Stana Tomašević

Stana Tomašević (married name Stana Tomašević-Arnesen, 1920–1983) was a Yugoslav Partisan officer during World War II, a teacher, model, politician and diplomat. She was Yugoslavia's first woman ambassador, serving as the country's representative in Norway, Iceland and Denmark. She served as president (speaker) of the Federal Chamber from 1979 to 1982.

Biography Tomašević was born in Bar, Montenegro in 1920, She was working as a teacher in Vrulja, near Pljevja when the Kingdom of Italy occupied Montenegro in 1941. As an idealistic young patriot, she immediately joined the Partisans and became the first woman commissar in Yugoslavia. She was part of the “Jovan Tomašević” battalion and then in the Fourth Montenegrin Proletarian Brigade. Her brother Duško was killed by Chetniks while fighting in Bosnia.

After the war, she graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 1954, She was the third female ambassador accredited to Norway. In Norway, she met and married film-maker Eugen Arnesen, who had first seen her on poster that had been airdropped into Norway.

Tomašević died of cancer in 1983 in Belgrade, shortly after retiring as President of the Federal Chamber of the Yugoslav Parliament, the country's highest-ranking woman at that time.

She was awarded The Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941 and other foreign and Yugoslav decorations, including the Order of Brotherhood and Unity of the First Class.