History
Small Nation, Great Pride These are just a few of the women who have marked the history of Serbia over the last century. They educated themselves, made careers and left a tremendous impact on a society whose laws and rules of behaviour were crafted by men
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hey were heroines who in wartime fought against an occupier, and in peacetime with the traditions and prejudices of their surroundings. Some of them went out into the world to study, create, celebrate, but they returned to their country to build, raise and help without asking the price. Many of them paid dearly for their choice, but today represent the great pride of a small nation, even though attitudes towards them were often a disgrace to that nation. Fortunately, the court of history has finally given them their rightful place. In spite of their circumstances, the zeal of these women held noble and selfless sacrifice as a genuine commitment to defend all values, but most of all the value of dignity. They did everything in their power to change reality for the better. They did this with a firm conviction and their own view of the
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Empowered Women 2021
world. Many of them had not even had role models of their own, but they themselves became role models for all future generations. We cannot conceive of our historical, social and individual identity without reminding ourselves of their outsized contribution to social and cultural change.
THE FIRST WOMAN DOCTOR
DRAGA LJOČIĆ (1855–1926) was twenty-four years old when she returned from Zurich, the only city where a woman could study medicine, as the first female Serbian doctor – to be disqualified in every way in Serbia. She did not receive the same salary as a man, which did not prevent her from being a front-line doctor in every war that befell her: the Serbian-Turkish, Serbian-Bulgarian, the Balkan wars and the First World War.
MIlica Tomić
She was allowed to work only as a medical assistant in a state hospital, and was fired after ten years. She continued with private practice and successfully treated her patients. It was only in 1919 that she received the full title of doctor, and in 1924 she acquired the right to a pension. She was married to Raša Milošević, one of the founders of the People’s Radical Party, the first party founded in Serbia. They had a son and four daughters. In 1906, together with other prominent women in Belgrade, she founded the Serbian People’s Women’s Council, which united all the women’s associations in Serbia at the time.
THE FIRST FEMINIST
MILICA TOMIĆ (1859–1944), a fighter for women’s emancipation, was formed alongside her father Svetozar Miletić, the most
