Four-volume publication ‘Life and Work of Female Members of Serbian Learned Society, Serbian Royal Academy and Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts has published the fourth volume of the publication ‘Life and Work of Female Members of Serbian Learned Society, Serbian Royal Academy and Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts’, thus successfully completing a several-year-long publishing project which Academician Nada Miloševć Đorđević, an honorary editor of the publication, commenced when she compiled biographies of 47 female members of the Academy. The editor of the volume is Academician Dušica Lečić Toševski, while the editors-in-chief of the first to the fourth volume are academicians Ljubomir Maksimović, Zoran Knežević and Nebojša Lalić respectively.

The composition scheme of the publication was envisaged according to the time of the election into the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and its historical predecessors, starting with 1876 when painter Katarina Ivanović was elected as a member of the Serbian Learned Society, finishing with the 2021 elections. In nearly 2,000 full-colour pages, in four richly designed and illustrated volumes, accompanied by two CDs (the first featuring the music of Ljubica Marić and the third showcasing works by Isidora Žebeljan), the most eminent authors—academicians, university professors, and research associates—have brought to the public the lives and achievements of female members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as their everlasting love towards science and passion for new knowledge, which  inspired the creation of works that must—and deserve to—be discussed.

The following was said about the publication Life and Work of Female Members of the Serbian Learned Society, Serbian Royal Academy and Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts:

‘With this volume, the publication Life and Work of Female Members of the Serbian Learned Society, Serbian Royal Academy and Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts has reached its planned completion. Four volumes feature 47 portraits of women who were elected into the memberships of the Academy over time. The intention was both to pay tribute to these exceptional women and to introduce the broader public to their lives and creative achievements’, said Academician Dušica Lečić Toševski, the publication editor.

‘During the first few years of the project, we faced occasional and, to be honest, singular incomprehension, that mistakenly framed this initiative in the context of an ‘imported ideology of gender equality’, and even more so in the context of imitation of some other people’s narratives. Nada Milošević-Đorđević met such criticisms with dignity and patience. From that time, I remember her remark that went something like this: ‘In the end, the only mortal sin is hypocrisy!’ The idea of ​​this project was simple: to celebrate the work of our members, which developed alongside the arduous efforts to free themselves from prejudice in an environment that was not always supportive. Or, as written by another member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Isidora Sekulić, to whom a chapter in these four volumes is also dedicated: ‘[…] the process of our liberation is alternately funny, miserable, serious and tragic, but it must be endured — because any other path would simply be a denial of our existence.’ said Academician Vladimir S. Kostić, President of the Academy Council.

‘The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts wanted through this publication to reiterate once more its staunch conviction that women are an essential part of its membership, and underscore the importance of their taking up their place in science and arts, i.e. in the Academy, which rightfully belongs to them’, said Academician Zoran Knežević, President of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.