Good morning! History revision was never as successful as in the case of Divna Vekovic, the “first doctor” and “humanitarian” from Montenegro. Who was Divna Vekovic? Why was so much energy invested in deleting certain facts from her biography?
Divna Vekovic – a Chetnik and an anti-Semite
If you google the name Divna Vekovic, you’ll find nothing but praise. Her Wikipedia page has been translated into 20 languages. By reading articles on Wikipedia and in Serbian newspapers with the headlines ‘Divna Vekovic, the first doctor in Montenegro’, you’d think she’s a heroine, a fighter for women’s rights, a humanitarian, a Serbian patriot. Who made this happen and where did the interest in Divna come from in the last couple of years?
Apart from the SPC, Vekovic is also being promoted by people from politics, academia and civil society.
Last year, the former mayor of Berane and current minister Dragoslav Scekic requested that a street in Berane be named after her. The Ministry of Culture revoked the decision, because they had information about Vekovic’s actions during World War II.
Many Berane residents strongly protested against the decision of the ministry. Among the first was the nationalist activist from that town, Nebojsa Babovic, but young members of the once sovereigntist Movement for Changes also reacted.
A few days ago, activist Bojana Jokic, whose organization often relativize Serbian right-wingers and nationalists, expressed regret that Divna Vekovic didn’t have a street in Berane. The examples of Jovo Vucurovic and Minister Leposavic are among the first.
In 2017, the SPC named the national kitchen in Berane by the name of Divna Vekovic, and in 2021, the Montenegrin scientist Ksenija Rakocevic wrote a text titled ‘Divna Vekovic – our heroine’ for the project ‘Defiant Trajectories: Woman Writers Route, Mapping out Slavic Woman Writers Route’. Ksenija is the daughter of the director of the former National Library during the rule of the DPS, Bogic Rakocevic, and a scholarship recipient of the Government of Montenegro from that time.
All this engagement yielded little result. Although historians such as Prekic, Papovic and Batricevic have written about Vekovic’s anti-Semitism, she is shown as a positive example on the website of the Museum of Women, where problematic details from her biography are not mentioned at all. On the Twitter profile of a British organization, Europia, Vekovic is shown with a raised fist. Literally as the heroine of feminism.
The opposite is completely different. Vekovic was a nationalist and anti-Semitic. Her texts place women in a traditional, submissive role. Apart from cooperation with the occupiers, she actively called for a fight against ‘Jewish agents’ and promoted the narrative about the heroism of war criminal Pavle Djurisic.
In his text ‘Zaostro’ from December 1942, Vekovic writes about a visit to the headquarters of Pavle Djurisic for the occupying Voice of Montenegro: “In this small, remote village, our Chetnik leader Pavle Djurisic began his glorious and God-blessed campaign. Because it should be known well, in Zaostro, around Mr. P. Djurisic, the first action in all of Montenegro started against Jewish agents”. But that wasn’t all about her anti-Semitism: “I left these young people, regretting in my soul that I’m not young, so that I could share their good and bad as I used to, but I’m very happy that I saw so much enthusiasm, so much desire, that the people be saved from Jewish bloodsuckers”.
Zaostro is still a gathering place for Chetnik organizations in Montenegro. They meet there every year.
The relativization of history is very problematic when it comes to many historical figures of that time. Everyone sees others, but not their own. The Democratic Front is bothering us with the story about the national anthem, linking it to Sekula Drljevic, while at the same time celebrating people like Pavle Djurisic and Divna Vekovic. The problem is that some supposedly neutral activists help them in this.
That’s all for today. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM observer and columnist
(The opinions and views of our columnists aren’t necessarily those of the CdM news team)
