The smiling face of a Yugoslav revolutionary was actually a staged wartime art piece

Art · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Kozarčanka, the iconic photograph of a smiling female Partisan, became a symbol of Yugoslav resistance. Yet, the woman behind the image, Milja Toroman, never carried a weapon and felt no joy during the shoot. Her portrait was a carefully constructed blend of harsh reality and artistic staging by Georgij Skrigin.

Shot in the winter of 1943–44 by Yugoslav photographer Georgij Skrigin, Kozarčanka depicts a young woman with a rifle slung over her shoulder and a bright smile. Skrigin, a former ballet dancer, sought to unite pictorialism with realism. When he encountered a column of the 11th Krajina Brigade in Knešpolje, he asked the commander to select a female fighter. He chose seventeen-year-old Milja Toroman, a Bosnian Serb who had previously survived detention at the Sisak concentration camp.

The image was a deliberate composition. Skrigin dressed Toroman in a cardigan, tilted her Titovka cap, and instructed her to smile. Toroman later revealed that she did not feel like smiling due to the hardships of war, and she had never carried a gun before or after that moment. Despite this, the photograph became a powerful propaganda tool in Socialist Yugoslavia, symbolizing the mass participation of women in the Partisan struggle and helping to foster a unified national sentiment under Josip Broz Tito.

For decades, the subject's identity remained largely unknown to the public. The state preferred the mythical aura of the anonymous heroine, as specific details about her life were deemed unnecessary or potentially damaging to the ideological message. It was only after the fall of communism that the photograph's political utility faded, allowing the reality of Toroman's experience to emerge. The image remains a testament to how art can be used to craft national identity, even when the reality behind the frame is far more complex than the propaganda suggests.

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