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MALINSKA-OSTAROVA GEORGI, Veselinka (1917–1988)
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296 MALINSKA-OSTAROVA GEORGI, Veselinka (1917–1988) Socialist active on behalf of women’s rights and partisan; co-founder and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Antifasisticki front na ženite na Makedonija (Antifascist Front of the Women of Macedonia); first editor-in-chief of the journal Makedonka (Macedonian woman), issued by the Antifasisticki front na ženite na Makedonija. Veselinka Malinska’s father, Georgi Kole Malinski (1878–1951), was born in Kumanovo and also lived in Tetovo (Macedonia ), Vienna and Paris (in the latter two cities between 1913 and 1918). A merchant, photographer and social activist , he was an innovative, broad-minded and free-spirited man, the first Esperantist in the Balkans (1897), as well as the founder (1898) and President of the first merchant society in the Macedonian part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1900, he opened the first bookstore in Kumanovo, later opening a photography shop (1922). He participated in the Ilinden uprising against Ottoman rule (1901–1903) and remained politically active into the 1930s and 1940s. Veselinka’s mother, Persida Malinska (born Apostolova) (1885–1935), was a teacher at the Central School in Kumanovo. After marrying Georgi Malinski, she gave up teaching to work alongside her husband. She was the first woman Esperantist in Macedonia and fought for the improvement of girls’ education and the greater economic and political independence of women. Persida and Georgi Malinski had seven children, of which three died very young. Veselinka, born on 15 January 1917, was their fifth child. After completing primary education in Kumanovo, Veselinka was to start work in her father’s photography workshop like her older siblings but refused, wishing to continue her education at the Trgovachka skola (a high school) in Skopje. Although her father strongly opposed this idea and even forbade further discussion of the topic, her mother used her own dowry money to take Veselinka to Skopje and enrol her in the school. It is unknown how Veselinka’s father reacted upon her mother’s return to Kumanovo, but it seems he assented to Veselinka’s higher education without further objection. It is also likely (according to Veselinka Malinska’s daughter, Lina ostarova -Unkovska) that the rebellion of Veselinka’s mother triggered Veselinka’s later involvement in the women’s movement. 297 As a student at Skopje high school, Veselinka Malinska joined the communist youth movement and was soon expelled from school. She continued her education in Niš (Serbia) and became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in 1936. During her two years of study at the Zagreb Faculty of Economy, she became acquainted with members of the Makedonski nacionalen pokret (MANAPO, Macedonian National Movement). In 1938/39, Malinska worked in Belgrade as a bank clerk and became active in the bank workers’ union, as well as in the youth section of the Ženski pokret (Women’s Movement), a feminist and non-party organization established in April 1919 in Belgrade as the Društvo za prosvećivanje žene i zaštitu njenih prava (Society for Women’s Enlightenment and Protection of their Rights). The organization was established in all the Yugoslav countries and attracted outstanding feminists such as Mileva Milojević, Milena Atanacković, Zorka Kasnar-Karadžić, Isidora Sekulić, Paulina Lebl-Albala, Katarina Bogdanović, Delfa Ivanić, Mileva Petrović, Ruža Vinterštajn-Jovanović, Ksenija Atanasijević, Ružica Stojanović and others. Malinska also became Secretary of the local committee of National Aid, better known as Red Aid, established by the Narodni front (People’s Front) to assist antifascist , communist and leftist individuals. The signing of the Triple Pact by the Yugoslav government (25 March 1941) and Yugoslavia’s joining the Axis Powers provoked large antifascist demonstrations in Belgrade on 27 March 1941, at which Malinska spoke passionately against war and fascism. Germany’s attack on Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941 led to the capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. At the beginning of the German occupation of Belgrade (May/June 1941), Malinska and Slobodanka Đjorđjević bought a dairy plant (on 5 Francuska St., Belgrade), which became a meeting place for the Yugoslav resistance movement. In this period, Malinska acted as a messenger and point of connection between the Central Committee (CK) of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its Regional Committee for Serbia from Belgrade. She transferred fighters to the partisan squads and sent messages into the Serbian mountains. In September 1941, together with Davorjanka Paunćovic-Zdenka (1921–1946) and Jašha Rajter, she illegally transferred the General Secretary of the CK...