If by any chance he had the opportunity to return to this world, Broz would certainly wish to be immediately returned to the House of Flowers: faced with the fact that an entire country, an entire world has been destroyed thanks to the idiocy and psychosis of his political successors, it is difficult to could make a different decision.
However, unlike Tito's political heirs, the biological and family ones showed themselves in the best possible light. Almost three decades after the death of their husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, the Broz family cannot be qualified as anything other than normal. That achievement (quite big if you take into account the circumstances in which that family was created and survived) seems even greater if you compare the Broz family with the families of other more prominent deceased in this area. Apart from corpses and destruction, Tito's political successors were left behind with wanted sons, wives in exile, accounts in Switzerland, mansions in expensive locations, relatives on management boards, front pages in tabloids.
Tito is survived by his wife, children and grandchildren who are completely in line with the place where they live - some like this, some like that, some a little "on their own", but on average not at all different from the "ordinary world" that surrounds them, and which bears less sonorous surnames.
GENEALOGY
FIRST WIFE: Pelagia with Josip and Žarko
Josip Broz Tito met his first wife, the Russian Pelagia Bjelousova, when he was 24 years old, during his stay in the USSR. They got married in 1916, in Omsk, after which they came to Zagreb. Pelagia and Josip had three children – Hinko, Zlatica and Žarko, but only Žarko survived. Since Josip went to prison in 1928 after the "bomb process", Pelagia was transferred to Moscow by the Communist Party, and it remains unclear whether she divorced Broz on her own or was forced to do so, that is, whether she was really punished for that marriage with internment in Siberia. Anyway, they met again in 1935, when Josip came to Moscow to find his son Žarko. Pelagia died in 1967.
Two years earlier, in 1937, Tito met Herta Haas in Paris - a leftist and communist activist almost a quarter of a century younger than himself. In May 1941, Herta and Josip had a son, Aleksandar - Misha. However, the newlywed parents soon separated: legend says that in 1943, during the Second AVNOJ session in Jajce, Herta found Josip in flagrante with Davorjanka Popović Zdenko, otherwise a courier and secretary of the supreme commander. Davorjanka died in 1946, after which, again according to legend, Josip begged Herta to return to him in a letter from Poduga. To no avail.
Meanwhile, during the landing on Drvar, Josip Broz met Jovanka Budisavljavić, a nurse at the time. There are different versions of their love story, but it is certain that they got married in April 1952. From September 18, 1952, when she first appeared in the role of Tito's wife at a reception organized in honor of the head of British diplomacy, Anthony Idne, Jovanka was an inevitable part of all the marshal's performances for decades. She disappeared from the public scene in 1977, although the real reasons have never been precisely determined. Allegedly, she was estranged from Tito by his close associates - according to one source, due to the suspicion that she was participating in a conspiracy against her husband, and according to others, due to the desire of Tito's entourage to isolate him.
Tito's first son Žarko married three times. From his first marriage with Tamara Veger, he has a son, Josip - Joška, and a daughter, Zlatica. In his second marriage with Tereza Kujundžić, he had a son, Edvard, and in his third with Zlata Jelinek, a daughter, Svetlana. Josip - Joška was married four times. He has sons Nebojša and Viktor, daughter Tamara and grandsons Lazar, Luka and Filip. Daughter Zlatica from her marriage to Milan Žikelic has sons Ivan and Vukašin. Edvard Broz has a son Žarko, while Svetlana Broz has two children from four marriages: Ivan and Sonja.
Žarko died in 1995.
Tito's second son Aleksandar - Misha is married to Mira and has a daughter Aleksandra Saša and a son Andrej. Andrej has a daughter, Luka, and Sasha has a daughter, Sara.
HERTA
IN THE PARTISANS AND IN THE YEAR 95: Herta Hess
Although entire libraries were published about Tito's loves and illegitimate children, four women were officially recognized as wives or companions: Pelagija Bjelousova, Herta Haas, Davorjanka Popović and Jovanka Budisavljević. Pelagia and Davorjanka died, and Herta and Jovanka still live in Belgrade today.
After several decades of silence, Herta Haas recently appeared in public, as one of the interviewees for the series about Tito prepared by Lordan Zafranović. The well-known director told Zagreb's "Globus" what the series will be about, but also gave details about the interview with Tito's ex-wife. "Today she lives in Belgrade with her daughters, is in good shape, looks beautiful and fascinated us all. Preparations for the interview with her took a long time. And as for Tito, it's love to the end. She is not angry with him, she understands everything, she says: 'The war separated us', although it is known that during the war he was in a relationship with his secretary Davorjanka Paunović, whose partisan name was Zdenka. Herta Haas puts everything into context, into an experience that is enormously large." Herta Haas talks about the period immediately before she discovered Tito's fraud in great detail, and the story is really worthy of a movie. Namely, after giving birth to her son Misha and staying in Zagreb, Herta was arrested by the Ustashas in 1943. For fear of revealing someone's name, she attempted suicide, and "Globus" reports her words: "It's not that easy, cutting veins, especially since it wasn't a sharp enough knife... When I lost enough blood, I fainted." Before that, I did something else. I said: this jewelry that I have from Tito, no Ustaša woman behind me will wear! That would be worse than anything else. And as with some ceremony, I first threw the watch into the toilet bowl, then flushed the water, then the small platinum ring that Tito bought me in Moscow and then the wedding ring, and flushed the water again... And then when my hands were clean, I said: have me now As for Tito, I knew he would be sorry, we parted on the best of terms and with the greatest love, so I knew he would be sorry, but I said, he is a man in his prime, he will have nothing else to do, he will find another woman and forget." There are several versions of how Herta was pulled out of prison and who pulled her out, but it is certain that only a few months after her imprisonment she found herself in Jajce, where she realized that Tito had already found another woman. After the war, Herta married and gave birth to two daughters. She allegedly saw Tito only once more, in 1946, in his presidential office.
Herta Haas is 95 years old today.
JOHNKA
In the sixth personal division
Although she was an active partisan since the beginning of the Second World War and thanks to that earned the rank of major of the JNA, Jovanka Budisavljević became and remained only a wife by marrying Josip Broz. For decades, this beautiful and tanned woman from Ličan conquered with her elegance and classiness, successfully proving that these qualities are not necessarily related to her origin. There are numerous testimonies about it, there are numerous stories about the actions with which she overshadowed world diplomats, but perhaps the most illustrative memory is the memory of Jan Pacepa, the former head of security for the Ceausescu dynasty, in the book Red horizons. Stating that Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu came to visit the Broz family on the ship "Galeb", Paćepa describes in detail the clothing and gestures of both, to finally state that the Ceausescus acted like people who "came to visit rich relatives".
The fact that she contributed to the image of "rich relatives" at least as much as Tito, as well as the fact that she represented Yugoslavia at the time in the best possible light, were still not enough for her country and her husband's associates to repay her in the right way. At the end of the seventies, she was removed from Tito's environment, and to this day she is fighting for relatively decent living conditions.
FIRST LADY OF SFRJ: Jovanka
and Tito
In an interview for NIN that she gave in 1988, which was never published, Jovanka hinted that some of Tito's associates had organized a campaign against her, highlighting especially Stane Dolanc and Nikola Ljubičić. Whatever the reasons for that, she and Josip Broz no longer lived together since 1977, although Tito never said anything that could be interpreted as intolerance or animosity towards her. During Tito's illness, Jovanka visited him in the hospital, she appeared at the funeral where she belonged, but only a few months after that, her odyssey began. She was ordered to move out of Užička 15 immediately, while she was allowed to take only personal belongings, but not jewelry and other valuables that also belonged to her. She was placed in a part of a grandfather's house in which until then guests from abroad were accommodated, she was offered a pension, she had the right to use a car with a chauffeur, while the housekeeper and gardener took care of the house. To the public, she was forgotten. Almost thirty years since then, only after 2000, Jovanka managed to fight for a minor adaptation of the house where she lives, she received a pension of around one thousand euros, heating was installed in her house, but the court process leading to the return of personal property is still ongoing ongoing, with little chance of ever being completed. Tito's property was once declared social (state), but even after the abolition of that provision, his wife and children were left without inheritance.
On Tito's grave
Along with minister Rasim Ljajić, who visits her occasionally, only her sister and a few close friends come to visit Jovanka Broz. She does not communicate with her husband's descendants. It appears almost exclusively in the House of Flowers, in the early morning hours of May 4, the anniversary of Tito's death. An exception to that rule occurred in August 2007, when it was filmed while driving around Belgrade. As the media reported at the time, she was driven by a certain Rade, a long-time friend and bodyguard, and Jovanka also ate "colorful ice cream in a cone" on that occasion. The attention paid to that drive is a sufficient illustration of the fact that Tito's widow is one of the high-ranking "media hounds". Her neighbor Vasa Petrović said recently that the media from different parts of the world literally besiege the entire neighborhood: "Many are aggressive and so insolent that they climb the fence, enter my yard and look for a ladder to climb the wall towards the villa." Some journalists from Croatia, BiH and Slovenia drilled holes in the rusty fence around Jovanka's house. They would like to secretly record her walking around the yard." However, all these attempts end without success: apart from the mentioned unpublished interview for NIN, Jovanka has not spoken so far. Lordan Zafranović's attempts to persuade her to take part in his film seem to have yielded no results, and one of the few who still manages to approach her is longtime "court photographer" Ivo Eterović. Recounting for "Večernje Novosti" how Jovanka reacted when he brought her a new photo monograph Tito and Jovanka, Eterović says: "What am I going to tell you, ladies... She cried!" It's no wonder. Before her was a time in which she was loved and respected. Well, Tito never stopped loving her. And she loved him. Can't you see it in the photos? And you know, they never parted."
Jovanka Broz is 85 years old today and those who have seen her say that she is "keeping up well".
HOT
Žarko Broz
Žarko Broz, Tito's son from his marriage to Pelagia Bjelousova, was born in 1924. Since Tito was in prison from 1928, and Pelagia returned to the USSR, Žarko spent his childhood and early youth in Moscow. Legends say that at that time he was a rather problematic child, i.e. that he led the juvenile gang "Golden Tooth" with Palmir Togliatti's son. This is why, also based on legends, Tito came to the USSR in 1935 and got him out of the correctional facility. Until the end of the Second World War, Žarko lived in the Soviet Union, fought as an officer of the Red Army, was twice decorated and seriously wounded (he lost his arm during the wounding). Father and son met again only in 1944, on the island of Vis, which at that time was the military center of the new Yugoslavia.
After the liberation, in 1945, Žarko brought his great love, Tamara Veger, from the USSR, with whom he had a son, Josip - Joška, in 1947, and a daughter, Zlatica, in 1949.
His children weren't even grown yet, when Žarko started to scribble and show his Mangup nature again. Because of his affair with Tereza Kujundžić, even the UDBA was engaged (which removed her from Belgrade on several occasions), and Tito did not even speak to his son for a long time. Anyway, already in 1951, Žarko had a son, Edward, in his marriage with Teresa. Just four years later, he was married to his third wife and had a daughter, Svetlana. In the meantime, he was not unfamiliar with pubs, partying, or all the other pleasures of life.
He lived in a house in Lackovićeva Street in Dedinje, from a Soviet military pension, and he inherited a vineyard in Kumrovac from his father. He died in 1995.
MISHA
SONS: Žarko and Miša in Ljubljana
Aleksandar - Miša Broz was born in 1941, and he saw his father for the first time only in 1945. Since he was the child of Tito and the illegal woman Herta Haas, Miša spent his early childhood at various addresses, in different families. "When they brought me to Belgrade for the first meeting with my father, I wasn't sure that it was my dad." Just in case, I called him 'Listen...', so that tomorrow they wouldn't tell me that it wasn't my dad but someone else. And I saw my mother for the first time after the liberation of Trieste, when she came to Belgrade in uniform. I was sick, in bed, and when she came to kiss me, I ran under the bed out of fear, I didn't know who it was...", he told Zagreb's "Globus" years later.
AMBASSADOR OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA: Aleksandar Miša Broz
Unlike his brother Žarko, Misha has always been what is called a good child. The interlocutor of "Vremena", who went to the same school with him, says that he did not stand out from other children in any way, that he was dressed like others, that he was never followed by any security. On the contrary, in some situations he was even more modest than others: during a visit to a candy factory in Vojvodina, his classmates gave him the best Vindjakna, so that he wouldn't spoil them while they were away. Together with Žarko's children Josip and Zlatica, Miša spent his Belgrade days in Tito's neighborhood, and a relative took care of them. He also led an ordinary and modest life in Zagreb: "When I came to study in Zagreb, I was temporarily placed in a large building in Visoko Street, which was the worst period for me, because in a building that could house several hundred people i was alone. Clocks were ticking in every hallway and living room, and in my room, as the wind blew, a gutter that was not attached was banging. It wasn't a very pleasant atmosphere," Misha recalled for "Globus". "Then I moved to Novakova, to an adapted studio apartment, and spent the next almost 10 years there. When I came to Zagreb, I didn't have a car, I had a motorcycle that I had delivered from Belgrade, and that I had received as a gift from the Greek king five or six years earlier. About two years later, my dad gave me a son, which he got from Zastava, with a comment - that I must never forget that my friends go by tram and on foot, and that I am still privileged to have a car. I drove Fića for ten years, until one winter a car ran into it in front of my house and broke it."
Misha Broz graduated from the Faculty of Law, but his work biography shows that Tito did not influence his son's employment. According to official data, he worked as head of the export department and director of foreign trade in "Prvomajska", as director of the import-export sector in the oil company INA, in the Committee for Foreign Relations of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, and only in the period from 1983 to In 1993, he assumed higher positions in his former company INA. Since 1993, he has slowly advanced in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Croatia, where he was first an advisor to the minister, and then a minister plenipotentiary in the Croatian embassy in Moscow, Cairo and Jakarta - the fact that he speaks five languages probably contributed to such a career.
JOSEPH ANOTHER
FOREST, HUNTER, POLICEMAN, PRIVATE...: Josip Joška Broz
The most prominent member of the Broz family in the media is certainly Žarko's son from his first marriage, Tito's namesake Josip. Joška's colorful biography says that he was a forester, hunter, metal turner, policeman and finally a private citizen - for years he was Tito's hunting companion and supervisor of his hunting grounds, and then as a policeman in the anti-sabotage squad he took care of his grandfather's safety until May 4, 1980. Today, he runs the famous Belgrade tavern "Čuburska Lipa". He sold the summer house in Dedinje that he inherited from his father and now lives at a less expensive address, and, according to his own words, he received a rifle, a wristwatch and his first car from his grandfather.
Thanks to Joška (and the fact that, of all the children and grandchildren, he spent the most time with Tito), some episodes have been recorded that show Tito's human, private side. For example, in his confession to "Vreme" in 2000, he said that his grandfather was not overly strict: "I plucked a few of those beautiful feathers from the peacocks, he heard that and got very angry." I hid in the pine forest near the house for two days. Eventually he found me, scolded me, and that was all. When he was angry, then you had to get out of his sight for a while and wait for him to cool down, because his anger would always pass quickly. Which I knew how to use cunningly." In Joška's example, Tito's habit of not "pulling strings" for his descendants is the most obvious. Namely, when Joška started high school, he immediately quarreled with the professors and continued his education in a less reputable forestry school. The Commander-in-Chief did not lift a finger to provide him with a better starting point for life.
Also thanks to Joška, the public learned that the Brozs are not on good terms with his half-sister Svetlana ("The family disowned her because she behaved inappropriately and tarnished the family's reputation"), but neither with Jovanka. Normally inclined to harshly criticize all of Tito's associates, Joška still directed the harshest words at Jovanka's account: "That was the hardest thing for Tito, before his death." Jovanka. She bit his heart. She and her personal relationships. That's why he didn't want her at the headboard even in death row. I admit that I never particularly loved Jovanka; when I was little I threw her first gift – a bicycle – over the balcony fence. Her meddling in politics got on many people's nerves. She was the one who gently pushed all the loyal young officers who went through the war with Tito away from him. She constantly incited some fear, said who and how could harm him," Joška told "Vreme". "She couldn't stand us, his family either, and she did everything to isolate us from him." He gave us many things and did them secretly from her, so that she did not know or see. In the end, he didn't want a divorce out of respect for the many years they had spent together, but he didn't want to see her anymore, despite her several requests to see her. That's why he traveled so much in the last few years of his life, and when he came to Užička, he would only go to Cvećara."
Although he throws sticks and stones at those who abuse the image and work of his grandfather, Joška himself is not immune to that activity. In this sense, the most characteristic is his attempt to enter the Serbian parliament in 2003, precisely thanks to his connection with Josip Broz Sr. Namely, he was the head of a coalition of four parties (the Workers' Party of Yugoslavia, the Ecological Party of Vojvodina, the Serbian National Socialist Party of Workers, the Unemployed, Pensioners and Peasants and the Yugoslav Party of Goodwill), and the pre-election posters featured Tito's image and the slogan "Where I stopped, you continue".
ALEXANDRA SASHA
AGAINST THE ABUSE OF TITO'S CHARACTER: Aleksandra-Saša with her brother Andrej
The only real media competition for Joška Broz is Misha's daughter Aleksandra - Saša Broz. True, in her case it is more caused by the nature of the job: Saša Broz is a director and former director of the Istrian National Theater in Pula. However, regardless of the fact that she is a guest in the Croatian media primarily because of theater performances, it is difficult to find an interview in which at least some question is not devoted to her origins.
She attracted special attention in 2006, when she and her father Miša protected the right to use Tito's name and signature: thanks to a court decision, Miša and Saša, on behalf of the entire family, can decide who and in what way will use the image and work of Josip Broz. "Tito as a brand happened spontaneously. It was branded by the people themselves. We as a family had nothing to do with it. In some strange way, a market appeared that was flooded with products bearing my grandfather's image and signature. Socks, panties, undershirts, plastic ashtrays, wine bottles, porcelain and plastic busts, various other unsavory trinkets. Every now and then in our daily press you could read how 'entrepreneurs' who sell these products do so solely for their own profit. Some of them went so far as to declare in the press that they do not personally sympathize with Tito, but that they make good money from him. It was clear that something had to be done about it," Saša explained at the time. Income from the protection of the right to name and signature is intended for humanitarian purposes, primarily for children without parental care.
Sasha's fight did not end with the court decision. In May 2007, when the filming of a documentary film about Tito was announced, she spoke on behalf of the family, declaring that "the Broz family will not forbid director Anton Vrdoljak from filming the film, but is ready to do everything to make his job difficult." As "Jutarnji list" reported, Saša recalled that Vrdoljak once stated that he drank champagne when he heard that Tito had died, and "my family and I consider his statements disgusting".
In addition to her grandfather and her work as a director, Saša is known in Croatia for her sharp language (which she especially demonstrated after she was dismissed as the director of the Istrian National Theater) and for her style: in 2002, together with Boris Novković, she was named the best dressed person in Croatia.
SVETLANA
CONSISTENTLY AGAINST WAR AND HATE: Svetlana Broz with her daughter
Žarko Broz's daughter from her third marriage with Zlata Jelinek is a doctor of cardiology and internal medicine by profession, and she spent most of her working life at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade. After the NATO bombing, she moved to Sarajevo and published a book Good people in a time of evil, a collection of testimonies of people who, risking their own lives, helped members of other ethnic groups during wars. The book went through several editions and was translated into several world languages, but it is certainly not Svetlana's first anti-war action. Namely, during the 2005s, she was a regular participant in anti-war demonstrations, and during the war in BiH she would go "to the field". "The war that took place in Croatia was an absolute disappointment for me. I asked some people I knew who were then in the opposition, and later in power in Serbia, when the war madness would stop. I got the answer that these are 'just war games' and that 'the real war will be in Bosnia and Herzegovina'. When asked - what will happen to the Muslims, I was told that 'there are many rivers in Bosnia'. I had to determine myself according to that tragedy, and the only possible determination was to go to that area as a cardiologist in order to be of help to at least one war-affected patient," she explained in 2007 in an interview for "Glas Javnosti". As the president of the non-governmental organization Gariwo, Svetlana does not give up her anti-war and anti-nationalist orientation even today. In this sense, it attracted the most attention in XNUMX, when it was announced that the famous Croatian singer Thomson would be visiting Sarajevo: "If Thomson really fills Zetra in the city of 'Index', the Olympics and beautiful diversity, we will betray all the true values and this city will no longer be allowed to be called Sarajevo", she emphasized in the statement, calling on "all those who still believe in Sarajevo, to return to it the former spark of rebellion and respect for true values and at least a little dignity". Due to this and the protests of several other non-governmental organizations, the concert was postponed.
Unlike Joška or Saša Broz, Svetlana generally does not talk about Tito and other family members. On the other hand, only Joška declares her as a member of the family. According to him, Svetlana behaved badly towards her father Žarko, and she was in a property dispute with her brothers and sister. As far as the media is concerned, Svetlana has always been interesting to them because of her turbulent private life, i.e. because of the story that she "lived to the fullest" in every sense.
THUGS IN OUR ROW
PEACEFUL RETIREMENT DAYS:
Zlatica Broz
Most of the other members of the Broz family are unknown to the general public. Žarko's sister Zlatica lives as a modest pensioner in Belgrade, and her sons deal with ordinary jobs. Miša's son Andrej, who graduated from Moscow's Lomonosov University, is a consultant for the system integrator company Combis, grows vegetables in his free time and lives in Zagreb "like any ordinary Croat". In one of the rare interviews, he described it like this: "I have a loan for an apartment, a loan for a camera, I paid off the washing machine, and when I pay off the wardrobes, we will also buy a sofa."
However, just as in every family there are those who "bruise" it, the Broz family is not short of such. First of all, it is about Žarko's son Edward, who in 1992 caused a traffic accident in which his friend Gojko Popović was killed. Although he had 2,05 parts per thousand of alcohol in his blood, Edward got behind the wheel and was charged with causing an accident while intoxicated. Since all traces of him were lost after that, a warrant was issued for him in early 1993. On the basis of that warrant, Edward was arrested in January 2008, when he tried to enter Serbia from Croatia. On that occasion, Edward told the investigating judge that he came to Serbia "fully knowingly", because of a debt to his best friend. After he submitted his Croatian passport to the court, he was soon released, only to leave in an unknown direction in October 2008. His lawyer, Vlada Petrović, pointed out that Edward was forced to do that act because his existence (without travel documents, income and means of living) was threatened. When asked about Edward, other family members say only that they do not know where he is.
FUGITIVE FROM THE LAW: Edward Broz
Apart from Edvard, Joška's son Nebojša also entered the black chronicles. Otherwise known as a participant in car races and co-owner of the private bus company "Miškomerc", Nebojša was arrested during Operation Saber in 2003 for possession of illegal weapons. He spent 26 days in custody, after which, according to "Vremen", the charges against him were withdrawn. Joška's father explained that it was a question of political revenge, that "there were attempts to sell him drugs and to portray Tito's great-grandson as a drug dealer." Be that as it may, the news about Nebojša disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, so it can be assumed that it is about a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
