Živorad "Žikica" Jovanović, nicknamed Španac was a Yugoslav partisan, Spanish-trained commando and republican volunteer in the Spanish Civil War and is credited for initiating the anti-fascist struggle in Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a skilled guerilla fighter and organizer of guerilla units in Serbia, largely tied to his intense Spanish Civil War activities. He enjoyed enormous prestige in Yugoslav communist ranks, and in 1941 he even disobeyed direct orders of Josip Broz Tito to leave from Serbia to Bosnia with his units. There are controversies about his death, tightly related to his conflict with the Supreme Command during the war. History remembers him as a young idealist and a man who loved Spain.

The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army, officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, was the communist-led anti-fascist resistance to the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. Led by Josip Broz Tito, the Partisans are considered to be Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement during World War II.