Milan Martić
Croatian Serb politician (born 1954)
Milan Martić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милан Мартић; born 18 December 1954) is a Croatian Serb politician who served as the president of the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina, a self-proclaimed state largely populated by Serbs of Croatia that wished to remain in Yugoslavia during the Croatian War of Independence.
After the war, Martić was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He was convicted of war crimes on 12 June 2007 and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He is serving his sentence in Estonia since 2009.
Biography
Martić was born on 18 November 1954 in the village of Žagrović, in the Knin municipality. He graduated from the Post-Secondary Police School in Zagreb and between 1976 and 1981 worked as a policeman at the Public Security Station (SJB) in Šibenik.
From 1982 onwards, Martić was a Junior Police Inspector in Knin and was eventually promoted to Chief of the SJB. He was the local police chief in Knin at the time of Croatia's declaration of independence. In 1990, he took on the position of local Serb leader, organizing the Milicija Krajina militia, also known as Martić's Police.
From 4 January 1991 to August 1995, Martić held various leadership positions, including President, Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs, in SAO Krajina and the Republic of Serbian Krajina (both unrecognised).
Also in 1991, Serbian opposition leader Vuk Drašković claimed Martić and Goran Hadžić had organized an assassination attempt on him.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Milan Martić” as croatian Serb politician (born 1954). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as croatian Serb politician (born 1954). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q352249. VIAF identifies the subject as 6824162669503455500007. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954, 2007, 2009 and 1976.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Milan Martić”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Milan Martić primary sources, Milan Martić archive and Milan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Milan Martić”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Milan Martić” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.