Tanja Mihajlov

HotelBabylon character
name = Tanya (Tanja) Mihajlov


gender = Female
playedby = Danira Gović ["http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/02_february/08/babylon_beesley.shtml, 8th February 2008, Correct as of 07th March 2008"]
job = Chambermaid
pastpos = None Known
firstappe =
lastappe = Current Character

Tanja Mihajlov is a fictional character in the BBC television drama "Hotel Babylon", played by Danira Gović.

Character

Tanja is a member of the cleaning staff and plays a major role in the plot of first episode of "Hotel Babylon". After she is viciously attacked by a woman in charge of the budget of the American rock band Junk Dogs (residing in the hotel), the staff begins planning how to get even with the malicious woman. Tanja was attacked because when she entered the Junk Dogs' room, she saw the woman sniffing cocaine. The lady got furious at Tanja and started hitting her, leaving several bruises on Tanja's face. While Tanja was struggling, she kept on saying "Dosta, dosta! (Enough, Enough!)"

In season 2 (episode 2) she is caught up with her horrific past in Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence. A guest named Michael Dović, an esteemed construction entrepreneur and family man from Croatia checks in. Tanja remembers his voice from the war during which he killed her friends and neighbours. He was then known as Dragan Milandroković. She confides to Charlie Edwards, but he thinks that she's probably mistaken because of her trauma. Disappointed about the hotel management's attitude towards her problem, she takes matters into her own hands desperate to prove she's right and to make the mercenary pay for his misdeeds.

Charlie looks up Milandroković's name on the Internet and finds a bunch of horrible and notorious articles about him. About Dović, on the other hand, he doesn't find anything incriminating. In fact, Dović even set up an orphanage for children with parents killed in the civil war. But when he anticipates Tanja's assault on Dović, he realizes that he has had a plastic surgery and got a completely new identity. In the end Charlie helps her by having Milandroković discreetly arrested and kicked out of the hotel.

Origins

Tanja is from Croatia, and has an accent when speaking English, but is nevertheless well understood by the rest of the hotel staff. She speaks in her mother tongue on several occasions, often when she's furious because of something. In the first episode she says after being beaten up: "E, lipo je meni mater rekla 'Vrati se ti, kćeri, u Šibenik, oni su ti svi ludi!'" (I should've listened to my Mum when she said 'Come back to Šibenik, honey, they're all crazy!). Later, after being frustrated at the hotel manager who was trying to keep things hushed up, she says, "Ma, razumiš ti vraga crnoga!" ("You don't freakin' understand anything!).

Tanja mentions Šibenik, the Croatian city in which Danira Gović was born and raised. This implies that Tanja is a Dalmatian girl who speaks the Ikavian dialect.

References