Background
Petar Živković was born in Negotin, Principality of Serbia (present-day Bor District, Serbia) in 1879.
Petar Živković was born in Negotin, Principality of Serbia (present-day Bor District, Serbia) in 1879.
University of Belgrade.
He was Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 7 January 1929 until 4 April 1932. Živković later founded the secret organization White Hand in 1912, which served to counter the power of the Black Hand. In 1921, Alexander I of Yugoslavia appointed Živković commander of the Palace Guards.
In 1929 he was appointed Prime Minister as part of the 6 January Dictatorship.
Upon Pavle"s 1941 signing of the Tripartite Pact, Živković left Yugoslavia, ahead of the Nazi invasion (see Balkans Campaign). He became part of the Yugoslav government in exile.
In 1946 he was tried in absentia in Yugoslavia and sentenced to death. He remained in exile in France, dying in Paris in 1947, aged 68.
Black Hand]
Živković held the office as a member of the Yugoslav Radical Peasants" Democracy (JRSD), which was soon the only legal party in Yugoslavia, due to his electoral "reforms." He resigned as prime minister in 1932, and shortly thereafter founded the Yugoslav National Party, becoming its president in 1936.