Džesika Jovanović-Smičić
Džesika Jovanović-Smičić (Џесика Јовановић-Смичић; née Jessica Smith, legal name 1656–1690 was Džesika Smit, Џесика Смит) was a Florian and naturalized Hurmudan politician, model, and mistress (and later wife) to Krasnocorian king Jovan I. She was briefly President of the Florian Republic (1654 AN–1655 AN). She was the second person to take office as president and was the first female to hold office as well.
Born Jessica Smith in 1632 AN in Dragonmoor, she was raised there mostly during her early life despite moving to Northcliff to focus on her fledgeling modelling career. She never went to university as she was employed by Lingerie designer, Miss Secret at the age of 18. After five years working the modelling industry, her passion for politics grew and she quit modelling to focus becoming a politician for the Florian Liberal Party, becoming its leader in 1653. She began her presidency in the Presidents Manor in Northcliff as from 1654. It was to be an eventful tenure.
From the beginning her relationship with Shireroth was a complicated one. The Landsraad held an election for Steward (for the term 1654–1657) in early 1654. With a 7–2 vote, Waldemar Zinkgraven was elected Steward to replace Liv Dravot against Jessica Smith (received votes from herself and from Ari Lord Furniture). At the same time the War of Lost Brothers intruded rudely upon the Florian idyll and set in motion a series of catastrophic developments for the young republic. The firm conviction in many quarters exists that if Jessica Smith had been more resolute in supporting the aims of the alliance, and had held off from frantic attempts at extracting Floria from the war commenced in its defence, then the collapse of the Florian front might have been averted and reinforcements received, with admitted risks and difficulties, after the Battle of Carama Bay. Instead, by attempting to negotiate a separate peace on terms that amounted to an ignominious capitulation, Jessica saw her country torn apart, as Shirerithian-led forces in the south vowed to fight on, whilst the Jing - unsatisfied with Florian adherence to the armistice, subjected Northcliff to a brutal siege. The political situation in Floria thereafter unravelled completely, with the Florians finding themselves under attack from both sides in the war and caught in a civil war amongst themselves. A chaotic situation into which new and sinister political forces were to emerge.
In 1655 AN, she was supposedly executed by the terrorist group, First Order of the Florian Republic. An event which caused much distress worldwide, however, it was soon revealed that Smith was in fact alive and well, and escaped the Florian War by using a double during the attack. She was purportedly the mistress of the Krasnocorian king Jovan I, a development that prompted incredulity amongst those who first heard of it. It was reported that it had taken time for her to come to terms with and embrace her Corian identity - entirely without the least element of compulsion, or at least so her handlers insisted. It transpired that it was actually a true love story: Jovan never married, refusing to disown Džesika. He appealed to the nobility of Krasnocoria at multiple times to allow him to marry her, but they refused, citing her non-noble and Florian blood. Džesika and Jovan had two children, Flora (named so after Džesika's ancestral country) in 1658, and Krasnomir in 1661.
When Krasnocoria collapsed in 1687, the family (including now Flora's and Krasnomir's own spouses and children) found refuge in a monastery run by the Orthodox Church. A priest solemnized a marriage between Džesika and Jovan, allowing the couple to finally live without the taint of sin. By 1695, they were granted Hurmu nationality and had been settled in Rekozemlje (now Northern Coria).
At the height of her power Smith's public relations team was infamous for the claims made via their press releases. According to one such statement put out by her team during her Presidency she was considered to be the most intelligent Florian-born person in the world by a large margin, with a tested IQ of 161. This striking claim was apparently put forward as a justification for her elevation to the presidency at such a young age. The veracity of this statement will be subject to review once her medical records and or body have been recovered from Krasnocoria.
Smith died of "pancreatic cancer" in 1724, aged 92.
