Mirjana Marković

Personal life

Marković is the daughter of Moma Marković, a wartime communist partisan, and Vera Miletić. Her aunt was Davorjanka Paunović, private secretary and mistress of Josip Broz Tito. Her mother was a member of Tito's partisans during the war. She was captured by German troops and allegedly released sensitive information, under torture. However, according to her grandmother, the story is a little different. Her father had betrayed her to the Gestapo in order to get rid of her, and she was captured as a Partisan courier, wearing clothes which included a handkerchief with flowers. She was then executed in Banjica prison by the Germans.

Her nickname was "Baca" at the time, given to her by her grandparents. It is because she was dropped ("baciti" means "to throw" in Serbian) by her father into a brook, when their grandparents, who had lost all their children, were hiding her from Chetniks in the local mill. When they called him and gave Mira to him, he dropped her shouting "Ne treba mi pasce od kuje!". ("I don't need a hound from the bitch"). She was left scarred on the forehead; and later maintained bangs in order to hide the scar.

Marković met Slobodan Milošević when they were in high school together. They married in 1965. The couple had two children, son Marko and daughter Marija, who founded a Serbian television Košava in 1998, and remained owner of this television station until 5 October 2000.

Education

She held a PhD in Sociology and was Professor in that subject at Belgrade University. Later, she became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She wrote a political column in Duga weekly during her husband's years in power. She was considered very powerful in the country and sometimes described as the only person who her husband really trusted and closely consulted. Also, as the leader of Yugoslav United Left political party, she held some independent political influence. Mira is also the author of numerous books, which were translated and sold in Canada, Russia, China and India.

Political views

Marković's political views tended to be hard-line Communist. Although she often claimed that she agreed with her husband on everything, Slobodan seems to have had fewer authoritarian tendencies than Mira. Mira reportedly had little respect for the Bosnian Serb leaders. Vojislav Šešelj appeared before a court on 18 June 1994 to face charges of breaking microphone cables in Parliament. He read a statement, saying, "Mr. Judge, all I can say in my defense is that Milošević is Serbia's biggest criminal." Marković replied by calling Šešelj a "primitive Turk who is afraid to fight like a man, and instead sits around insulting other people's wives." Karadžić was apparently unable to telephone Milosević, because Mira would not tolerate his calls. She claimed also to be a feminist.

Commenting on her husband's arrest to face war crimes charges, Marković stated:

After her husband's arrest, Marković went to Russia. The authorities of Serbia issued an arrest warrant for her on fraud charges which was circulated via Interpol, but the Russian authorities have so far refused to arrest her. In December 2006, nine months after her husband's death during his trial in The Hague, a Serbian court also ordered her arrest on charges of ordering the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija. Minister Vuk Drašković stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would demand extradition of Marković from Russia. In 2008, a Serbian prosecutor announced that Marković might be tried in absentia.

Marković was largely responsible for erecting the Eternal flame in Belgrade monument in 2000 shortly before the 5 October revolution. After the 2012 elections, a spokesperson for the winning Serbian Progressive Party said that Marković and her son were welcome to return, but it took no steps to rescind the charges against them.

In March 2012 a collection of her columns for Pravda from 2007 until 2008 as well as for online portal Sloboda from 2010 until 2011, titled Destierrada e imperdida was published in Belgrade by Treći milenijum, a publishing house owned by Hadži Dragan Antić.