Jovanka Broz


Jovanka Broz was the First Lady of Yugoslavia from 1952 until 1980 as the wife of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito. She was a lieutenant colonel in the Yugoslav People's Army.
Born in Lika, she joined the anti-fascist resistance movement in 1941 and served in the Partisan army during World War II in Yugoslavia, where she was wounded twice and awarded the Order of Bravery. In 1945, she was assigned as Tito's personal secretary and later became his wife in 1952.
As First Lady, she participated in numerous diplomatic events and hosted foreign leaders. In the 1970s, tensions with Tito's close aides led to accusations of political interference, resulting in her isolation and eventual separation from Tito in 1977. After his death in 1980, she lived in near-complete seclusion under unofficial house arrest, without personal documents or a pension. Her living conditions deteriorated, and she regained her documents only in 2009. She died in 2013 in Belgrade and was buried with state honours at the House of Flowers.

Early life and ancestry

Jovanka Budisavljević was born on 7 December 1924, into a Croatian Serb family in the village of Pećane near Udbina, in the Lika region, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, now Croatia. Her parents were Milica and Mihailo "Mićo" Budisavljević. She had four siblings: older brother Maksim, younger brother Petar, and two younger sisters, Nada and Zora. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Jovanka Svilar. Her father emigrated to the United States as a young man, where his uncles lived, before returning in 1920 to the newly formed kingdom. He purchased 20 acres of farmland and married Milica Svilar. The couple had three children before Mićo briefly moved to Canada. Fluent in English and well-travelled, he became known in the village as the "rich American." During World War II in Yugoslavia, he served as a translator for the American military mission that landed in the Krbava field. After Milica died of tuberculosis in 1937, Mićo remarried and had a daughter, Mara, with his second wife, Soka Svilar.
Jovanka descended from the prominent noble Budisavljević family of Serb origin. One of her ancestors, Prota Tomo Budisavljević, was an Orthodox priest and army major who defended the border against Ottoman incursions. His father, Marko Budisavljević, was raised to the rank of nobility in 1787 by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. Tomo's daughter, Sofia, married Nikola Mandić, and their daughter, Georgina "Đuka" Mandić, became the mother of the famed inventor Nikola Tesla, making Jovanka and Tesla distantly related.
In April 1941, when World War II started in Yugoslavia, the Budisavljević family was forced to flee the violently anti-Serb Ustasha regime of the Independent State of Croatia, which targeted one third of the prečani Serbs for forced conversion to Catholicism, another third for expulsion and the final third for extermination. The family's house was eventually burned down by the Ustasha troops. She joined the Yugoslav Partisans shortly thereafter, at the age of 17.

Life with and around Tito

Former JNA General Marjan Kranjc says Jovanka was assigned to the Marshal as early as 1945 as part of the personnel that checked his food and overall cleanliness for the purpose of preventing disease. After the death of Tito's great love Davorjanka Paunović, whose grave is in the Dedinje Royal Compound, in 1946, Jovanka became his personal secretary according to Kranjc: "In this way she became a part of the innermost security ring around Tito and had to sign a secret cooperation agreement with the State Security Service, which was the law."

Initial relationship

Milovan Đilas, one of the communist revolutionary movement's leading members and ideologues, and a subsequent dissident, provides more details about Jovanka during this period in Druženje s Titom. According to him, the relationship with Tito was extremely difficult for her:
She never appeared outside of Tito's company. We'd see her many times as she was keeping a vigil for hours in a hallway , to make sure she is available if Tito needs anything as he's going to sleep. Because of that, the wrath and the lack of trust she was receiving from other servants was almost inevitable. the motives for her closeness to Tito could've been explained in endless ways, none of which would show her character in a good light: career climbing, cajolery, malicious female extravagance, exploitation of Tito's lonesomeness...
As far as she was concerned, Tito was a war and communist party deity for whom everyone was supposed to sacrifice everything they had. She was a woman deep in the process of comprehending Tito as a man, while also increasingly and devotedly falling in love with him. She was resigned to burn out or fade away, unknown and unrecognised if need be, next to the divine man about whom she dreamt and to whom she could only belong now that he has chosen her.

Marriage

The exact date of their marriage is also subject to debate. The secret wedding ceremony happened either during 1951 or in April 1952; however, the location of the ceremony is also not clear. Some sources say it took place in the Dunavka villa in Ilok while others list Belgrade's municipality of Čukarica as the location.

Deterioration

Many believed her to be a victim of the ambitions of various politicians who managed to manipulate the ageing Marshal into turning against his wife. Ivo Eterović, a writer and photographer with unprecedented decades-long access to Yugoslavia's ruling couple, stated "the main culprits for the Tito-Jovanka split are that pig Stane Dolanc and General Nikola Ljubičić". In 1975, Tito left their common home, and she did not see him from 1977 to 1980 when he died. After Marshal Tito's death she lived in seclusion in Dedinje, a Belgrade suburb, under house arrest. The house was in a very bad condition; nobody cared to repair anything. The roof was leaking, and she did not have her pension or any of her documents. She lived without heating for eight years. She got her ID and passport in 2009. They took her car, so she was not able to go to her husband's grave when she wanted to. The government had to be notified if she left the house. She had practically no human rights for 30 years.

Death

Broz was hospitalised on 23 August 2013, and died from a heart attack in a Belgrade hospital on 20 October 2013, aged 88. She was buried in the House of Flowers mausoleum near her husband's grave.

Memoirs

The book titled My Life, My Truth was released three weeks before she died.

Honours