NADEŽDA PETROVIĆ – a Serbian woman whose courage was above life

The woman, whose biography leaves us breathless, left us with a legacy that every nation needs – heroic deeds of which we are all proud. Because what adorns the life of Nadežda Petrović is not only reflected in her paintings on the walls of the museum, but in what she did for Serbian people, selflessly giving them herself and her life.

Academic painter, founder of the Circle of Serbian Sisters (Serbian: Kolo Srpskih Sestara), a war nurse who cared for hundreds of wounded from the Balkan Wars and the Great War in which she lost her life, humanitarian, patriot and the only woman whose image is on the Serbian banknote.

She was born in Čačak in 1873, in a family that was quite open-minded for that era, where children received various educations, from languages ​​to painting and could choose which talents to develop, she was raised in love and harmony. Father Dimitrije will encourage them in their decisions, with the support of mother Mileva, a teacher, cousin of politician Svetozar Miletić.

A large family (she was born as the oldest of 13 children) came to Belgrade in 1884, so that the children could continue their education, where Nadežda Petrović graduated from the Women’s High School and took drawing lessons from the famous painter Đorđe Krstić. She continued her studies in Munich, became friends with Kandinsky and Javljensky, and stayed in Paris in Ivan Meštrović’s studio, where she met Picasso and Rodin. In addition to painting, she is engaged in photography, a very advanced branch of art at the beginning of the 20th century.

In Petrović’s home in Belgrade, the intellectual and cultural elite of that time gathered, such as Dis, Branislav Nušić, Jovan Skerlić, Žerajić, Gaćinović, Gavrilo Princip and many others, who would influence not only the consciousness of young Nadežda, but also the world and our history. That is why it is not surprising that she had a highly expressed patriotic trait in her.

The time in which the young artist is growing up is one of the most turbulent in our recent history. Serbia is a new country in which the struggle between two dynasties, Obrenović and Karađorđević, arose many decades ago, since the time of Karađorđe and Miloš. This will end with the murder of King Aleksandar and Draga Mašin in 1903, when King Petar I Karađorđević comes to the throne. On the other hand, the Turkish influence in the Balkans still continues and the desire to free the south of Serbia from their rule is becoming stronger.

At that time, the Ilinden uprising for the independence of Macedonia began, directed against the Ottomans. It was led by a secret Macedonian-Odrina revolutionary organization, and was suppressed by retaliation and the Turkish pogrom against Christians.

Shaken by these events, with the desire to help the people who suffered in every way, Nadežda Petrović with several influential women (Savka Subotić, Milica Dobri, Mirka Grujić and Delfa Ivanić) founds the „Circle of Serbian Sisters“ (Kolo Srpskih Sestara), and they are assisted in this by Branislav Nušić and Ivan Ivanić, who wrote the first Statute of the company.

Accompanied by Vojislav Tankosić, a major of the Serbian army, she goes to Macedonia to distribute the humanitarian aid collected by the society.

Vojislav Tankosić, as one of the founders of the organization „United or Death“ (popularly called „Black Hand“), went with her to form special units that will fight against the Turks, known as komiti (Chetniks).

In Macedonia, she was faced with the difficult situation of the people who were without food, exposed to terror from which there was no one to protect them. Although the Turks burned the grain and bread she was carrying, she did not give up her intention to help the people.

After arriving in Belgrade, she goes to Nikola Pašić in order to obtain money for the purchase of weapons, necessary for the fight. She succeeds in this and in the utmost secrecy leaves for Macedonia with Vojislav Tankosić, in order to distribute weapons to the insurgents.

She did not give up on the south of Serbia even after returning to Belgrade in 1903. Her travels continued, as did her humanitarian work, but also painting, which would lead her to found the first painting colony in the then unknown village of Sićevo, near Niš. The reason, as she stated, was to bring colleagues from various parts of the country and abroad, „to paint in pener, study Serbian folk customs, exchange opinions and experiences.“

The art colony in Sićevo still exists today and gathers artists as well as women’s associations that organize various painting workshops there.

During this period, her stay in Paris, in the studio of Ivan Meštrović, will take place, when she meets Picasso, Matisse, Maria Lorensen and participates with them in the first Fauvist exhibition. Then, according to critics, her best works, „The Church of the Mother of God“ (srp. Bogorodičina crkva) and „The Boulogne Forest“ (srp. Bulonjska šuma) were created.

 

WAR NURSE

Not long after her stay in Paris, preparations for the First Balkan War began in Serbia, and after its outbreak, Nadežda Petrović will participate as a nurse on the front lines. She continues her work as a nurse to help wounded soldiers in the Second Balkan War and writes about those events in her letters to relatives and friends.

In one of the letters, she wrote „…We live here in the continuous wailing of the wounded, bandaging of wounds, the cry of our heroic army, their marches, welcoming and sending them off to the battlefield, so we receive and care for the wounded. And yet everything goes happily, and the Turks are losing battles and our victory is on the horizon. Our soldiers look like brothers to me and their cries of „Sister, sister“! – they are genuine and make me proud to help them“.

At that time, one of the most famous photos of Nadežda Petrović as a nurse was created, in which she is in black, with a red cross symbol on the sleeve of her coat in her hand and a bouquet of violets hanging from her belt. The photograph was taken in 1913, at the time when she created the famous paintings „Kosovo Peonies (Gračanica)“ and „Vizier’s Bridge“ (which our army will cross when it begins its retreat through Albania in 1915). On the picture, she will write „as the only nurse, she nursed 80 typhoid patients…“.

Not long after the end of the Balkan Wars, Serbia entered the Great War, in which Nadežda will participate, now as an experienced nurse, but unprepared for the horrors she will encounter on the front. As part of the Danube Division, they will take part in the battles at Mačkov Kamen. She will write about it the following:

„The fighting in that position was more than bitter, fighting until extermination. All company commanders, battalion commanders, sergeants, five regiment commanders, five lieutenant colonels from the ninth, fourth supernumerary, fourth first and second call and 64 officers from the Eighteenth regiment were killed and mortally wounded, and only half of the soldiers remained from all regiments. There are units that numbered from 450 to 120. We had 4,000 wounded, I thought I was going crazy from misery and shock, I had a nervous breakdown…when they suddenly brought us twenty seriously wounded officers, I was petrified…I placed them in a big tent…I started to cry desperately, so that the poor people themselves comforted me, and one of them, caressing my sleeve with his hand, choked himself in tears, saying to me: „Be brave, Miss Nadežda, God willing, we will persevere, we will win, those who stayed there will avenge us“… Lord, don’t you see, they all perished. God, why punish our nation like this! None of our past wars gave us so much misery and horror…“

During the lull after the battles of Cerska and Kolubara, Nadežda Petrović went to visit her family in Skopje at the beginning of 1915, but refused to stay there, even though they begged her not to return to the front. They offered her to go to Rome, but after her refusal, they offered her to be in Belgrade or Niš with hospitals or humanitarian missions. She did not agree to any offer and returned to Valjevo, where, after the Battle of Kolubara, was a massive typhus epidemic.

More than half a million people fell ill in Serbia, and the number of deaths was estimated at 135,000. In Valjevo, 11 doctors and medical students died in the hospital where Nadežda Petrović was a nurse. At the end of March, she also became infected with typhus, from which she died after a week of illness, on April 3, 1915.

In the speech dedicated to her by her contemporary and friend Veljko Petrović, we learn how her last days passed:

„In 1915 during the temporary withdrawal of the Serbian army, I had the good fortune to meet her, she was in a burnt, muddy overcoat, with hospital blankets, with soldiers, in bloody bandages, crutches. Her healthy, full ruddy face, despite the efforts and poverty at that time, shone with confidence, and the soldiers’ eyes showed more than affection, they showed true love for their Big Sister. Everywhere, under those tent wings, in all the trenches in Serbia, it was said at that time how, afterward, the soldiers turned her over in wet sheets, crying gloomily, non-stop, just to reduce her typhoid fever, to save that big heart that was beating for them until the end„. – Veljko Petrović, from a speech at the ceremony on the occasion of the unveiling of the monument to Nadežda Petrović in Čačak – Čačanski glas, December 14, 1955.

Nadežda Petrović rests in the family tomb at the New Cemetery in Belgrade, with violets around her waist and peonies from Gračanica.

 

Author: Dijana Vasiljević