Marija Trandafil

Marija Trandafil or Marija Popović (25 December 1816 – 14 October 1883) was a Serbian philanthropist in the city of Novi Sad. She and her husband helped the city of Novi Sad to rebuild after it was bombarded in the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. She rebuilt a fortune and left her wealth to help children get an education, hospitals to be funded, pensions to be paid, and a new orphanage.

Life Trandafil was born in Novi Sad in 1813. Her father dealt in furs and married twice. His first wife Tajčić was Trandafil's mother. Her father married again, but he died at the age of 27 leaving the care of his daughter to his cousins. All of her siblings had died early so she was the heiress. She and her husband also paid for the city's Armenian Church to be rebuilt.

In 1851 and 1852, her husband took on large loans to recreate their business. Trandafil and her husband created a will that left the money to charity and her on 24 June 1860. In 1862, her husband died. and she spent time with lawyers defending the inheritance he had left to her. There were four independent claims, but she resisted them all. Meanwhile, she continued the business and created more wealth.

A square in Novi Sad was named after Marija Trandafil in 2001. In 2009, the city of Novi Sad decided to build a new primary school in Veternik, which they named after Marija Trandafil.