Borba (newspaper)
Borba (Борба in Serbian Cyrillic) was a Serbian newspaper, formerly the official gazette of the Yugoslav Communist Party (KPJ). Its name is the Serbian word for 'struggle' or 'combat'. History. The very first issue of "Borba" was first published in Zagreb on 19 February 1922, Đuro Cvijić, together with Kamil Horvatin became the editors of the newspaper at its founding. As the official gazette of the Yugoslav Communist Party (KPJ), a banned political organization since December 1920 that nevertheless operated clandestinely in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later Kingdom of Yugoslavia. From 1924, the editor  of Borba was Vladimir Ćopić, who was soon arrested for his articles against the government. Functioning as the banned Yugoslav Communist Party's propaganda piece, the paper played in important part in disseminating information among the party members, activists, and sympathizers. On 13 January 1929, a week following the proclamation of King Alexander's 6 January Dictatorship, "Borba" got banned. During World War II "Borba" was published in the Republic of Užice. After the World War II liberation by the Partisans, its publication moved to Belgrade. From 1948 to 1987, the newspaper was also published simultaneously in Zagreb. For a  long time, "Borba" alternated pages in Serbian Cyrillic alphabet and Gaj's Latin alphabet in the same edition. In 2002, more than a year following the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, "Borba" along with its distribution network were purchased by Serbian businessman Stanko "Cane" Subotić who bought the government shares in the paper. However, under Subotić, the daily "Borba" barely survived, printing no more than several hundred copies a day while according to business records, the company's monthly revenues never exceeded €30,000. 2009 redesign and cease of publication. Redesigned "Borba" got announced in December 2008 with Ivan Radovanović presented  as the paper's new owner after reportedly buying it from fugitive Serbian businessman Stanko "Cane" Subotić. Before the first issue of the redesigned paper appeared, Serbian deputy prime minister Mlađan Dinkić accused Subotić of still being "Borba"'s true owner with Radovanović only serving as the front man. Though announced for December, the first redesigned issue ended up appearing on newsstands on 15 January 2009 under editor-in-chief Miloš Jevtović who came over from the state-owned Tanjug news agency. It was published by "Izdavačko preduzeće Novine Borba" using the Latin alphabet. Content-wise, the paper's new  format was conceived as something new on the Serbian print media market with no news wire items and press releases with only analysis of the current events as well as ongoing political and social trends. Initial editor-in-chief Jevtović was soon replaced with Olivera Zekić. However, the paper sold poorly (less than 3,000 copies per day), ceasing publication in October 2009 after less than a year.