Jovanka Broz

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Jovanka Broz (1940s)
Jovanka next to Tito with Sukarno at the Postojna Caves (1960)
Jovanka, Tito and the Nixons (1971)

Jovanka Broz ( Serbian - Cyrillic Јованка Броз ; * December 7, 1924 in Pećane near Udbina , Croatia , Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ; †  October 20,  2013 in Belgrade , Serbia ) was a Yugoslav partisan and fourth wife of Josip Broz Tito .

Life

Jovanka Broz, née Budisavljević (Будисављевић), was born to Serbian parents in the farming village of Pećane (near Udbina ) in Lika . During the Second World War she fought as a partisan in the People's Liberation Army against the 2nd Italian Army and the Wehrmacht , which had started the Balkan campaign (1941) . She became a captain there .

When Tito's second wife separated from him in 1944, confidants like Milovan Đilas wanted to prevent the next one from the bourgeoisie . Aleksandar Ranković , head of the OZNA , fell for Jovanka Budisavljević and sent her to Tito's household. The plan worked. Jovanka married Tito, then already a grandfather, on his 60th birthday. “In the fifties, sixties and in some cases also in the seventies, Jovanka Broz made a not inconsiderable contribution to Yugoslavia enjoying a good reputation in the world. It is true that at the beginning of his reign, Tito had established a blood-drenched regime of violence that killed tens of thousands. The fact that this hardly penetrated the public consciousness had at least in part to do with the radiant elegance of Yugoslavia's first lady. It represented the state not as it was, but as Tito wanted it to be seen. ” In the 1960s, Jovanka gained political influence behind the scenes. Nikita Khrushchev raved about her.

When the power struggle over Tito's successor began in the 1970s, those around him accused Jovanka of being a spy for the KGB or of planning a military coup. A party court acquitted them. Tito moved into another house, but refused to divorce . In June 1977 Jovanka and Tito were seen together for the last time. After Tito's death, she had to leave the residence overnight and move into a furnished villa nearby. She was under house arrest , had no ID, and was not allowed to receive foreign visitors. Your phone calls were tapped . Her participation in Tito's funeral in May 1980 was only approved because Indira Gandhi had stipulated her. Tito's personal photographer Ivo Eterović said she was a victim of the ambitions of politicians like Stane Dolanc and General Nikola Ljubičić .

Jovanka Broz receiving her Serbian passport (2009)

With the collapse of Yugoslavia, it became impoverished. She was childless and had no pension rights. Tito had done nothing for her retirement . After Tito's death, she lived in an increasingly dilapidated house on the outskirts of Dedinjes in the Belgrade district of Savski Venac , around two kilometers from her previous place of residence in the presidential residence. After the heating failed, Jovanka spent several winters in freezing cold. Until 2005 she left the house twice a year to lay flowers on his sarcophagus in the House of Flowers on the birthday and the anniversary of the death of her "Tito" . Otherwise she withdrew completely. In early 2006, Belgrade newspapers published an outraged letter from her sister Nada. A Serbian minister visited them and was appalled by the state of the house. The heating was partially repaired. Ivica Dačić , then Minister of the Interior, had her passport and ID issued in 2009. It was not until 2013 that she broke her silence when she gave the Serbian publicist Žarko Jokanović an insight into her life in long conversations.

“God gave me a wonderful life next to Tito. But no matter how many wonderful years there were - I was persecuted, tortured and abused for many more years. "

- Jovanka Broz

She had received nothing back from her expropriated property . As she struggled with death in her final months in an intensive care unit , Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian , Slovenian and Macedonian newspapers again printed old photographs with Winston Churchill , Haile Selassie , Paul VI. , Eleanor Roosevelt , the Kennedys , Elizabeth Taylor , Richard Burton , Anthony Eden , Willy Brandt , Jimmy Carter, and others. Nearly 10,000 people came to the funeral next to her husband. A few days later, the grave goods were stolen.

Jovanka Broz's Crypt, Museum of the History of Yugoslavia , Belgrade (2013)

Prime Minister Ivica Dačić expressed that "Yugoslavia was also buried with her":

“In forgetting Jovanka, we have forgotten ourselves. This is an opportunity to admit to ourselves that we have committed a sin - against it and our history. Jovanka Broz was a victim of political settlements and struggles in the vicinity of Tito. "

- Ivica Dačić

See also

Web links

Commons : Jovanka Broz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Florian Hassel: Jovanka Broz, the iron widow (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
  2. ↑ a b c d Michael Martens: Two sentences, a century. Whether king, statesman or Hollywood star - alongside all of them Jovanka Broz cut such a good figure as Tito's wife that all of Yugoslavia shone in her light. After his death it was first ostracized and then forgotten. Her funeral became a memorial service for a drowned country . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 28, 2013, No. 250, p. 3
  3. ↑ Vera Didanović: Tajna sa Dedinja . In: Vreme . No. 800 , May 4, 2006 ( online ).
  4. ↑ n-tv
personal data
SURNAME Broz, Jovanka
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Броз, Јованка (SrS); Budisavjlevic, Jovanka (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yugoslav partisan and fourth wife of Josip Broz Tito
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Pećane near Udbina , Croatia , Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
DATE OF DEATH 20th October 2013
Place of death Belgrade , Serbia