Marija Kulic: Ognjena Marija Saved Miljana

Marija Kulic posted a message on Instagram on July 30 for the feast of Ognjena Marija. In it she writes that her daughter Miljana Kulic celebrates a second birthday on that date, and the reason lies four years back, in a July that ran from an operating room in Turkey to the emergency ward in Belgrade.

The post is short.

“Miljana was operated on this day. Ognjena Marija kept her safe. Glory to her!”

Three sentences, no diagnosis, no hospital named. Anyone who does not already know what happened that July will not work out what the post refers to.

What happened four years ago

Miljana Kulic had stomach surgery in Turkey on July 19, four years ago. She was flown back to Serbia after the procedure, well inside the window that doctors treat as risky for that kind of operation.

The standard medical advice after stomach surgery is no air travel for at least six weeks. Miljana flew far sooner than that. On July 30 of that year she was admitted to the emergency ward in Belgrade with complications, and her mother went public the same day with a blunt description of her condition.

“Miljana has been in the emergency ward since last night and she is not well. We were with her up until half an hour ago, they will not allow it any more because of the coronavirus.”

That post was the only information available about her condition. It carries a detail that now reads like a message from another era: the family was sent out of the hospital room under epidemic rules, so even her mother was getting news second hand. No detailed statement on the diagnosis followed, and the public tracked the case through Marija Kulic’s short posts.

Why does her mother call it a second birthday?

Because the post treats that date as the day Miljana survived, not the day she was cut open. Ognjena Marija is a feast marked on July 30 in the Serbian Orthodox calendar, and Marija Kulic credits it directly with the outcome.

The two dates are worth separating, because the post folds them into one. The surgery took place on July 19 and the emergency admission came eleven days later, on July 30. Retellings tend to lose that gap of nearly two weeks.

What Miljana is facing now

The anniversary arrives while Miljana Kulic has open legal exposure. Proceedings against her are running at the Belgrade Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office, filed by three people from the reality television circuit:

• Aneli Ahmic, seeking 1,500 euros
• Ivan Marinkovic, seeking around 2,000 euros
• Teodora Marinkovic, Ivan Marinkovic’s sister

Taken together, the claims put more than three and a half thousand euros on the table, assuming each goes the way the plaintiffs want. No combined figure has been fixed, since every case is being handled separately.

The flight nobody has explained

The six week rule on flying after stomach surgery is not a formality. Miljana Kulic was flown out of Turkey before that window closed, and that link in the chain has never been explained by the family.

Neither then nor since has anyone said who decided she should fly early, or whether the clinic that performed the surgery arranged the return trip. What remains on the record is what came after it.

Miljana Kulic has not responded publicly to her mother’s post this year.