Balkan Routes: Chasing My Own God-Gifted Surname in Serbia

Growing up in a small town in Sussex, in the south of England, the name Todorovic was far from famous and much closer to peculiar. Migration hadn’t really hit the area I grew up in; I doubt it has even now. Even Norman or Irish surnames stood out amongst the heavily English community.

Surnames are one of the few things that follow you everywhere. Every form, passport, exam and email carries them. As a man with no intention of changing my name, Todorovic has and will follow me everywhere, literally.

The first memories of my name would be from school – teachers fumbling the pronunciation and the frustrations of my younger self, as my name would never fit in the box you were supposed to write it in. False inquiries about being Polish or Russian were frequent.

Only when I grew up would I understand that, ethnically, I was Serbian. I had never met a Serbian person or really known anything about Serbia. I certainly did not know the language. When I was old enough to understand, my mother explained that my grandfather was from Yugoslavia, adding another complexity to a seven-year-old’s understanding of the Balkans.

My grandfather was a Serbian merchant sailor. The few photos I have seen of his were taken in various parts of the world. Two of his photos place him in Tokyo, for example. I also have one of his books, which was bought in Arhangelsk, in the very north of Russia.

He met my grandmother in the UK and they married. Weirdly, they settled in the Cotswolds. I am certain that he was the only Yugoslav in the English West Country at the time. One of the more interesting things I know about my grandfather is, actually, about his sister. Supposedly, she was a Partisan fighter in the Second World War. There are also some murmurings that he was partly Slovenian, but I am not sure about that.

Obviously, I never met him, and my mother never had the chance to learn Serbian or anything about Serbia, so that left me with his surname and a vague idea that, technically, I was Serbian.

Ted Todorovic-Thomas’s Serbian grandfather in Tokyo (left). Photo courtesy of Ted Todorovic-Thomas.

Djokovic sparks curiosity

Oddly, it took Novak Djokovic to spike my first real interest in Serbia. It was during his great 2011 season, and specifically his first Wimbledon success that grabbed the attention of my seven-year-old mind.

It would have been the first time I’d seen a Serbian person. Like any child’s mind, I instantly associated Serbia with winning as a result – a standard that I would later understand applies only to its sporting endeavours.

In 2013, as he faced Murray for the championships. I stood out like a sore thumb in classroom chatter. This was peak “Britannia”, and I was the one kid arguing with everyone and hoping for a Murray loss. Of course, Murray would go on to win, leaving a vivid memory of childhood pain.

Regardless of the actual tennis, the personal victory for myself was that Serbia had entered my life. I was still too young at the time to do anything about it, but the seed was planted.

It would take another sportsman to water the seed that Novak had planted. Despite my geographical location, I am a Newcastle United fan (that’s a whole other story). When I was a little older, a teenager, we signed the Serbian forward, Aleksandar Mitrovic.

Not only was Mitrovic Serbian, he also had the same name as my grandfather – Aleksandar. That seems little now, but to a 13-year-old looking for answers about his identity, it was an interesting coincidence.

As I attended the games, I asked my parents if they would buy me a Serbian flag. They obliged, and after the games I would wave the flag, waiting for a wave or smile from Mitrovic. He had become my favourite player and another addition to the increasing intrigue.

There would be others, like David Vujanic, aka Vuj, a British-Serbian Youtuber who I watched as a kid. I had the pleasure of meeting him once, when our WIZZ Air flight was cancelled. We had to get the painful bus to Budapest to get a flight home, as Wizz Air didn’t have a seat available for the next eight days.

By the time I was in Sixth Form (school for those aged 16-18, for those not familiar), this seed of curiosity that had been planted years earlier became an overgrown plant in my mind. I was desperately waiting to turn 18 so that I could go explore my ancestral homeland.

As my curiosity grew, my mother told me that my grandmother had visited Yugoslavia. She first visited Belgrade to meet family and friends. She later travelled across the other republics, especially fascinated by the coastline of Croatia.

Eventually, I would get the chance. I followed in my grandmother’s footsteps and visited Belgrade, becoming the first member of my immediate family to do so, in February 2022. It was cold, and obviously, during the COVID period, which would skew any experience.

My first visit felt like a teaser. I had no experience of travelling or any knowledge of the language, and I knew that to extract what I wanted, I would have to come back.

Best summer of my life

Watching Red Star Belgrade play in the Champions League in August 2022. Photo courtesy of Ted Todorovic-Thomas.

As I returned to the UK, I found a Serbian-language book that my grandfather had gifted my grandmother. This sparked a new interest and desire to learn the language that had skipped my mother’s generation.

Armed with some more phrases, I decided to attend a language school in Belgrade and spend my summer there. This was where I would really start to learn about my heritage and explore my relation to Serbia. I spent four weeks in the summer of 2022 as an 18-year-old, throwing myself into everything that Serbia could give me. It was probably the best summer of my life so far.

The language school had taken my interest into real learning. Via my new knowledge, I was able to lean into Serbian and Balkan culture more. The music, films, books and food will forever be in my heart. Every year, as Spotify Wrapped rolls around, I look forward to seeing which “Yugo Rock” song creeps into my top five. Bajaga & Instruktori’s Tisina , Crvena Jabuka’s Volio bih da si tu and, of course, the legendary Lipe Cvatu, sve je isto ko i lani, by Bijelo Dugme have been everpresents in my Spotify Wrapped for years now.

In the building of the apartment I was staying in, there was an agency named “Agencija Todorovic”. This would be the first time I had seen the name Todorovic, other than my own, of course: a moment that reaffirmed my decision to explore my roots.

On the same trip, I would meet two or three more Todorovics. We made jokes that maybe I was their long-lost cousin, and they did their best to improve my Serbian while showing me the delights of Belgrade’s nightlife – something which was very counterproductive to the language-learning process.

I had found what I was looking for, my whole life, and gained the knowledge that was always out of my reach as a kid in the south of England. I felt that I could say my name without the embarrassment of ignorance.

Whilst I will never know my grandfather any deeper than the few photos and old letters I have seen, my journeys to Belgrade ensured that Serbia would remain in my family. I hope that, for the next generations of this Todorovic line, I have been able to reintroduce the culture that had almost faded, showing that it’s more than just an inconvenient surname.

Ted Todorovic-Thomas is now a journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.