Josip Broz Tito - Family and Personal Life

Family and Personal Life

Tito carried on numerous affairs and was married several times. In 1918 he was brought to Omsk, Russia as a prisoner of war. There he met Pelagija Belousova who was then thirteen; he married her a year later, and she moved with him to Yugoslavia. Pelagija bore him five children but only their son Žarko Leon (born 4 February, 1924) survived. When Tito was jailed in 1928, she returned to Russia. After the divorce in 1936 she later remarried.

In 1936, when Tito stayed at the Hotel Lux in Moscow, he met the Austrian comrade Lucia Bauer. They married in October 1936, but the records of this marriage were later erased.

His next relationship was with Herta Haas, whom he married in 1940. Broz left for Belgrade after the April War, leaving Haas pregnant. In May 1941, she gave birth to their son, Aleksandar "Mišo" Broz. All throughout his relationship with Haas, Tito had maintained a promiscuous life and had a parallel relationship with Davorjanka Paunović, who, under the codename "Zdenka", served as a courier in the resistance and subsequently became his personal secretary. Haas and Tito suddenly parted company in 1943 in Jajce during the second meeting of AVNOJ after she reportedly walked in on him and Davorjanka. The last time Haas saw Broz was in 1946. Davorjanka died of tuberculosis in 1946 and Tito insisted that she be buried in the backyard of the Beli Dvor, his Belgrade residence.

His best known wife was Jovanka Broz. Tito was just shy of his 59th birthday, while she was 27, when they finally married in April 1952, with state security chief Aleksandar Ranković as the best man. Their eventual marriage came about somewhat unexpectedly since Tito actually rejected her some years earlier when his confidante Ivan Krajacic brought her in originally. At that time, she was in her early 20s and Tito, objecting to her energetic personality, opted for the more mature opera singer Zinka Kunc instead. Not one to be discouraged easily, Jovanka continued working at Beli Dvor, where she managed the staff of servants and eventually got another chance after Tito's strange relationship with Zinka failed. Since Jovanka was the only female companion he married while in power, she also went down in history as Yugoslavia's first lady. Their relationship was not a happy one, however. It had gone through many, often public, ups and downs with episodes of infidelities and even allegations of preparation for a coup d'état by the latter pair. Certain unofficial reports suggest Tito and Jovanka even formally divorced in the late 1970s, shortly before his death. However, during Tito's funeral she was officially present as his wife, and later claimed rights for inheritance. The couple did not have any children.

Tito's notable grandchildren include Aleksandra Broz, a prominent theatre director in Croatia, Svetlana Broz, a cardiologist and writer in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Josip "Joška" Broz, Edvard Broz and Natali Klasevski, an artisan of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

As the leader of Yugoslavia Tito maintained a lavish lifestyle and kept several mansions. In Belgrade he resided in the official palace, Beli dvor, and maintained a separate private residence; he spent much time at his private island of Brijuni, an official residence from 1949 on, and at his palace at the Bled lake. His grounds at Karadjordjevo were the site of "diplomatic hunts". By 1974 Tito had 32 official residences.

As regards knowledge of languages, Tito replied that he spoke Serbo-Croat, German, Russian, and some English. A biographer also stated that he spoke "Serbo-Croatian ... Russian, Czech, Slovenian ... German (with a Viennese accent) ... understands and reads French and Italian ... also speaks Kirghiz."

Every federal unit had a town or city with historic significance from the World War II period renamed to have Tito's name included. The largest of these was Titograd, now Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro. With the exception of Titograd, the cities were renamed simply by the addition of the adjective "Tito's" ("Titov"). The cities were: