Six Balkan Newspaper Editorships for Seven Brothers

Belgrade, World War II:

My favorite paper was Pravda [not the famous one —HR], owned by the seven brothers Sokitch. One brother I never met, as he lived in the country. The other six were all over six feet tall, very broad and most of them well furnished with gold teeth. Each brother was responsible for a section of the newspaper, except for one brother, who sat in the outer office wearing a hat, dressed in a crumpled suit and often unshaven. He was called “the responsible editor,” and it was his name which appeared at the top of the paper each day. His job was to appear in court and sometimes spend a few days in prison whenever his brothers had printed some article particularly offensive to the government.

— Julian Amery, Approach March: A Venture in Autobiography

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Of Roots and Adventures

Peter J. Leithart

I have lived in Ohio, Michigan, Georgia (twice), Pennsylvania, Alabama (also twice), England, and Idaho. I left…

Our Most Popular Articles of 2025

The Editors

It’s been a big year for First Things. Our website was completely redesigned, and stories like the…

Our Year in Film & Television—2025

Various

First Things editors and writers share the most memorable films and TV shows they watched this year.…