Beloved actress Biljana Belicanec (45) was found dead in her apartment yesterday evening. Initial reports indicate suicide.

Belicanec was a major presence in the Drama Theater in Skopje, where she worked since 1997. Possibly best known for her portrayal of Euripidis’ Medea, she would bring to life characters like Sofia Yegorovna in Chekhov’s Platonov and Angustias in Lorca’s House of Bernarda Alba. She also strarred in some of the best known Macedonian plays like Tattooed Souls, Genetics of the Dogs and Sin or Spritzer.

Between 2013 and 2017 she was one of the few women mayors in Macedonia, running Skopje’s Kisela Voda municipality.

Friends and colleagues mourned her passing today, and even those on the opposite side of the political divide offered condolences. One of them, Saso Tasevski, said Belicanec was prepared to work as a mere seamstress in the Drama Theater, after the SDSM party took over the control of this institution, just so she could remain close to the theater.