Deaf since birth, Raškaj was schooled in Vienna and Zagreb, where her mentor was the renowned Croatian painter Bela Čikoš Sesija.

In her twenties Raškaj was diagnosed with acute depression and was institutionalised for the last three years of her life before dying in 1906 from tuberculosis in Zagreb.

Slava was born as Friderika Slavomira Olga Raškaj on 2 January 1877 into a middle class family (her mother Olga ran the local post office which was at the time a prestigious administrative position) in the town of Ozalj in present-day Croatia (at the time in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, a subdivision within Austria-Hungary).

[1] During her time in Vienna she also learned German and French and in later years moved on to watercolor and gouache techniques before returning to Ozalj in 1893.

[3] A Croatian film about her controversial relationship with Sesija titled 100 Minutes of Glory directed by Dalibor Matanić was released in 2004,[5][6] and a grand retrospective exhibition featuring 185 of her works opened at the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery in Zagreb between May and August 2008.