Tito had been the leader of Yugoslavia since the Partisan victory in the Second World War. His personal authority was foundational to the Yugoslav state in a way that was somewhat different from the relationship between other communist party leaders and their states — he was not simply a party functionary who had risen to the top of an apparatus, but a figure whose wartime leadership had defined the country’s political identity. Decorating someone personally was an act that carried the weight of that authority.
For Vulović, the decoration meant immediate elevation to a category of public figures who had been personally recognized by the president. This was not a small thing in socialist Yugoslavia. It came with social status, access, and a kind of protection — it is difficult to imagine the Titoist state subsequently mistreating someone it had formally honored. The decoration was also an act of political framing: it incorporated her survival into the national narrative of Titoist Yugoslavia, making it, implicitly, a triumph of the Yugoslav people and the Yugoslav state.
Whether Vulović experienced this incorporation with enthusiasm or ambivalence is not something the sources convey directly. She was twenty-two years old when the crash happened and twenty-three when she was recovering and receiving public recognition. She had not chosen to survive; she had not intended to become a national symbol. The public role was something that happened to her, as the crash had happened to her, and she navigated it with the pragmatism she seems to have applied to most of the significant events of her life.