Categories

Dragomir Bondžić, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

Ivana Pantelić, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

THE SERBIAN PUBLIC IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY ON MARIE CURIE AND HER DISCOVERIES

Vol. XLIV, 2/2026, pp. 293–318
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2026.2.bon.293-318

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME:

Writings on radioactivity appeared in Serbian periodicals at the very beginning of the twentieth century, initially through translators and popularisers of science, and subsequently through university professors. Contemporary scientific knowledge from this rapidly developing field was swiftly conveyed to the Serbian public, at a time when it was transforming science and reshaping understandings of the structure of matter. From the outset, the Serbian-language press also focused on the spouses Marie and Pierre Curie, primarily as the discoverers of radium and recipients of the 1903 Nobel Prize, and later on Marie Curie as the 1911 laureate and as a scientist who successfully continued her research, providing the scientific community with fundamental knowledge on radium, polonium, and the phenomenon of radioactivity. Marie Curie was portrayed as a diligent, devoted, and self-sacrificing researcher of radium and radioactivity, and frequently as a scientific genius who fully merited all the received honours and awards. From the 1920s onwards, the presentation of her private, public and scientific persona to the Serbian public was particularly shaped by Dr Dragoljub Jovanović, her doctoral student and collaborator. Considerable attention was drawn to the therapeutic properties of radium, which was regarded as a “miraculous remedy” and, from the early 1930s, was also implemented in Belgrade in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. In addition to scientific results and discoveries, Serbian periodicals placed particular emphasis on Marie Curie’s nationality, namely her Polish origin and her belonging to the “Slavic race”. As in the broader global and European public sphere, the Serbian-language press frequently addressed her as a “First”: the first woman in France to obtain a doctorate in physics, the first woman to teach and head a scientific laboratory at the Sorbonne, the first woman to be interred in the Panthéon in Paris on her own merits, the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize, and the first person in the world to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. But also noting that this very fact often generated gender prejudice, impeded her work, and posed obstacles to her scientific and professional advancement. It may also be observed that the Serbian press did not engage in the belittling or diminishing of Marie Curie’s private, public and scientific persona. On the contrary, her contribution was openly emphasised and frequently glorified.

 

KEYWORDS: Marie Curie, radioactivity, radium, history of science, gender and science, Matilda effect, periodicals, feminism and science, interwar Yugoslavia, popular science literature

 

REFERENCES:

  • Arditti, Rita. “Feminism and Science”. In: Science and Liberation. Editor Steve Cavrak, 350–368. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980.
  • Barać, Stanislava. Feministička kontrajavnost: Žanr ženskog portreta u srpskoj javnosti 1920–1941. Beograd: Institut za književnost i umetnost, 2015.
  • Bojović, Snežana. Sima Lozanić 1847–1935. Beograd: Princip, 1996.
  • Bojović Snežana, i Slobodan Ribnikar. „Miloje M. Stojiljković (1873–1962)“. U: Život i rad srpskih naučnika, 8. Urednik Miloje R. Sarić, 197–211. Beograd: SANU, 2002.
  • Bojović, Snežana. „Marko Leko (1853–1932)“. U: Srpski biografski rečnik, tom. 5. Urednik Čedomir Popov, 572. Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 2011.
  • Bojović, Snežana. „Sima Lozanić (1847–1935)“. U: Srpski biografski rečnik, tom. 5. Urednik Čedomir Popov, 612–613. Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 2011.
  • Bondžić, Dragomir. Beogradski univerzitet 1944–1952. Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2004.
  • Bondžić Dragomir, i Martin Previšić. “Stevan Dedijer in the documents of the State Security Service from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. Istorija 20. veka, br. 2, (2025), 439–444. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2025.2.bon.439-464
  • Bondžić, Dragomir. Između ambicija i iluzija. Nuklearna politika Jugoslavije 1945–1990, 2. izdanje. Zagreb: FF Press, 2025.
  • Bondžić, Dragomir. “Science, Energy and Weapons: Nuclear Ambitions of Socialist Yugoslavia 1945–1990. Savremena istorija, god. 1, br. 1, (2026), 217–242. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29362/savremena.2026.1.bon.217-242
  • Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Formes of Capital“. U: Handbook of Theory and Research of the Sociology of Education. Editor Jonh G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greeenwood Press, 1986.
  • Božinović, Neda. Žensko pitanje u Srbiji u XIX i XX veku. Beograd: Devedesetčetvrta, Žene u crnom, 1996.
  • Božić, Sofija. „Milica Tomić: Stremljenje ka modernom“. U: Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 19. i 20. veka: Položaj žene kao merilo modernizacije. Urednik Latinka Perović, 451–469. Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 1998.
  • Draganić, Ivan. Kroz svet radijacija i radioaktivnosti: Sto godina atomske ere. Beograd: Muzej nauke i tehnike, Geoinstitut, Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, 1996.
  • Đurović, Arsen. Modernizacija obrazovanja u Kraljevini Srbiji 1905–1914. Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2004.
  • Fernandez Bernard, and Georges Ripka. Unravelling the Mystery of the Atomic Nucleus: A Sixty Year Journey 1896–1956. New York: Springer, 2013.
  • Giroud, Françoise. Marie Curie: A Life. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986.
  • Goldsmit, Barbara. Opsesivni genije. Unutrašnji svet Marije Kiri. Smederevo: Heliks, 2006.
  • Jokić, Stevan T. „Otkriće radioaktivnosti i hemijskih elemenata polonijuma i radijuma“. Flogiston, br. 8, (1998), 7–32.
  • Jones, Claire G., “Women, Science and Professional Identity, c. 1860–1914“. In: Precarious Professionals: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain. Editors Heidi Egginton & Zoë Thomas, 63–85. London: University of London Press, 2021.
  • Fraizer, Nancy. “What’s Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender“. New German Critique, no. 35, (1985), 97–131.
  • Fraizer, Nancy. “Rethinking Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democrarcy”. Social Text, no. 25/26, (1990), (56–80).
  • Habermas, Jirgen. Javno mnenje: Israživanje u oblasti jedne kategorije građanskog društva. Beograd: Kultura, 1969.
  • Jovanović, Dragoljub. „Predgovor“. U: Eva Kiri, Madam Kiri (Madame Curie), prevod Predrag N. Ilić. Beograd: Predrag N. Ilić, 1939.
  • Jovanović, Stanka. Dragoljub K. Jovanović – život jednog fizičara. Beograd: SAI, 2015.
  • Jovanović Simić Jelena, Snežana D. Šarboh, Saša Zdravković. „Patenti domaćih pronalazača u oblasti medicine, farmacije i stomatologije registraovani u Kraljevini SHS/Jugoslaviji“. Flogiston, br. 33 (2025), 123–186.
  • Kiri, Eva. Madam Kiri (Madame Curie), prevod Predrag N. Ilić. Beograd: Predrag Ilić, 1939.
  • L’Annunziata, Michael F., Introduction and history. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007.
  • Langevin-Joliot, Hélène. „Marie Curie and Her Time“. Chemistry International, January–February (2011), 4–8.
  • Leko, Marko T. „Radijum“. Флогистон, бр. 8, (1998), 237–251.
  • Malley, Marjorie. Radioactivity: A History of a Mysterious Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • Marić, Ilija. „Branislav Petronijević“. U: Srpski biografski rečnik, tom 8. Urednik Branko Bešlin, 437–440. Novi Sad: Matica srpska 2025.
  • Mentus, Slavko. „Dragoljub K. Jovanović (1891–1970)“. U: Život i delo srpskih naučnika, knj. 17. Urednik Vladan D. Đorđević, 205–273. Beograd: SANU, 2020.
  • Milivojević, Snježana. Mediji, ideologija, kultura. Beograd: Peščanik, Fabrika knjiga, 2015.
  • Mlađenović, Milorad. The History of Early Nuclear Physics (1896–1931). Singapore: World Scientific, 1998.
  • Nenlić, Iva. “Isidora Sekulić”, In: A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Century. Editors Francisca De Haan, Krassimira Daskalova, Anna Loufti, 491–493. Budapest, New York: Central University Press, 2006.
  • Obeid El Jamal, Natasha, and Andreia Guerra. „The Marie Curie Case Through the Cultural History of Science: Discussing Relations Between Women, Science, and Patriarchy in Science Education“. ENSAIO: Research in Science and Education, (2022), 1–21.
  • Pantelić Ivana, i Dragomir Bondžić. „Život i rad Smilje Kostić-Joksić (1895–1981) profesorke Medicinskog fakulteta u Beogradu“. U: Naučnice u društvu. Urednici Lada Stevanović, Mladena Prelić, Miroslava Lukić Krstanović, 351–360. Beograd: Etnografski institut SANU, 2020.
  • Peković, Slobodanka. Časopisi po meri dostojanstvenog ženskinja: Ženski časopisi u Srbiji početkom 20. veka. Novi Sad, Beograd: Matica srpska, Institut za književnost i umetnost, 2015.
  • Popović, Dragana. Žene u nauci: Od Arhimeda do Anštajna. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2012.
  • Popović, Marko. „Jovanović Dragoljub K.“. U: Srpski biografski rečnik, tom 4. Urednik Čedomir Popov, 486–487. Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 2009.
  • Preston, Diana. Before the Fall-Out: The Human Chain Reaction from Marie Curie to Hiroshima. London: Corgi Books, 2006.
  • Quinn, Susan. Marie Qurie. A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
  • Rajs, Rudolf, Arčibald. Čujte Srbi, čuvajte se sebe. Beograd: Dobra, 1998.
  • Rankov, Miroslav. „Jovan Bademlić“. U: Srpski biografski rečnik, tom. 1. Urednik Čedomir Popov, 340–341. Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 2004.
  • Rossiter, Margaret W., “The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science“. Social Studies of Science, vol. 23, no. 2, (1993), 325–341.
  • Sobel, Dava. The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. London: Fourth Estate, 2024.
  • Spomenica posvećena dopisnom članu Dragoljubu K. Jovanoviću. Urednik Petar Stevanović. Beograd: SANU, 1970.
  • Sto godina Filozofskog fakulteta 1863–1963. Urednik Radovan Samardžić. Beograd: Narodna knjiga, 1963.
  • Supek, Ivan. „Razvoj hrvatske fizike 1930–1950“. Prirodoslovlje, br. 2, (2001), 221–224.
  • Trgovčević, Ljubinka. Planirana elita. O studentima iz Srbije na evropskim univerzitetima u 19. veku. Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2003.
  • Vujošević, Radovan. „Svetislav Kolarović“. U: Srpski biografski rečnik, tom. 5. Urednik Čedomir Popov, 177. Novi Sad: Matica srpska, 2011.
  • Vukelja Tihomir, i Tino Dvoržak. „Ostvarenje sna alkemičara kao neizmjerno blago i prijetnja cijelom planetu: Radioaktivnost i nuklearna energija u časopisu Priroda 1911–1945“. Časopis za suvremenu povijest, br. 3, (2023), 381–410. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22586/csp.v55i3.27384