźka do naboźenstwa dla Polek''. According to the father,
the genealogy of the family reached 1665, to Jan Kraków, the bearer
of the ceremonial sword during the reign of King Mihail Wisniowecki
(Stojić 2019, 353). He graduated from Medinica in 1872. at the
University of Heidelberg / "Ruprecht-Karl University"/ with the
grade cum laude superato, earning the title of doctor of medicine
and surgery.
He had a son Ludvik from his first marriage. He had a sister Zofia
and a brother Casimir. After the Polish "January Uprising of 1863",
in 1865 he settled in Paris, working at the Pasteur Institute (Berec
2017, 164). 1885 he came to Serbia as a volunteer in the
Serbian-Bulgarian war, as a military doctor. From the title of
"contractual military assistant" 13/27..9.1889.g. he was promoted to
the rank of "medical lieutenant"
Medical lieutenant of the Lutheran faith, military doctor of the
14th infantry regiment, Sigismund Kraków married a teacher from
Kragujevac, in the extract from the marriage book marked with the
data "Persida Đoković, daughter of Aćima and Pelagija Đokić, born
11/23. November 1869 in Prijeljina''. Commenting on the same
document, Biljana Stojić indicates that it is "Persida Nedić, sister
of Milan, Milutin and Božidar Nedić, distant relative of King Petar
Karađorđević" (2019, 353). Milan Nedić was born from the marriage of
the teacher Pelagia, the "granddaughter of Prince Nikola Stanojević",
through whom they are in contact with the diplomat Konstantin Fotić
and the former Minister of Justice of Kranjevina Yugoslavia and the
leader of the "Zbor" movement Dimitrije Ljotić. It follows that
Sigmund Krakow's wife was the maternal sister of Generals Milan and
Milutin and reserve officer - war invalid Božidar Nedić.
The wedding took place on May 3/15, 1892 in the Church of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kragujevac. It was
Sigismund's second marriage, her first. On the occasion of his first
marriage and request for divorce, the first-instance court in
Kragujevac addressed 7/19/12/1891. To the Ministry of Education with
a request that it "get all the rules" from the evangelical
pastor-church in Belgrade regarding the fact that the first wife
Mihalina "left Sigismund 6-7 years ago". The Ministry of Education
responded with information dated January 14, 1892. that "in Germany,
the church and the clergy have nothing to do with divorces, because
civil courts do it,... rules printed from an ordinary book are
sent". The marriage was dissolved and the obstacle to entering into
a new one was removed. Stanislav Kraków presents the circumstances
of his parents' marriage as something different. According to him,
Sigismund left his first wife, a Polish woman, and his
eight-year-old son from that marriage in Paris; "since his wife died
in the meantime, he decided to stay in Serbia and get married..."
(2004, 29). In the obituary from 1910. it was announced that he died
after "honoring the act" of military protégé Sava Kelić, to whom the
family expresses special gratitude.
From the marriage of Sigismund and Persida on March 16/24, 1895. was
born on March 16/24, 1895. in Kragujevac, Stanislav, the writer of
the capital works of Serbian literature, "a man with 18 decorations,
14 wounds, three death sentences" (Stojić 2019, 350).
As published by "Male novine" from September 13, 1899. "Sigmund
Kraków, contractual medical lieutenant, native of Warsaw, Russian
citizen" received Serbian citizenship.
As required by the service, he was assigned to military garrisons in
Kragujevac, where he served in 1897-1898. was also the manager of
the surgical department of the military hospital, then in Niš /from
April 21-May 4, 1901/, Leskovac /from October 12-25, 1901/,
Knjaževac /from May 8-21, 1902 /, Zaječar, Kladovo /from September
9-22, 1903/, Belgrade /from November 13-26, 1907/.
According to the order of the Minister of Military No. 3595 of
September 9/25, 1903, according to the needs of the service,
"medical lieutenant Sigismund Kraków, until now the corps doctor of
the Knjaževac garrison, was appointed as the corps doctor of the
Kladovo garrison." Stanislav Krakow wrote about his arrival and life
in Kladovo:
''… My father was suddenly transferred from Knjaževac to the border
fortress of Kladovo on the Danube. He was satisfied with this change
because in Kladovo he had to be not only a military doctor but also
the only doctor for the entire area. Like in the Wild West, we
traveled for three days in a closed carriage from Knjaževac to
Kladovo by the border river Timok and then through the dense oak
forests in the Krajina that were never without hajduk... It was
already the third night since we left Knjaževac when we saw the
lights the small fishing town of Kladovo. Our carriage bounced over
the old Turkish cobblestones. He stopped in front of a hotel, which
only had a ground floor.
The curious inhabitants of this small town of fifteen hundred souls
began to gather around the carriage: - The doctor has arrived. Just
at that moment, the door of the tavern opened and the owner of the
hotel ran out excitedly:
- Doctor, quickly, save my wife... As my father had his briefcase
under his arm, he ran into the tavern. We sat in the carriage and
waited. A little later I saw my father coming out smiling. The
hotelier's wife got a fish bone stuck in her esophagus and started
to choke. My father removed her bone and his reputation as a good
doctor was already established on the first night.
The next day we drove into the old Turkish fortress of Fetislam, a
few kilometers from the town, where there was a garrison of several
hundred people. We drove over the suspension bridge and by the heavy
iron gate a guard came out to pay respects to my father...
We got a large separate house, which here, like in the colonies,
because of the many snakes, was built so high that it had to be
entered via several stone steps. At first, snakes were a real
nightmare for me, and for my mother during our entire stay in
Kladovo. I got used to them over time. They were everywhere. Every
day we found them in the pantry and the kitchen, which were in a
separate building, where they were looking for milk, hanging from
the ceiling beams, crawling under cupboards, getting into crates. In
the barn where my father's horse was, Seiz was never allowed to put
his hand in the hay, lest he come across a snake. But most of them
were between the stones of the huge city ramparts, under which there
were deep casemates, which used to serve as a prison. It was in the
casemate, the one closest to our house, where we kept chickens, that
the later famous Serbian statesman Nikola Pašić was imprisoned after
the rebellion of Eastern Serbia in 1886 against King Milan.
For me, the Kladovo fortress was the promised land. The presence of
a large number of soldiers, in whose life I liked to interfere and
share it, huge cannons on the bastions, a citadel in the middle of
the fortress, with high towers and a suspension bridge, which could
only be entered barefoot or in slippers because it was full of
dozens of tons of explosives and gunpowder, underground lagumi, all
that was miraculous for me. The largest number of civilian patients
of my father were alasi - fishermen, and that's why he was always
full of caviar and the best Danube fish. Fishermen taught my mother
to roast kechiga, wrapped in parchment, on a spit over low heat, and
it became my favorite dish.
That's where I first came into contact with abroad - if you can call
it that, Kladovo was on the triple border. I often crossed by boat
to Turn Severin, in Romania, or to Orshav, just a few kilometers
away, in Austria-Hungary. And between those two foreign countries
for me, I discovered another one: Turkey. Better to say, a lost part
of Turkey. There, near Oršava, in the middle of a river full of
eddies, like an enclave, was the small fortified island of Adakale,
the last remnant of Turkish rule on the Danube. When I disembarked
for the first time from a large fishing boat, which could hardly
maintain its balance in the midst of strong rapids, into the
greenery of this small island, it was as if I had come to a country
that was from another era and from another continent. Adakale
theoretically belonged to Turkey, but there was no government at
all, except for one head of the town, who was like the head of a
large family. Not the police, not the customs, not the court, not
the hospital. People lived a quiet, unchanged life. They watered
their gardens and looked after a few sheep and then came to the
center in front of the only tavern, under the blossoming trees, to
sip coffee or eat rahatlokum there. Life had completely forgotten
about them... It was only after the Balkan Wars /1912-13/ that
Austria-Hungary settled the island and introduced it to all the
obligations, laws and duties that a modern state imposes on its
subjects..
In the summer of 1906, I finished the fourth grade of the elementary
school in Kladovo as the best student. The director of the school,
Milić, was a grateful patient of my father. I was supposed to travel
to Belgrade in the fall to stay with my grandmother and uncle in
order to study high school there. That was the last summer of my
happy childhood in the Kladovo fortress...'' (2004, 19-21).
In the same year, King Petar appointed Dr. Sigismund as his personal
physician during treatment at the Brestovačka Banja. Stanislav
Krakow concludes his impressions with the words: "when, after more
than a month of treatment, King Petar left Brestovačka Banja, my
father followed the royal caravan on horseback. The large and dense
dust that rose from the country roads when so many carts passed, and
in which he rode for days, made my father, when he came to Belgrade
with the king, suddenly spit up blood. And when I met my father in
the Kladovo fortress, after returning from the capital, he brought a
signed picture of the king, fifty gold coins, toys and books for me,
but also the beginning of tuberculosis'' (2004, 24).
In the Kladovo fortress there was a hospital and a pharmacy,
especially the "marvena pharmacy", as Jovan Mišković noted during
the control inspection carried out on October 3, 1884; in addition,
he also gives a description of the fortress: "The city of Fetislam
is mostly four-sided with 6 bastions /4 on the longer, dry side, and
2 on the corresponding Danube side/, 3 gates and 2 brick round
towers facing the Danube. There is a visible redoubt in the middle,
with two round towers on the land side. It has a powder store on
vaults in two compartments. Besides that, a small hand magazine. The
casemates are unusable. There are two out-of-the-ordinary barracks:
1 battalion, and the other one for provisions. Apart from that,
about 10 buildings of various sizes and values'' (2020, 2, 116). The
fortress is also known for the fact that the latter General Kosta
Milovanović, commander of the artillery in Fetislam in 1877, served
there. and Duke Živojin Mišić - posted here for duty in 1890. as
general staff captain first class, 1893. /then in the rank of major/
Colonel Panta Trifunović, father of the divisional general and
Minister of the Army and Navy of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Dušan
Trifunović.
At the level of the Ključki district in the period 1903-1907, unlike
other districts of the Krajinski district, no one was assigned to
work in the health profession, so the presence of Dr. Sigmund Krakow
meant a lot to the population (Blagojević 2005, 284-333). The
presence of another Pole, Siegfried Policer, a pharmacist in the
small border town, was of great importance for healthcare in the
Kladovo area. Starting from 1906. he ran a pharmacy at the beginning
of Kralja Aleksandra Street, equipped according to the highest
standards. A herbarium was located in the specially designed
apothecary's attic for the storage of herbs intended for the
production of medicines. Medicines were kept in a part of the
basement partitioned with stone. The pharmacy was characterized by
spaciousness and light. In Kladovo, Dr. Sigismund also found the
famous pharmacist Jozef Dilber (1828-17-5-1905), a graduate
pharmacist from the University of Prague, the owner, the first
president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Serbia, who ran a
pharmacy here until 17-5-1905.
In the official military gazettes of 1903-1907. there are data on
the humanitarian activities of Dr. Krakow through the work of the
Red Cross. According to the Report on the activities of the Serbian
Red Cross Society 1.1. In 1907, together with him, the following
officers of the Kladovo fortress did it: lieutenant colonel
Svetozaar Protić, captain II.cl Pavle Jakovljević, lieutenants Milan
Matijević, Dobrivoje Mojsilović, Svetozar Ristić and lieutenants
Dragiša Predić, Radoje A Pantić and Milivoje Alimpić.
By order of the Minister of Military No. 9320 dated 13/27. In
September 1907, instead of medical lieutenant Josif Radulović,
Sigismund Kraków, "so far a corps doctor in the command of the
Kladovo fortress", was appointed acting corps doctor of the
Eighteenth Infantry Regiment of "Kraljević Đorđe, the Crown Prince"
and manager of the temporary spa infirmary.
He died in Belgrade on March 12, 1910. On this occasion, an obituary
was published in the Serbian press: "It is with pain in our hearts
that we inform our relatives and friends that our dear,
never-forgotten husband or son, Dr. Sigismund Kraków, medical
lieutenant, died on March 12 at 1:00 a.m. at the age of 60. his own.
On this occasion, we cannot fail to express our deep gratitude to
Mr. to the doctors who tried to save the deceased from death, and
especially to Dr. Pomorišac, who tried to relieve his pain, and
vigil all night over the patient's bed, on whose arms he lost his
soul. Mr. Sava Kelić against the military, who acted out of honor.
Lord to the officers, and military doctors, friends and
acquaintances, who escorted the deceased to their eternal home in
such a large number. Belgrade, March 17, 1910. Mourners: wife
Persida, sons Ludvik and Stanislav and other numerous relatives. The
places of service in Timok - Knjaževac, Kladovo, Zaječar have not
commemorated dr. Sigismund Krakow was extracted through several data
in the publication "150 years of the Hospital in Knjaževac
/1851-2001/" by Dragan M Ivanović Šakabenta (2001).
There is a wikipedia entry about his son Stanislav: Kraków is a man
of wonderful life and idea verticality. He was always rightly
determined and consciously sacrificed for the Serbian idea. He was
an example of how to fight, how to write, how to act politically and
how to believe in courage. In it, a synthesis of a national, modern,
traditional, right-wing and brave Serb was created, who with his
example negates the thesis of local writers that only anti-national
writing in the genre range from "post-Titoism" to anti-war adulation
is the only Serbian literature that is worthwhile and that rules the
local scene.
He is the holder of the decorations: White eagle with swords, 4th
degree; two gold medals for bravery; Officer of the Romanian Crown;
bearer of the Albanian monument; The cross of mercy.
In 1944, he emigrated to Austria, and then to France, where he
continued to live. In Belgrade, he was sentenced to death by firing
squad in absentia.
He died as a forgotten emigrant in Switzerland, on December 15,
1968, in complete misery.
* For the help in collecting the material, which we present in the
attachment, the author owes special thanks to the Archives of
Yugoslavia, Belgrade, and to Mr. Mirko Demić, director of the
National Library "Vuk Karadžić", Kragujevac
SUMMARY
This paper presents biographical data and details related to
service and life in Kladovo in 1903-1907. Dr. Sigismund Krakow and
his ancestors. With his personal generosity and high moral views, he
made a significant contribution to the development of healthcare in
Serbia.
LIST OF SOURCES AND LITERATURE:
- Ratko Blagojević editor in chief, Schematism of the
Krajinski District 1839-1924, Negotin Historical Archive 2005.
- Nebojša Berec, In the Footsteps of Stanislav Krakow,
"Brotherhood" edition of the Sveti Sava Society, Belgrade, 2017;
21.
http://doi.fil.bg.ac.rs/pdf/journals/bratstvo/2017/bratstvo-2017-21-10.pdf.
- Dragan M Ivanović Šakabenta "150 years of the Hospital in
Knjaževac /1851-2001/", Health Center Knjaževac 2001.
- Stanislav Kraków, The Life of a Man in the Balkans, "Our
Home", Belgrade, 2004.
- Jovan Mišković, Diary records 2 volumes, Negotin Historical
Archive 2020.
- Biljana Stojić, STANISLAV KRAKOV IN THE WARS FOR LIBERATION
AND UNIFICATION (1912–1918) HISTORICAL JOURNAL, 2019; LXVIII:
349–382. UDC:94(497.11)"1912/1918":929 Kraków S. DOI:
10.34298/IC1968349 https://www.iib.ac.rs/istorijskicasopis/assets/files/IC1968349.pdf
приступљено 25.6.2023.г.
- "Male novine" 1/9/1899 - news about admission to the Kingdom
of Serbia
http://istorijskenovine.unilib.rs/view/index.html#panel:pp|issue:UB_00031_18890901|page:3|query:%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B4%20%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2
- Order of the Minister of Military. Official military paper.
May 1902; 391-392.
- Order of the Minister of Military. Official military journal
1901; 967-968.
- Order of the Minister of War. Official military gazette
16.11.1907;.711-712.
- Report on the activities of the Serbian Red Cross Society
1.1. 1907;152.
https://pretraziva.rs/pretraga?search=%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B4+%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2&advanced=
Diploma transcript, Archives of Yugoslavia
Extract from the marriage register, Archives of Yugoslavia
Diploma of Ludvik Krakow, Archive of Yugoslavia
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