Milica Ninković (30 January 1854 – 18 November 1881) was a Serbian

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, translator and editor.

Life

Milica Ninković was born on 30 January 1854 in Újvidék, in the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

(now Novi Sad,

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

). She attended the School of

Pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

of the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

from 1872 to 1874 with her sister Anka. Upon leaving Switzerland in 1874, they decided to establish a private high school for girls in

Kragujevac Kragujevac ( sr-Cyrl, Крагујевац, ) is the List of cities in Serbia, fourth largest city in Serbia and the administrative centre of the Šumadija District. It is the historical centre of the geographical region of Šumadija in central Se ...

, Serbia, but permission was not granted by the government and they were threatened with expulsion from Serbia. Ninković avoided this by marrying the journalist and future politician Pera Todorović. During the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, she volunteered as a nurse. After the war, she worked for the British

Legation A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a minister. Ambassadors outranked ministers and had precedence at official events. Legation ...

in Belgrade, Serbia, until pressure from the Serbian government forced the British to fire her. Ninković then left the country to study medicine abroad, but caught

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

and died in Kragujevac on 18 November 1881.Pantelić, pp. 370–71

Activities

Shortly after their marriage, Ninković and her husband founded the newspaper ''Old Liberation'' (''Staro Oslobođenje'') and edited and she edited its supplement. She also worked as a translator and translated, among other works,

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

's '' The History of a Crime'' () into Serbian and Svetozar Marković's ''Serbia in the East'' (''Srbija na istoku'') into Russian. Upon her return from abroad in 1880, Ninković established one of the first feminist organizations of Serbs in Újvidék.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ninkovic, Milica 1854 births 1881 deaths Serbian feminists Serbian women's rights activists University of Zurich alumni 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Serbia People from Austria-Hungary Immigrants to the Principality of Serbia