For almost half a century of the existence of socialist Yugoslavia, only a few political and social events, movements and groups managed to seriously shake the communist authorities and worry President Josip Broz Tito.
Kamenčić in the regime's shoes were also the so-called "Serbian liberals", a reform current within the leadership of the Union of Communists of Serbia (SKS), the republican branch of the party, led by the former excellent diplomat Marko Nikezić.
"One first-class personality of Yugoslavia from the socialist era.
"And how lucky he was not replaced, because he could comfortably succeed President Tito as a representative of the largest nation, and at the same time the most educated and the most modern politician," says Danilo Milić, retired career diplomat and former ambassador, for the BBC in Serbian.
Under the accusation of liberalism, which, among other things, meant "devaluation of the role of the party", "suppression of the class essence of self-governing democracy" and "absolutizing the market", Nikezić, president of the Central Committee of the SKS, as well as secretary Latinka Perović, resigned in October 1972.
"The bad predictions about the events in Yugoslavia and Serbia somehow came true, above all with Nikezić, who said on several occasions that the worst thing that could happen to Serbian society is a combination of nationalism and state socialism," says historian Petar Žarković for BBC in Serbian.
Two years later, Nikezić was expelled from the Party, ending his rich political and diplomatic career.
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From 1953 to 1962, Nikezić was the ambassador of Yugoslavia in Egypt, Czechoslovakia and the United States of America, then the deputy minister of foreign affairs, and from 1965, he took over the position of head of diplomacy from Koča Popović.
Contemporaries and colleagues described him as educated and calm, with refined manners, a man who gained trust by his appearance and knew how to listen.
After retiring from politics, he lived out of reach of the media and the public, giving himself up to sculpture.
He died on January 6, 1991 in Belgrade.
Early works
Nikezić was born on June 13, 1921 in Belgrade.
His mother was French - Suzana Depré, and his father was Petar Nikezić, a Montenegrin and "world traveler" from Bar, who got him interested in politics.
On the eve of the Second World War, he enrolled in architecture at the Technical Faculty in Belgrade.
He became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in 1940.
"Besides the family influence, that whole young generation was turned towards leftist aspirations, even during high school and college.
"It was an expression of rebellion against the then monarchist system, dictatorship, backwardness and capitalism on the periphery," explains historian Žarković.
During the war, he held various leadership positions in the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ), organizing and gathering fighters.
A warrant was issued for him, so until the end of the war he was operating illegally in Zemun under the pseudonym Cvikeraš.
In liberated Belgrade, he holds various important city and party functions, such as the secretary of the KPJ City Committee.
And so until 1952, when he came to the then State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs (DSIP) - the equivalent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - where his father worked, in 1952, without diplomatic experience.
Extended mandate in Cairo
He got his first job in March 1953 in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, as the new Yugoslav diplomatic representative in an extremely turbulent time.
Less than a year has passed since the group's military coup Free officers which overthrew the Egyptian king Farouk.
A few months later, a republic will be proclaimed.
"It was a challenge for Nikezeć to understand and understand what is happening in Cairo, who are these Egyptian officers, what are their political and ideological positions, to report to Belgrade and establish the first contacts, which he did," explains Žarković.
He saw the key political figure and later president Gamal Abdel Nasser as "a very important authority", and his "anti-communist" regime "open to cooperation with anti-colonial movements and states that recognized Egypt's internal development and foreign policy action".
Close relations between the two countries are soon established, Tito and Nasser meet twice and Yugoslavia gains an important partner in the new foreign policy strategy.
The two leaders, along with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, sign the declaration in Brioni in July 1956, effectively agreeing to the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, a political organization of countries that did not take sides in the Cold War division of East and West.
Nikezić's work to bring the two countries closer together was also recognized by the Egyptian authorities, who asked to extend his mandate when they learned that he had been transferred to Prague.
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Mutual mistrust in Prague
He came to the position of Yugoslav ambassador to Czechoslovakia, a socialist state of the Eastern Bloc under the patronage of the Soviet Union (USSR), in September 1956 in a "rather revolutionary time".
With the arrival of Nikita Khrushchev at the head of the USSR, the process of de-Stalinization began, which led to "numerous internal frictions and the appearance of numerous factions within the parties", explains Žarković, the author of the book Marko Nikezić – a diplomat in the midst of the Cold War.
"First of all, those who were more in favor of changes and reforms, which caused great concern to Moscow because it saw the beginning of political instability."
Although Yugoslavia managed to normalize relations with the countries of the Eastern Bloc after Stalin's death, "great mistrust remained, because it wanted to preserve its independent path".
Nikezić's diplomatic work, which "reports and outlines the entire Czechoslovak leadership as quite conservative," was viewed with distrust, especially their new leader, Antonjin Novotny.
The autumn of 1956 was marked by the Hungarian Revolution, a popular uprising against the communist authorities, which was soon suppressed by the invasion of the country by Soviet tanks.
The Yugoslav leadership condemned the first Soviet military intervention, while seeing the events in Prague as a "necessary evil" against the "reactionary forces."
"Prague was the moment when he could see first-hand real socialism, how free Czechoslovak communists were in devising their own concept of development.
Nikezić could "be even more critical of the Soviet model of communism, which was best displayed in the capital of Czechoslovakia," Žarković assesses.
Between Eisenhower and Kennedy in Washington
In October 1958, Nikezić became ambassador to the United States, when Yugoslav-American relations were stable.
"Washington was a sign that he was climbing the ladder of the diplomatic structure within the ministry, he was given great trust that only the most select members of the diplomatic corps had," explains Žarković.
Nikezic covered part of the second term of the Republican Dwight Eisenhower, who just four years earlier signed the law banning work Communist Party USA and her activities, and the government of the democrat John Kennedy.
Both administrations supported the preservation of good bilateral relations.
"And they had to defend that in front of various committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives during the campaign - how Washington supports a communist state and a communist dictatorial regime," Žarković points out.
The biggest challenge for Nikezić came after Tito's speech at the first conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in September 1961, in which he "sharply criticized Western policy, but did not condemn the Soviet nuclear tests" conducted a few days earlier.
"He reports on the anti-Yugoslav atmosphere in both parties and the main institutions, which led to a slight narrowing of relations, primarily regarding economic aid from 1962.
"But that did not significantly threaten either one or the other position, primarily the Yugoslav one," Žarković assesses.
Life outside the ambassador's residence
Calm, strict and "similar to what he was in public" - that's how Zoran Nikezić describes his father.
"He didn't have two faces," says the retired professor of the Faculty of Architecture for the BBC in Serbian.
Although he was only five years old when his father's diplomatic adventure began, he remembers every city in which they lived.
"He was curious, he loved history, art and photography, he wandered into various parts of Cairo and I with him, through catacombs, pyramids, museums," says Nikezić.
A completely different picture greeted him in Prague - "a closed environment and empty streets", and then in America, where they traveled a lot around the country, even to Mexico.
"Once my father stopped an 80-plus-year-old hitchhiker, in fact, a cowboy who told us about the Wild West from his youth," he recalls with a smile.
Upon his return to Belgrade, he "became somehow different", starting to "deal with bureaucracy".
Work was not discussed at home, nor were the days of the war.
"He was calm and analytical, inclined to think about everything, he didn't decide anything on the fly, nor was he a man who would take anything for granted."
The influence that the father left on his son was primarily reflected in the "attitude and way of approaching things".
"I became analytical, heavy on words and careful in a certain way.
"I worked in the profession, but I was more a man of the University, the function of a professor was more important to me than an architect," points out Zoran Nikezić, who, like his father, started sculpting after retiring.
Deputy, then head of diplomacy
After returning to Belgrade in 1962, Nikezić became the deputy of Koča Popović, then head of Yugoslav diplomacy.
His duties were operational, he was supposed to lead collegium meetings, receive foreign delegations, participate in international activities and the work of the ministry itself, explains Žarković.
"He had the support of the team because he had all the qualities that every diplomat should have - he knew languages, English, French, Russian, he was measured and always listened to his interlocutor.
"It left a great impression on numerous diplomatic representatives and journalists," says the historian.
The arrival of Popović's deputy "brought freshness and cheerfulness", believes Danilo Milić.
"While Koča knew how to cut quickly around the decision that had to be made, Nikezić decided much more calmly and coolly, although they did not differ politically."
He never heard him "raising his voice in a conversation with associates" with whom, like Popović, he was at odds.
"He never tried to impose his own position, and if there were other opinions, then he would enter into the discussion, and that was very different for our system where people, depending on their function, imposed decisions," says Milić.
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In 1965, Nikezić became the head of diplomacy, which represented a kind of continuity in the work of the ministry and indicated the "great support of the state-party leadership".
Partisan and diplomat Vladimir Velebit will rate his three years at the head of the ministry as "the pinnacle of Yugoslav diplomacy".
He comes to the ministerial position in a "dynamic time", in the midst of the country's strong foreign policy activity and the notable role of the ministry, which "at one point was accused of leading a separate foreign policy in relation to the party leadership", explains Žarković.
There are talks about "the beginning of normalization with West Germany, the establishment of more significant contacts with France and the maintenance of stable relations with the USA".
On the foreign policy front, Yugoslavia actively participated in the Non-Aligned Movement, and responded to numerous international crises, from Vietnam and the Six-Day War in June 1967, to the collapse of the Prague Spring, attempts to introduce reforms that were suppressed by the entry of Warsaw Pact tanks, a military alliance of socialist countries, in the summer of 1968.
"Our diplomacy was paradoxically far more significant and influential at the world level than the objective importance of a relatively impoverished country with 20 million inhabitants," Milić believes.
During his mandate, Nikezić met with numerous diplomats, including Willy Brant, Minister of Foreign Affairs, later Chancellor of West Germany, and President of France Charles De Gaulle in September 1967.
It was the first high-level meeting between a high-ranking Yugoslav official and the French leader, an anti-communist who previously called the regime in Belgrade "totalitarian" without separating it from those in the Eastern Bloc.
Relations were further complicated by the fact that in tricky foreign policy issues, Yugoslavia generally took opposite positions to France, such as supporting the Algerian liberation forces in the war for independence.
Nikezić was accompanied by Milić, then attaché for press and culture in Paris, who "warned him in the car that De Gaulle did not like presenting the details of the conversation in front of journalists after the meeting".
Instead of a protocol meeting, Nikezić and De Gaulle talked for an hour.
Nikezić still answered the journalist's questions, without endangering the vanity of the French president, says Milić.
"He told me, which best illustrates how much he cared about his interlocutors: 'You saw how many journalists there were, I couldn't finish the conversation in two sentences, it would be incorrect,'" recounts Milić.
He also asked him "whether De Gaulle will mind".
"I'm not sure it won't, but if it does, we'll find out in two days. However, no one said anything", he adds, indicating that he was his "most favorite boss".
The first man of the Serbian party
Koča Popović and part of the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were accused in 1963 of leading a "separate conception of Yugoslav foreign policy".
"It was the result of pressure and an attempt to prevent the institution's autonomy and that the security party apparatus still has a decisive role when it comes to foreign policy," Žarković explains.
Tito also spoke about how certain diplomats, especially Marko Nikezić and the ambassador to America Veljko Mićunović, have their views "completely opposite to our (party) policy" and that "they cannot be managers".
However, there were no serious consequences since "the atmosphere in the party soon changed".
In November 1968, Marko Nikezić was elected to a new position - president of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists of Serbia.
He came in extremely unfavorable circumstances as a representative of the younger generation and "someone who will best express the aspirations of the Brijuni Plenum - economic and social reform".
At the Brijuni Plenum in July 1966, one of the most important politicians in the country, Aleksandar Leka Ranković, was removed from state and party positions.
The SKS reform leadership led by Marko Nikezić strove "modernization of Serbia", advocating, among other things, for liberalization, democratization of society and the party, the fight against nationalistic exclusivity, a market-oriented economy and a different transformation of the state.
The more conservative currents within the party saw the Prague Spring and student demonstrations in 1968 as a "negative example of liberalization", while the Croatian Spring or Mass Movement (MASPOK) of 1971 served to stop further trends.
This reformist and, according to some assessments, secessionist movement was led by the top of the Union of Communists of Croatia, party leader Savka Dabčević Kučar and Miko Tripalo, who will resign in December 1971 after a meeting with Tito in Karađorđevo, Vojvodina.
A similar fate will befall the Serbian leadership next year.
Even then, Tito saw that both republican leaderships "oppose and do not bow to the authority of the central party," says Žarković.
A campaign was launched against the Serbian leadership that "completely socially ostracized them".
"Even though Nikezić had enormous support from the party apparatus in Serbia, in the end the concept of development towards authoritarian socialism and not democracy prevailed," says Žarković.
The fall of the Serbian liberal
After several days of talks with Tito, Marko Nikezić resigned in October 1972.
"The final, artificially made indictment was for liberalism, and they were reproached for devaluing the role of the party, abandoning the principle of democratic centralism, monopolizing positions in the communist alliance and neglecting the class essence of self-governing democracy," Žarković explains.
Nikezić did not even see himself as a liberal, but said: "We are revolutionary democrats," he says.
Secretary Latinka Perović also submitted her resignation, and Koča Popović resigned as a sign of solidarity.
Thus, in one year, Tito freed himself from the progressive opposition represented by the Croatian and Serbian leaders of the time, says Milić.
Serbian liberals, whom he describes as "very educated, modern and democratically disposed", had "a large majority in the republican party, the largest in the country", and it is "a real miracle that they did not oppose Tito".
"He had terrible ambitions and was bothered by Nikezić, who had a more rational approach to problems and advocated a policy that differed from the policy of absolutism," he adds.
A requirement for active memory
After being expelled from the party, Nikezić retired from public life in 1974 and devoted himself to sculpture.
"When I was eliminated from politics, I was not depressed, and now I am grateful that I had to leave.
"If they hadn't removed me, as reformist and compromising, devious as I am, I probably would have loyally cooperated with Tito until the end of his life, always trying, in that cooperation with him, to force something that could be a small step forward," he said.
Danilo Milić last saw him at a funeral in 1989.
"He asked me where I was now, and I answered that I had advanced and was going to be ambassador to Guinea, a country with difficult climatic conditions, and it is not a standard one.
"And he tells me: 'You know, being an ambassador is good everywhere,'" Milić recalls with a smile.
The memory of Nikezić "was negative, which fits into the whole attitude towards the socialist heritage and Yugoslavia", but that "it gradually changed over time", Žarković assesses.
"Nikezić represents an important personality, on the one hand as someone who could talk to the world, and on the other hand as someone who was knowledgeable, measured and thoughtful enough to be able to reconcile, at least for a moment, many contradictions and differences in Serbian and Yugoslav society.
"And I think that people of such a format require a kind of active memory and their own place in the very exciting history of the 20th century or the history of the Serbian people in general," Žarković concludes.
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