I had fifty Yugoslavs fleeing the war every day at the consulate
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Dragoljub Matić was born in Belgrade on 11 October 1945. His father was Alexander Matić, his mother Drenka Matić. He spent his childhood in the Žarkovo and Čubura districts of Belgrade. He graduated from a XI Belgrade Gymnasium, and later on he completed philological university studies with a focus on Czech. In his youth, he made guest appearances on the radio with new records, joined the daily Džuboks and started travelling through the countries of Eastern Europe. He visited Czechoslovakia in 1966 and 1967 and grew to love it. After Džuboks, he began working for Politika, the main Yugoslav geopolitical media, where he also reported on the events of 1968. After the war, he joined the SKJ (Union of Communists of Yugoslavia) and eventually followed the path of diplomacy. He spent four years at the consulate in Paris, and in 1989 became consul for the Czechoslovakia. He lived through the events of November and helped his fellow citizens during the Yugoslav civil war. Deeply affected by the events in his native country, he later resigned from his post and began to explore the possibility of helping immigrants from all over the world, for whom he founded the SLOVO magazine, where he served as editor-in-chief. At the time of the interview he was living in Prague-Hostivař with his wife Olga.
