Delfa Ivanić (6 March 1881 – 14 August 1972) was a Serbian painter, humanitarian and together with Slavka Subotić and

Nadežda Petrović Nadežda Petrović ( sr-Cyrl, Надежда Петровић; 11/12 October 1873 – 3 April 1915) was a Serbian painter and one of the women war photography pioneers in the region. Considered Serbia's most famous expressionist and fauvist ...

, one of the founders of the Circle of Serbian Sisters. She was also a translator, writer, editor of magazines and the first Serbian woman to receive

Florence Nightingale Medal The Florence Nightingale Medal is an international award presented to those distinguished in nursing and named after British nurse Florence Nightingale. The medal was established in 1912 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), f ...

Biography

Delfa Ivanić was born in

Podgorica Podgorica (Cyrillic: Подгорица, ; lit. 'under the hill') is the capital and largest city of Montenegro. The city was formerly known as Titograd (Cyrillic: Титоград, ) between 1946 and 1992—in the period that Montenegro form ...

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

, 6 March 1881. During the

First Balkan War The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...

in 1912, with

Walburga, Lady Paget Walburga Ehrengarde Helena, Lady Paget (''née'' von Hohenthal; 3 May 1839 – 11 October 1929) was a German diarist, writer and an intimate friend of Queen Victoria. Biography Countess Walburga Ehrengarde Helena von Hohenthal was born in 1839 ...

, she established the VI Reserve Hospital for the wounded in Belgrade and in 1913, a hospital in

Durrës Durrës ( , ; sq-definite, Durrësi) is the second most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of ...

, Albania. She founded the Serbian Support Society (Srpsko potporno udruženje) in 1915 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. The society organized the housing of 500 Serbian schoolchildren in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

. Her humanitarian work took her to

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, France,

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

, and Rijeka. She returned to Belgrade in 1919. Throughout this period, she held lectures on the work of women's humanitarian societies in almost every city she found herself in during the war. She was the first Serbian woman to receive the Red Cross

in 1920. In 1962, she gave the Serbian Medical Society her medal. She worked as a translator, writer and editor of magazines. Delfa Ivanić was also involved in the building of the Center of the Circle of Serbian Sisters in Belgrade, which included a boarding school for girls. She was the president of the Circle from 1941 to its abolition in 1946. She died in Belgrade (at the time in SFR Yugoslavia), 14 August 1972.

Selected works

*Uspomene, 2012. *Predavanje dr Keti Širmaherove i naše ženske prilike, article, 1906. *O srpskom narodnom ženskom savezu i njegovim zadacima, article, 1912. *Žena na domu, u društvu i u javnom životu, article, 1912.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivanic, Delfa 1881 births 1972 deaths Artists from Podgorica 20th-century Serbian painters Serbian humanitarians 20th-century Serbian writers 20th-century Serbian women writers Serbian translators Serbian women artists Serbian magazine editors Circle of Serbian Sisters 20th-century translators Women magazine editors Florence Nightingale Medal recipients Writers from Podgorica