My Father Milorad, a Life in Letters

Synopsis

A biography capturing the adult life of Dr. Milorad Velimirović, a Serb who studied and lived in Czarist Russia in the decades just before WWI and the Russian Revolution. His life is revealed through letters home which contain descriptions of concerts and plays, politics of the day, and his attendance at social events; all of this is in addition to the expected personal and familial concerns of an eldest son for his parents and younger brothers and sisters. These writings from one present at the moment provide a fresh look at events that are now distant history. The letters are introduced and given context by the remembrances of his son Prof. Miloš Velimirović, who was also the translator. This audiobook also includes a brief genealogical register of the Velimirović family.Born early in the period between WWI and WWII, Miloš Velimirović grew up in a relatively well-to-do family in Belgrade. After university in Yugoslavia, he was fortunate to be sponsored to study at Harvard University, eventually earning a doctorate in musicology. He had a successful career as an academic in the U.S. and wrote this biography in 1996, in the earlier years of his retirement.The first child and only son of Miloš Velimirović and Norma Goodwin, Milo Velimirović inherited the unpublished manuscripts of his father. Early in his own retirement after a career supporting computing technology, and nearly thirty years after the biography was written, he sought to have it published so that these life stories would be available to descendants, friends of the family, and interested readers.