Upon her return, she was appointed a professor at Belgrade's elite First High School for Girls, a position she would hold continuously until World War II.

After being dismissed from her post at the high school by the Germans in 1941, she was reduced to a state of poverty and forced to work odd jobs to survive the three-and-a-half year occupation.

In 1964, she published one of her most acclaimed works, a volume of reflective poetry entitled Tražim pomilovanje (I Seek Clemency).

Maksimović was the first female Serbian poet to gain widespread acceptance within Yugoslav literary circles and among the general public.

Maksimović's reputation, which was such that most of her contemporaries referred to her simply by her first name, has led one author to describe her as "the most beloved Serbian poet of the twentieth century".

[1] Upon completing high school, Maksimović moved to Belgrade, the capital of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

"[2] Yugoslavia had to endure difficult economic conditions during the Great Depression and the country's political landscape deteriorated further.

Impoverished, she resorted to giving private lessons, sewing children's clothes and selling dolls in the marketplace.

In order to heat her apartment, Maksimović had to walk from downtown Belgrade to Mount Avala to collect firewood.

The collection contained one of her best known poems, Krvava bajka (A Bloody Fairy Tale), a requiem for the children killed in the Kragujevac massacre of October 1941.

[3] Maksimović was a fervent Russophile, and at times, her Russophilia was mistaken for covert Cominformism, a serious charge in the years following the Tito–Stalin Split, that if proven, could have landed a person in prison.

[3] In 1964, Maksimović published a volume of reflective poetry entitled Tražim pomilovanje (I Seek Clemency), which dealt with the 14th-century reign of Dušan the Mighty, the founder of the Serbian Empire.

Its veiled critique of Tito made it especially popular, especially among those frustrated with the Yugoslav government's increasing arbitrariness and corruption.

The following year, Maksimović published Letopis Perunovih potomaka (A Chronicle of Perun's Descendants), a poetry collection dealing with medieval Balkan history.

[6] In 1982, Maksimović became one of the founding members of the Committee for the Protection of Artistic Freedom, which sought an end to government censorship.

[6] "Maksimović... marked a whole era with her lyrical poetry," the literary scholar Aida Vidan writes.

[9] She was Yugoslavia's leading female literary figure for seven decades, first acquiring this distinction during the interwar period and retaining it until her death.

[11] Maksimović "offered women writers a model of achievement in the field of lyric poetry," the literary scholar Celia Hawkesworth writes.

Hawkesworth compares Maksimović's contributions to Serbian literature to that of Elisaveta Bagriana in Bulgaria, Wisława Szymborska in Poland, and Nina Cassian in Romania.

[12] The author Christopher Deliso describes Maksimović as "the most beloved Serbian poet of the twentieth century".

[14] Serbian composer Mirjana Sistek-Djordjevic (born 1935) set poems from Maksimovic’s Trazim Pomilovanje to music in her composition for women’s chorus and orchestra.