Latinka Perović

Perović was born in Beloševac, Kragujevac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (present Serbia) on 4 October 1933.[4][5] Perović completed local female gymnasium in Kragujevac in 1952.[5] She graduated in history at the University of Belgrade and earned a PhD degree in political science 1975[1] at the same university. Earlier, she also earned her master's degree at the Faculty of Political Science in Begrade in 1965.[5]

At the age of 27, she was already president of the Conference for the Women's Social Activity of Yugoslavia (1960-1964).[1] Perović was Secretary of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia from 1968 to 1972.[1] She was considered the most influential woman in Serbia then and the only one who did not gain her position based on marriage with a more powerful man than herself, but rather through her intelligence, competence and ambition.

In 1972, Marko Nikezić (the president of the CC of the LCS) and Perović were removed from their positions because Josip Broz Tito considered their views too liberal.[1] She never returned to politics after that. Perović devoted herself to historical research and became known as one of the most prominent experts on Serbian history from the 19th century onwards.

From 1976 to 1998 Perović worked at the Institute for Recent History of Serbia.[4] In her writings and studies on modern Serbia, she often emphasizes that Serbia needs a politician who would publicly claim responsibility for the destruction wrought in the former Yugoslavia in order to help the reconciliation with the neighboring states and prevent the recurrence of this kind of tragedy. She was opposed to the regime of Slobodan Milošević, calling his political system a "culture of murder".[1] After the war, she was the first person in Serbia to call the Srebrenica massacre a genocide and call for Serbia's accountability.[6]

From 1993 Perović was an editor in chief of Currents of History magazine.

Perović Petrović died in Belgrade on 12 December 2022, at the age of 89.[7] Perović Petrović was cremated at the Belgrade's Novo Groblje cemetery on December 21, 2022, in the presence of her family and friends.[8]

2010 book "Facts and Interpretations. Two Conversations with Latinka Perovic" included a detailed bibliography of Latinka Perović with a list of 8 monographs, 10 historical source books with introductory studies on the 19th century, nine historical source-books with introductory studies on the 20th and 21st century, 18 forewords and postscripts, 78 studies, discussions and articles and 13 noticed reviews.[2] Bibliography did not include articles, interviews, and speeches on book promotions, which have been published in various newspapers and magazines as well as obituaries.[2] Perović continued writing in the following years. Her 2015 book "Dominantna i neželjena elita" (English: Dominant and Unwanted Elite) initiated critical response from Croatian Sociologist Mira Bogdanović who in her 2016 book "Elitistički pasijans: Povijesni revizionizam Latinke Perović" (English: Elitist Passians: Historical Revisionism of Latinka Perović) criticized Perović for inventing concepts of dominant and unwanted elites which do not exist in Sociological science.[9]

• Interview with RFE/RL
• Transcript of radio show "Peščanik"
• The Bosnian Institute, Latinka Perović honoured on her 75th Birthday