Jeanne Merkus (

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

, 11 October 1839 –

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

, 1 February, 1897), was a Dutch

deaconess The ministry of a deaconess is, in modern times, a usually non-ordained ministry for women in some Protestant, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox churches to provide pastoral care, especially for other women, and which may carry a limited ...

, guerilla soldier, and political activist.Wim van den Bosch, René Grémaux, Merkus, Jeanne, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Merkus 2/08/2018/ref> She was an educated deaconess and worked tending the wounded in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Between 1873 and 1876, she was a member of the Christian rebel guerilla of

Mićo Ljubibratić Mihajlo "Mićo" Ljubibratić ( sr-cyr, Мићо Љубибратић; 1839 – 26 February 1889) was a Serbian ''voivode'' (military commander), Orthodox priest, writer and translator that participated in the many uprisings in the Herzegovina regio ...

and participated in fighting the Ottoman Empire in

Herzegovina Herzegovina ( or ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Hercegovina, separator=" / ", Херцеговина, ) is the southern and smaller of two main geographical region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Bosnia. It has never had strictly defined geogra ...

, dressed as a male soldier and leading soldiers in battle. She served by organizing the army medical service on the Serbian side during the Serbian–Turkish Wars (1876–1878). She was famous in the contemporary international press and referred to as the "

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronati ...

of the Balkans".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merkus, Jeanne 1839 births 1897 deaths Deaconesses Women in 19th-century warfare Women in European warfare People of the Franco-Prussian War Serbian–Turkish Wars (1876–1878) 19th-century rebels 19th-century Dutch women Dutch clergy