Social outcast: Tito’s widow, from glory to isolation
Jovanka Broz dies at the age of 88.
Jovanka Broz dies at the age of 88.
BELGRADE:
Jovanka Broz, once a symbol of elegance as the wife of Yugoslav communist strongman Tito, lived the last three decades of her life as an outcast.
For Broz, who died in Belgrade on Sunday aged 88, the glory days ended shortly before Josip Broz Tito’s death in 1980 when his allies accused her of plotting a coup.
“They chased me out ... in my nightgown, without anything, not allowing me even to take a photo of the two of us, or a letter, a book,” Broz said in a rare interview in 2009.
Since then, “I was in isolation and treated like a criminal... I could not leave the house without armed guards,” she told the Politika daily.
Broz’s last public appearance was at Tito’s state funeral in May 1980.
Born into a peasant family in what is now Croatia on December 7, 1924, she joined Yugoslav’s World War II resistance fighters under Tito’s command at 17 and remained in the trenches until the end of the war, attaining the rank of captain.
As Yugoslavia began turning its back on its wartime ally Russia, then under Stalin’s rule, Broz was hired as Tito’s secretary in 1948.
The date of their marriage remains unclear, as are most details of Tito’s private life. Some biographers set it at 1952. She was the third wife of Tito, who was 31 years her senior.
With her voluminous raven black hair always swept up in a bun, Broz quickly became a symbol of elegance in a country impoverished by the war, with communist leaders focused on strengthening the new Yugoslav state.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 21st, 2013.
Jovanka Broz, once a symbol of elegance as the wife of Yugoslav communist strongman Tito, lived the last three decades of her life as an outcast.
For Broz, who died in Belgrade on Sunday aged 88, the glory days ended shortly before Josip Broz Tito’s death in 1980 when his allies accused her of plotting a coup.
“They chased me out ... in my nightgown, without anything, not allowing me even to take a photo of the two of us, or a letter, a book,” Broz said in a rare interview in 2009.
Since then, “I was in isolation and treated like a criminal... I could not leave the house without armed guards,” she told the Politika daily.
Broz’s last public appearance was at Tito’s state funeral in May 1980.
Born into a peasant family in what is now Croatia on December 7, 1924, she joined Yugoslav’s World War II resistance fighters under Tito’s command at 17 and remained in the trenches until the end of the war, attaining the rank of captain.
As Yugoslavia began turning its back on its wartime ally Russia, then under Stalin’s rule, Broz was hired as Tito’s secretary in 1948.
The date of their marriage remains unclear, as are most details of Tito’s private life. Some biographers set it at 1952. She was the third wife of Tito, who was 31 years her senior.
With her voluminous raven black hair always swept up in a bun, Broz quickly became a symbol of elegance in a country impoverished by the war, with communist leaders focused on strengthening the new Yugoslav state.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 21st, 2013.