Slobodan Jovanović (; 3 December 1869 – 12 December 1958) was a Serbian and Yugoslav writer, historian, lawyer, philosopher, literary critic, diplomat, politician and one of the most prominent intellectuals of his time. He was the professor at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law (1897—1940), Rector of the University of Belgrade (1913–14 and 1920–21), and the President of the Serbian Royal Academy (1928–1931). He took part at the Paris Peace Conference (1919) as an expert for the Yugoslav Government. Jovanović was the Deputy Prime Minister (March 1941 - June 1942) and the Prime Minister of the Royal Yugoslav government-in-exile in London between January 1942 and June 1943. After World War II, the new Communist authorities of Yugoslavia sentenced him in absentia to 20 years' imprisonment. Jovanović remained at liberty for the rest of his life in London. Biography Slobodan Jovanović was born in Újvidék, Austria-Hungary (present-day Novi Sad, Serbia) on 3 December 1869 to politician Vladimir Jovanović and his wife Jelena. He was reportedly the first Serbian male to be named "Slobodan" (sloboda means "freedom" in Serbian), while his sister was named Pravda ("Justice"). He received an excellent education in Belgrade, Munich, Zurich, and Geneva, where he graduated with a law degree. From 1890 to 1892, he took post-graduate studies in constitutional law and political science in Paris before entering the Serbian foreign service. In 1893 he was appointed political attaché with the Serbian mission to Constantinople, where he remained for a couple years. It was at this time that he began to write and have his articles on literary criticism published in various publications throughout the land. He eventually left the diplomatic service in favour of academia and literary pursuits and became a contributing author and literary critic for several notable newspapers of the time. In 1897 he was appointed professor at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Law. During the Balkan Wars and the First World War he was the Head of Serbian War Office Press Bureau. In this period Jovanović became acquainted with Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis and wrote positively of him. Shortly after the foundation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, in 1920, Stojan Protić, acting as Prime Minister of the Temporary National Representation, appointed Jovanović as the President of a multi-ethnic constitutional drafting committee alongside Kosta Kumanudi, Bogumil Vošnjak, Ladislav Polić, and Lazar Marković which later that year presented the first draft of