Homes of Notable Women of Novi Sad

The history of a city is not only noted in textbooks, but a note of it is also made in the spaces where we live our lives. The names of streets, squares, schools and awards, then the houses of and the busts and monuments dedicated to notable persons, of both sexes, directly speak about the historical course of events because they become a part of our identity through the name of the street we live in, the names of the schools we once went to and so forth.  

By mapping and, from the tourism point of view, valorizing the spaces in which the notable women of Novi Sad used to live and work, Novi Sad found itself among the first European cities to have interpreted the gender aspect of cultural heritage in its own characteristic manner. That is witnessed by the Tourist Map – Novi Sad from a Woman’s Point of View (1999, 2002) and the Female Names of Novi Sad – A Guidebook for Lovers of Alternative Tours (2014). The visitors of Novi Sad are thus offered an alternative, but not less worthy history of the city: a possibility of obtaining the knowledge of the history and culture of the city through a story about its notable women, simultaneously walking along the spaces, past the houses in which they lived.

On the occasion of the Day of the City of Novi Sad, celebrated on 1st February, the Marić family’s house at 20 Kisačka Street, in which Serbian woman scientist Mileva Marić-Einstein, Albert Einstein’s wife, had lived for a while, was marked again. The Marić family’s house, built in 1907, used to be the Einstein family’s home in Novi Sad, in which, according to certain sources, they stayed for a short period of time in 1905, 1907 and 1913. In the vicinity of the house, there is also Nikolajevska Church, in which their sons Hans Albert and Eduard Einstein were baptized in an orthodox ceremony in 1913.

Gordana Stojaković
Photo: TO Novi Sad