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Melanija Dugandžić, a long-time distinguished member of the Drama of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb died at the age of 83.
She was born in 1939 in Klakar near Bosanski Brod, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She completed her high school education in 1958 and enrolled as a student at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb where she graduated in 1963. 
Already during her student years, she appeared on the stage of the CNT in Zagreb in the role of Andromache in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. In 1964 she was engaged as an actress at the CNT in Zagreb where she remained until her retirement in 2005.
At the beginning of her career, she appeared in smaller roles of young girls or servants, but later on she became a character actress. She appeared as Rosaura in Goldoni's La Guerra, Magda in Matković's Wounded Bird, Nicole in Molière's The Bourgeois Gentleman, Madame in the chamber drama of Genet The Maids, Martine in Molière's The Doctor In Spite of Himself, countess Madeleine Petrovna in Krleža's drama In Agony, Varya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Mrs. Smith in Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, Mrs. Page in Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, Agata in Mihalić's Grbavica, Nastya in drama of Gorky The Lower Depths, Mrs. Sorby in Ibsen's drama The Wild Duck, Tinka in Božić's Kurlani, Praskovya Fyodorovna in The Master and Margaret by Bulgakov, Sarah Good in Miller's  The Crucible, etc.
She also acted on television in series Nepokoreni grad, Mačak pod šljemom, etc. She had a long cooperation with the Theatre of Classics where she played roles in works of Caludel and regularly participated in different shows on Croatian Radio. In her acting career that exceeded four decades she worked with the best Croatian stage directors such as Mladen Škiljan, Vlado Habunek, Kosta Spaić, Joško Juvančić, Georgij Paro and Petar Šarčević. With her brilliant diction and sincere emotions, she conquered without effort both verse and prose and appeared with equal merit both in classical and contemporary works.

Melanija Dugandžić remained faithful to the Croatian National Theatre for 40 years and interwove her artistic work into the history of our largest theatre institution. The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb grieves for her retired member.

Thank you and farewell.