Jaglika of Piva was a young woman of the Piva region of Montenegro who died in 1943 during a wartime massacre of Serb civilians. According to the account preserved of her death, she ran into a burning house in order to die alongside her family rather than survive them. The Serbian Orthodox Church numbered her among the New Martyrs of Piva when it glorified the victims of the massacre in 2017.
Her death belongs to a larger atrocity carried out in the Piva area during the Second World War, in which Serb villagers were killed or burned alive in their homes. Jaglika's individual act came to stand for the whole company of those who perished, and at the 2017 glorification she was singled out by name.
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The massacre in the Piva region
In June 1943 German SS forces, joined by allied units, killed civilians across the Piva region of Montenegro, near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Villagers were captured and killed, many of them burned alive in houses, and a large number of the dead were children. The killings extended over several days and affected multiple villages.
Jaglika is recorded as having escaped with a group of people who fled, but on hearing the cries of her family she turned back toward the burning house where they were trapped. The tradition of her death holds that she chose to enter the fire and die with her family rather than be parted from them.
Glorification and commemoration
In 2017 the Serbian Orthodox Church proclaimed the victims of the Piva massacre to be martyrs, and Jaglika was given recognition by name among them as a New Martyr. The victims are commemorated collectively as the New Martyrs of Piva, with annual services held at a memorial church in the region built over the site of the killings.
Jaglika is commemorated on May 25. A separate local feast on July 15 (Old Style) is also reported for her.
Her companions & kin
The company of Serb civilians of the Piva region killed in 1943 and glorified by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2017, among whom Jaglika is numbered.
New Martyrs of Piva
Notes
Reposed 1943. Commemorated among the New Martyrs of Piva (glorified 2017). A separate local feast of Jul 15 (OS) is also reported.
