Academician Nikola Tasić and the Prehistory of the Central Balkans

It was my distinct honor to compose the introductory text for the collection of papers dedicated to Academician Nikola Tasić (1932–2017), an eminent figure and towering authority in Serbian and Yugoslav archaeology. The very mention of Academician Nikola Tasić evokes associations with the great triad of Serbian prehistorians, which, alongside him, included Milutin Garašanin and Dragoslav Srejović. Together with contemporaries such as Vladislav Popović and Bogdan Brukner, this generation epitomized what may rightly be termed the golden age of Serbian archaeology, both within the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and in the broader scholarly domain.