Dragana Mirković Says Pressure to Marry a Powerful Man Helped Drive Her From Serbia

Dragana Mirković has offered a personal explanation for leaving Serbia at the height of her fame, saying she feared that powerful figures of the time might try to dictate her future—including whom she should marry. The singer said she wanted a relationship based on love, not a match arranged to suit influential people, and believed staying could eventually mean giving in to pressure. According to her account, Mirković made a drastic choice and moved to Vienna with just one suitcase. She said she left her property, cars and the family home in her native Kasidol to her parents and sister Dušica, hoping to make sure they were provided for. In Austria, she described starting over in a rented apartment and using a car that was not her own. The decision came with a painful family separation. Mirković said that when she married Toni Bijelić, her parents and sister could not travel to Austria because they were unable to obtain visas amid the restrictions of that period. As a result, she said, none of her closest relatives could be beside her at the ceremony. Her account casts the move as more than a career or lifestyle change: she presented it as a way to protect her freedom to choose her own life, even at the cost of leaving familiar comforts behind. The singer’s recollection also reveals why the wedding, held without her family present, remained a particularly sad part of that new beginning.