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Marija Ruljancich
Marija Ruljancich
Ruljancich on her 110th birthday in 2023
Birth: 14 June 1913
Lorci, Vis, Austria-Hungary (now Croatia)
Death: 18 May 2024
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Age: 110 years, 339 days
Country: CroatiaCROAustraliaAUS
Validated

Marija Ruljancich [Croatian: Marija Ruljančić] (née Vidović; 14 June 1913 – 18 May 2024) was a Croatian-Australian supercentenarian who was at time of her death the oldest known living Croatian-born person, as well as the second-oldest known living person in Australia, after Olga Abate. Her age is validated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG).

Biography[]

Marija Ruljancich was born in the small village of Lorci, island of Vis, Split-Dalmatia County, Austria-Hungary (present-day Croatia) on 14 June 1913. At the age of five, she witnessed the effects of the 1918 Great Influenza pandemic as it ravaged the island that she lived on. Her family owned a wine business, but it suffered when a disease destroyed the family's vineyards.

Marija was married at the age of 19 to Ivan Ruljancich, who had returned to the island of Vis after six years away in Western Australia working in the forests as a tree feller. In 1944, she and her sister Dina and Marija's husband Ivan (known as John) fled the island Vis to Australia during World War II (after a 3-year refugee camp stopover in Egypt).

Ruljancich's husband, Ivan, died at the age of 88 in 1991.

Ruljancich credited her longevity to her abstinence from alcohol and smoking tobacco, as well as eating sparingly and her habit of regular exercise from her childhood.

Ruljancich became the oldest known living Croatian-born person following the death of 107-year-old Marija Bibulic on 16 April 2021.

As of her 110th birthday on 13 June 2023, Ruljancich lived in Hawthorn with her son, Kevin, and had never resided in a nursing home. At this time, she had eight grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren.

She became the second-oldest known living person in Australia, following the death of 111-year-old Catherina van der Linden on 26 January 2024.

Marija Ruljancich died in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 18 May 2024 at the age of 110 years, 339 days. She was the second-oldest living person in Australia, after Italian-born Olga Abate.

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