COMPANIONS from Serbia

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Serbian Companions of all time. This list of famous Serbian Companions is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Mileva Marić (1875 - 1948)

With an HPI of 73.50, Mileva Marić is the most famous Serbian Companion.  Her biography has been translated into 57 different languages on wikipedia.

Mileva Marić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милева Марић, pronounced [milěːva mǎːritɕ]; 19 December 1875 – 4 August 1948), sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein (Милева Марић-Ајнштајн, Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn), was a Serbian physicist and mathematician. She showed intellectual aptitude from a young age and studied at Zürich Polytechnic in a highly male dominated field, after having studied medicine for one semester at Zürich University. Her studies included differential and integral calculus, descriptive and projective geometry, mechanics, theoretical physics, applied physics, experimental physics, and astronomy. One of her study colleagues at university was her future husband Albert Einstein, to whose early work Marić is thought by some to have contributed (in particular the Annus Mirabilis papers). In 1921 Mileva Marić received the Nobel Prize money her ex-husband was awarded as a part of their divorce agreement to support their sons; she had access to the interest.

2. Olivera Despina (1372 - 1444)

With an HPI of 62.36, Olivera Despina is the 2nd most famous Serbian Companion.  Her biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Maria Olivera Lazarević (Serbian Cyrillic: Деспина Оливера Лазаревић; 1372 – after 1444), also known as Despina Hatun, was a Serbian princess and consort of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, whom she married just after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 as a pledge of peace between the Lazarević and Ottoman dynasties. She was the youngest daughter of Lazar of Serbia and Princess Milica. The story of Olivera's and Bayezid's captivity by Timur after the Battle of Ankara (1402) has been popularly narrated, most often in plays and operas. The most significant one is Tamburlaine (1587–1588) by Christopher Marlowe, in which she is named “Zabina”.

3. Draga Mašin (1864 - 1903)

With an HPI of 60.76, Draga Mašin is the 3rd most famous Serbian Companion.  Her biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Draginja "Draga" Obrenović (Serbian Cyrillic: Драгиња "Драга" Обреновић; 23 September [O.S. 11 September] 1867 – 11 June [O.S. 29 May] 1903), née Lunjevica (Луњевица) and formerly Mašin (Машин), was Queen of Serbia as the wife of King Aleksandar Obrenović. She was formerly a lady-in-waiting to Aleksandar's mother, Queen Natalija (until 1897).