The outbreak of World War I interrupted Bojić's studies at the University of Belgrade and forced him to postpone marrying his girlfriend, Radmila Todorović.

In October 1915, the Serbian Army was overwhelmed by a combined Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and German invasion and forced to retreat to neutral Greece via Albania.

Bojić was not allowed to accompany his brother and fiancée on a ship destined for Italy because he was of fighting age, and had to continue marching to Greece without them.

Owing to the political connections of his patrons, he managed to find care at an exclusive military hospital in Thessaloniki, but by late October his condition worsened.

Many of his poems received widespread critical acclaim for their portrayal of the Serbian Army's retreat during the winter of 1915–16 and its stay on Corfu, where thousands of soldiers succumbed to disease and exhaustion and were buried at sea.

Following the First Serbian Uprising, Bojić's great-grandfather fled his ancestral homeland and settled in the Austro-Hungarian city of Semlin (modern Zemun) to escape Ottoman persecution.

Jovan is said to have greatly influenced the young Bojić, having introduced him to Serbian folk tales and medieval legends at an early age.

He also began writing literary reviews for Jovan Skerlić and Milan Grol's Daily News (Dnevni list), and became the paper's youngest contributor.

Bojić also authored articles in the newspapers Artwork (Delo), Wreath (Venac) and The Serbian Literary Gazette (Srpski književni glasnik).

[7] After graduation, in the autumn of 1910, he enrolled in the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, where he studied the works of Immanuel Kant, as well as German, Italian and South Slavic literature with varying rates of success.

[5] Shortly after entering the university, Bojić began contributing theatrical reviews to Pijemont, an ultra-nationalist daily strongly opposed to the Prime Minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, and his People's Radical Party (Serbian: Narodna radikalna stranka; NRS).

[nb 2] Pijemont was also the quasi-official paper of the secret organization Unification or Death (better known as the Black Hand), which played an important role in Serbian political life between 1903 and 1914.

[5] In 1911, Bojić shared the first draft of a stage play titled "Chains" (Lanci) with Dragutinović, who encouraged him to submit it to a competition held by the Literary Committee of the National Theatre in Belgrade.

A number of prominent writers took part in the competition, including Ivo Vojnović, Branislav Nušić, Aleksa Šantić, and Svetozar Ćorović.

[7] Despite his busy schedule, during his university years Bojić spent many of his nights in cafés and bars, mingling with other artists in Skadarlija, Belgrade's Bohemian quarter.

Helena Malířová, a Czech volunteer nurse with the 17th Reserve Hospital of the Serbian Army's 7th Regiment, recalled: "His spirit was in constant opposition to everything; at the same time he was an enthusiast.

From rare photographs and the testimony of his contemporaries emerges [...] a figure of medium stature, with slightly drooped shoulders, thick brown hair, and a pale oval face.

[12]As the wars raged, Bojić wrote a historical drama titled "The King's Autumn" (Kraljeva jesen), which received considerable praise from Skerlić.

[14] Bojić devoted most of his creative energy to the completion of an epic poem titled Cain, which was published just before the combined Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and German invasion of Serbia in October 1915.

The two intended to join retreating Montenegrin Army columns and head on to Scutari, where they hoped that Allied ships would evacuate them and other Serbian troops to Italy.

[15] While marching through the wilderness, Bojić began writing a poetry anthology titled "Songs of Pain and Pride" (Pesme bola i ponosa), which would comprise some of his best known works.

He was making plans for a vast novel in verse, for comedies, dramas, tragedies, all intended to bring the great events of our history back to life."

Unable to go with them, Bojić and his companions continued down the length of the Albanian coast until they reached Corfu, where the Allies had sent ships to transport the remnants of the Serbian Army to the Greek mainland.

[17] Upon reaching Corfu, thousands of Serb troops began showing symptoms of typhus and had to be quarantined on the island of Vido, where 11,000 died over the span of two months.

[21] "I shall return to you the same – joyful, risen, fearless ...And appear proud, as you once knew me, on glory-gilded fields" Upon reaching Thessaloniki, Bojić spent much of his spare time reading the works of French authors and writing poetry.

In August 1916, he received a month's leave and sailed for France, where his fiancée and brother had gone to escape from the war, shortly after landing in Italy.

Owing to the influence of his old patron, Ljuba Jovanović-Patak, he was admitted to a military hospital in central Thessaloniki which tended exclusively to Serbian Army officers, where Jovanović's wife often visited him.

[25] All of Bojić's siblings survived the war; his brother Radivoje became a diplomat and worked in the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs until the Axis invasion of the country in April 1941, when he left Yugoslavia with his family and emigrated to the West.

Restrain your mighty rudders!Walk with silent tread as I utter this proud Requiem amid the evening chillO'er these sacred waters" While at the University of Belgrade, Bojić studied The Bible in his free time and read the works of Victor Hugo, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Baudelaire, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Sigmund Freud, among others.

He writes that Bojić's influence on Serbian literature would have been even greater had he survived the war, and praises him as "one of the great poets of the 20th century".