Jelena Petrovic, born Jovanovic, was the wife of the Supreme Leader Djordje Petrovic Karadjordje, the leader of the First Serbian Uprising and the founder of the Karadjordjevic Dynasty. She was born in the village of Maslosevo in 1765 or 1771, as the daughter of Bosiljka and Nikola Jovanovic, Jasenica’s “obor-knez” (senior chief of a group of villages). She lost her mother early, and later her father and two brothers died as hajduks, so she lived with her aunt Biseniјa in the village of Jagnjilо.
She married Djordje Petrovic in 1785 and had seven children with him: Sima (who died immediately after birth), Sava, Sara, Poleksija, Stamenkа, Aleksa (died at 29 in Chisinau, today’s Romania) and Karadjordje’s heir, Alexander, later the Prince of Serbia. She was the maid of honour at the wedding of Princess Ljubica and Prince Milos Obrenovic. Later in her life, she spent a long time at the Krusedol Monastery in Srem.
After the collapse of the First Serbian Uprising, she left Serbia with Karađorđe and their children. After the murder of her husband, she lived in fear of reprisals against her family. Despite this, as some sources testify, she wrote to Miloš Obrenović, “His Serene Prince and Most Reverend Godfather,” to grant her permission to return home, unwilling to comply with Russia’s demands that she move all the way to Novomirgorod with her children. Prince Miloš delayed granting her permission, and after he was dethroned, he and Jelena met in Wallachia in 1839, when she rebuked him “for the injustice he had done her.”
When Karadjordjevics were allowed to return to Serbia, she arrived in Belgrade before her son Aleksandar and his family. After Prince Mihailo was enthroned as ruler, he granted Jelena a pension of 1,500 thalers per year. Newspapers record that “in Belgrade she received numerous visits from those who wished to welcome her,” and she also went to Topola, to her husband’s grave.
She passed away at a very old age, in Belgrade on 9 February (29 January according to the old calendar) 1842. The funeral service was held in the newly built Cathedral Church in Belgrade, led by Metropolitan Petar, and the deceased was escorted to the Varoš-kapija by Prince Mihailo. His mother, Princess Ljubica, followed her kuma’s coffin all the way to Topola, while people gathered along the way to pay their respects to Karađorđe’s widow.
The Serbian newspaper records that in all the villages through which the funeral procession passed and along the entire route, regardless of the winter, people from “all sides and locals, both old and young”, gathered to see off Mrs. Jelena, Karađorđe’s widow, for the last time, to “pray for her soul” and many to continue with the procession.