Čvrga's troupe soon split, and Žanka joined several former colleagues on a tour of Vojvodina, Bosnia, and Croatia — border areas of the neighbouring Austria-Hungary where Serbian is spoken.

Gavella personally directed her in Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro (as Suzanne), Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac and Jovan Sterija Popović's Rodoljupci.

They include Innkeeper Janja (in Foundling), Sarka (Bereaved Family), Mrs. Spasić (SYEW – Society of Yugoslav Emancipated Women), Juliška (Travel Around the World), Mica (Authority), but above everything, Živka in The Cabinet Minister's Wife.

Written by Nušić specifically for her,[5][6][7] and premiering on May 25, 1929, under the direction of Vitomir Bogić, it was a pinnacle of her career which acquired her the nicknames of Great Žanka and the greatest Serbian actress.

However, after German occupation of Serbia in 1941, as a Jew, Pijade was deported, apparently to the concentration camps of Sajmište and Dachau, and perished, despite her urging to Božidar Bećarević, one of the heads of the Belgrade police, to spare him.

[5][9] Ultimately unhappy in her private life, she reclused to her house in Belgrade's neighborhood of Topčidersko Brdo, as a severe diabetic, living with her pets and a longtime maid and confidant, Magda.

[5] When she organized a celebration of her 25 years of acting in Belgrade's bohemian quarter Skadarlija, fans from far and wide showed up, giving her presents that included cash, sacks full of coins, puppies in flower baskets, and war bonds.

She continued to act, appearing in comedy theatres Veseljaci and Centrala za humor, often playing a caricatured Pela the Washerwoman, a simple-hearted, blabby everyday woman.

After Germans were expelled and Belgrade was liberated by the Yugoslav Partisans and Red Army on October 20, 1944, new Communist authorities immediately started organizing trials for collaborators and Žanka got arrested.

On February 3, 1945, in a humiliating revolutionary trial with a group of prostitutes, and being denied a lawyer, even a public defender, the Court for the crimes and violations against the national honor found her guilty for collaborationism with the occupational forces.

[11] In 1947 Žanka appealed the ruling admitting that she performed in theatre on her own free will because she needed money for the insulin, but that she was forced to appear on the radio by the Germans.

She offered witnesses and testimonies that, during the war, she sheltered Koča Popović, a high ranking Communist operative, future foreign minister and Josip Broz Tito's deputy, but also Jews Samuil Pijade and the Flore family.

After acquiring a permissions from the Agitprop of the Central Committee and from Radovan Zogović, chief propagandist of the Communist Party, Stupica personally visited her to tell her that she can start acting again.

[12] NGO League for the protection of private property and human rights began process of rehabilitation in October 2006, soon joined in the effort by the National Theatre in Belgrade.