January 14th

On this day - 14th January 1953 - Tito was inaugurated as the first president of Jugoslavia

Tito started his political career as a chairman of the league of communists of Yugoslavia. He continued as the leader of the resistance group, Partisan, during the Second World War, before he became the president of Yugoslavia. His rule as president was an authoritarian rule, but he was known as a benevolent dictator due to his economic and diplomatic policies. Yugoslavia had only limited help from the Russian army in their liberation process which contributed to giving the country more political freedom than the other East European countries had at the time. Yugoslavia was officially an ally of the Soviet Union, but the relationship between Tito and Stalin was a problematic one. Stalin tried to get rid of Tito, but without success. Tito who got tired of it openly wrote back to Stalin and said:

"Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle. (...) If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second."