Biljana Plavsic, a prominent figure in the Bosnian war and former president of Republika Srpska, died on October 1, 2026, at the age of 96. Known among some Serbs as the "Serb Empress" and dubbed "Serbia’s Iron Lady" by Western media, she was a controversial and polarizing leader whose legacy is closely tied to the violent ethnic conflicts of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.
Born on July 7, 1930, in Tuzla, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Plavsic was raised in Sarajevo, where her family was affected by wartime atrocities during World War II. Her early experiences witnessing the targeting of Serbs during the Nazi occupation influenced her nationalist views later in life. Despite her political stance, she was an accomplished scientist, holding a PhD and having studied as a Fulbright scholar at Cornell University. She served as a biology professor and dean at the University of Sarajevo before entering politics.
Plavsic became politically active in 1990 as ethnic tensions escalated in Yugoslavia. She served as the Serb member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s multi-ethnic presidency before becoming vice-president of Republika Srpska, the self-declared Serb entity in Bosnia, in 1992. Four years later, she succeeded Radovan Karadzic as president of Republika Srpska, holding the position until 1998.
During the Bosnian war (1992–1995), Plavsic was closely associated with Serb nationalist leaders and was an outspoken defender of the Republika Srpska’s policies, which involved forced displacement and violence primarily against Bosniak Muslims and Croats. Although she did not initiate the ethnic cleansing campaign, she justified it as a “natural phenomenon” and made inflammatory statements about Bosniak Muslims, including suggesting they were “genetically deformed.” Plavsic also notably did not condemn paramilitary leaders implicated in atrocities, once publicly embracing Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan, after his forces killed civilians in Bijeljina.
Following the war, Plavsic broke with some hardline nationalists by supporting the Dayton peace accords. However, her wartime conduct led to her indictment in 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, where she became the first and only woman charged with genocide-related crimes. She voluntarily surrendered and later pled guilty to one count of persecution, a crime against humanity, as part of a plea agreement that dropped genocide charges. Plavsic issued a formal statement of remorse acknowledging the suffering caused by the systematic removal of Muslims and Croats but later recanted her remorse, claiming her guilty plea was a tactical decision to avoid a lengthy trial.
She was sentenced to 11 years in prison but was released after serving six years in Sweden. After her release in 2009, she lived quietly in Belgrade, Serbia, under a false name to avoid unwanted attention. Scholars and observers have described Plavsic as a highly intelligent, articulate figure who was more than a passive participant in the nationalist movement, often issuing extremist rhetoric and giving orders rather than following them.
Her life remains a subject of debate, reflecting the complexities of leadership and accountability during one of Europe’s most violent post-Cold War conflicts.