Yugoslav chess grandmaster whose international career was handicapped by political intrigues and his outspoken temperament
During the heyday of the USSR as the greatest national chess power, the former Yugoslavia was capable of running the Soviet Union a good second. Dragoljub Velimirovic was a Yugoslav grandmaster who posed a real threat to the men from Moscow.
Dragoljub Velimirovic was born in 1942 to a prominent family from Valjevo, in the former Yugoslavia. He was introduced to chess at the age of seven by his mother, Jovanka Velimirovic, one of Yugoslavia’s leading female chess players before the Second World War.
Relocating to the capital, with its vibrant chess life, proved a turning point in Velimirovic’s career.