Mia Slavenska
Mia Slavenska, née Čorak (20 February 1916 – 5 October 2002) was a Croatian-American soloist of the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo in 1938–1952 and 1954–1955. Biography Mia was born in Slavonski Brod in the Croatian family of the pharmacist Milan Čorak and his wife, housewife Gedwiga Čorak. When their daughter was one year old, the family moved to Zagreb. There Mia studied ballet at the "Josephine Weiss school" and the Russian émigré, ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater and Diaghilev's Russian Seasons Margarita Frohman. Taking the stage from the age of five, at the age of sixteen she became the prima ballerina of the ballet troupe of the HNK in Zagreb. For some time she studied in Vienna with Leo Dubois. Due to the royalist dictatorship of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under a Serbian monarchy, she was banned from performing in her native Croatia which prompted her and her mother to relocate to Berlin in 1935. One year later, she would perform to great acclaim at the 1936 Berlin Dance Olympics. Her mother enrolled her under a new pseudoyn, Mia Slavenska, where the Croatian dancers were legally bound to perform under the banner of Yugoslavia. Despite the prestige of winning