Milka Mesić
| Milka Mesić | |
|---|---|
Milka Mesić (far right) and president Stjepan Mesić hosting Polish president Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria at the Presidential Palace in Zagreb.
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In role 18 February 2000 – 18 February 2010 |
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| President | Stjepan Mesić |
| Prime Minister |
Ivica Račan Ivo Sanader Jadranka Kosor |
| Preceded by | Slavica Tomčić |
| Succeeded by | Tatjana Josipović |
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In role 30 June 1991 – 5 December 1991 |
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| President | Stjepan Mesić |
| Prime Minister | Ante Marković |
| Preceded by | ? |
| Succeeded by | ? |
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In role 30 May 1990 – 24 August 1990 |
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| President | Franjo Tuđman |
| Prime Minister | Stjepan Mesić |
| Preceded by | ? |
| Succeeded by | Marija Eker Manolić |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Milka Dudunić September 1939 (age 78) Slabinja, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatia) |
| Spouse(s) | Stjepan Mesić (m. 1961) |
| Children | Saša and Dunja |
Milka Mesić (née Dudunić) (born September 1939) is the wife of Stjepan Mesić, the former President of Croatia (2000-10), Speaker of the Croatian Parliament (1992-94), President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1991), President of the Executive Council of SR Croatia (1990) and Mayor of Orahovica.
Milka Dudunić was born in September 1939 in Slabinja, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatia), near the modern-day border of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She met her future husband, Stjepan Mesić, after he had seen her in the jury of a dance comeptition in Zagreb and had asked his friend to introduce him to her because his friend's girlfriend was Milka's college roommate. The couple married in 1961 after Stjepan had earned a college degree and their first daughter, Saša, was born soon afterwards. Milka had been studying psychology at the University of Zagreb, but abandoned her studies after the birth of her first daughter and her husband's graduation. The couple moved from Zagreb to Stjepan's native town of Orahovica and Milka gave birth to their second daughter Dunja in 1963.
In 1965 Stjepan Mesić became the first popularly elected Member of the Croatian Parliament and thereafter proceeded to become the chairman of the Municipal Assembly of Orahovica and later the municipality's president. Stjepan also gained employment as an assistant to the director of the local community health center in order to provide an income for his wife and daughters. However, following the outbreak of the Croatian Spring and the resulting crackdown by the regime of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito on political opponents, Stjepan Mesić was stipped of his political functions and his job. He refused to immigrate abrod, as many other Croatian Spring supporters at the time had done to avoid further misfortune at the hands of the Yugoslav regime, and instead chose to agree to a trial and was sentenced to a two-year jail term. The Mesić family sued the community health center in Orahovica and the monetary compensation awarded to the family was used to send Milka and her two daughters to Zagreb, where they resided with Stjepan's stopmother Mileva. Milka was able to gain employment at a kindergarden at the mjesna zajednica (a form of local self-government in the former Yugoslavia) of Studentski dom, but she almost lost her job when it was found out that her husband was in prison for activities relating to the Croatian Spring and ultimately retained her job due to the efforts of her colleagues, who shielded her from being branded as holding responsibility for her husband's activities. She later worked at a kindergarden in the Pantovčak neighborhood of Zagreb until she went into retirement.
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Wikipedia