Bora Stanković's house in Vranje

Borisav Bora Stanković (born 31 March 1876 in Vranje, died 22 October 1927 in Belgrade) was a Serbian writer belonging to the school of realism. His novels and short stories depict the life of people from south Serbia. He belongs to an exceptional group of storytellers that suddenly appeared at the turn of the 20th century - Ivo Ćipiko, Petar Kočić, Milutin Uskoković and others. These Serbian prose writers showed many traits in commom with the Russians, particularly with Dostoyevsky (Bora Stanković) and to a certain extent also with Maxim Gorky (Ivo Čipiko and Petar Kočić).

Stanković completed the primary and secondary school in Vranje, and graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. It is said that he received some Western education - Paris - but returned unaffected to his native soil and subsequently immortalized it in his work. He worked as a clerk (first customs official then tax official) in Belgrade. During World War I he resided in Niš, then in Montenegro where he was taken captive by the Austrians. After the war he worked in the Department of Arts of the Ministry of Education. He died in Belgrade in 1927.

Borisav Stanković's best work is the 1910 novel entitled Impure Blood (Nečista krv) about the plight of a young woman unable to free herself from the old customs and restrictions. In this story he explored the contradictions of man's spiritual and sensory life. This was the first Serbian novel to receive praise in its foreign translations from international literary critics. At the turn of the 20th century folk musicals became popular and the best play of this genre is Stanković's Koštana, written in 1902. Its bittersweet story of a beautiful Gypsy girl and her amorous conquest of an entire provincial town is intertwined with quasi-philosophical musing about the meaning of life and the passing of youth. Stanković's other play, Tašana, written in 1910, is also about provincial life in southern Serbia, which had just been liberated from the Turks but was still living under the imprint of the centuries-long occupation. In practically all his works Stanković presents strong characters who are at the same time victims of a strange weakness stemming from the realization that their time has irrevocably passed.

It is said that he is the most important late Serbian realist, who interconnected poetic and narrative procedures in a complex manner and departed so significantly from realist canon that his prose is regarded as transitional. His other main works are: short story collections, Iz starog jevandjelja (From an Old Gospel, 1899), Stari dani (The Old Days, 1902), and Božji ljudi (God's People, 1902); and a play Tašana (1910).

House of Bora Stankovic is located in Vranje, in Grandma Zlata's street (baba Zlatina ulica) number 9, the former Donja mala, on the land that was bought by Bora's grandmother that gave the street its name. This object is significant because it is in this house where famous writer Borislav Stankovic was born. House of Bora Stanković has the status of cultural monument of great importance.

Today in this house is the Museum of Bora Stanković. The house was built in 1855 as a four-building with an open porch and oriel under which is the entrance to the basement. It was built in half-timbered, and the roof is covered with tiles. The yard is adorned garden with old mulberry tree. Guest room is the biggest room in the house, it is furnished semi-oriental, and right beside it is "Zlata's" room, with a bed and loom. "Libade" are hung on the walls of the room, along with aprons of Bora's mother Vaska. The house is now opened for visitors.

Today the house is in poor condition and is waiting for the city to devote resources in order to restore the currently dilapidated house and "Baba Zlata's room".

Jovan Sterija Popović's house in Vršac

Jovan Sterija Popović (1806-1856) was born in Vršac, in Habsburg Monarchy (today it is in Serbia). His father Šterija was a Greek merchant. His maternal grandfather was known painter and poet Nikola Nešković, whom he would later write the biography of. Sterija attended grammar schools in Vršac, Sremski Karlovci, Temisoara and Budapest. He studied law at Kasmark. Jovan Sterija Popović is undoubtedly one of the most significant figures of Serbian literature. With good reason he has been given the name "the father of Serbian drama". Following the example of the great French and German tragedians, he described events from the history of the Serbian people. Sterija's comedies are artistically authentic pictures of one part of the Serbian society in Vojvodina, in the first half of the 19th century and they bring a very rich gallery of characters. Sterija's comedies have passed the framework of their time, got the everlasting value and became a part of the Serbian cultural inheritance. Diverse as a writer, Sterija also wrote satires, novels, dissertations about literature and language and reflexive poetry, published in the book "Davorje", which is considered one of the best books of reflexive poetry in the Serbian literature. Working in Serbia as minister of education, Sterija founded The Society of Serbian Letters (now Serbian Academy of Science and Art) and the National Museum of Serbia. He laid the foundation of the modern Serbian school system and he was the author of many textbooks. A documentary about his life was produced in Yugoslavia in 1956. He is included in The 100 most prominent Serbs.

Birthplace of Jovan Sterija Popović is located in Vršac, at the Square of St. Theodore of Vrsac 11. It was built in 1868 and represents an immovable cultural property as a cultural monument of great significance.

The present house was built on the site of an older family house from the 18th century, where Jovan Sterija Popovic was born. It has a ground floor with commercial space, the first floor with residential areas and part of the courtyard, which was later built. Sterija's brother Djordje Popović purposed the house in 1871 for the needs of young writers and scholarships for students as part of the Fund, which today serves this purpose. Since 2011, there is the exhibition dedicated to one of the most important comedians, with authentic furniture which the writer used, with documents and photographs.

Grabovac - birthplace of Stevan Sindjelić

The house of Stevan Sindjelić is located in the village of Grabovac in the Municipality of Svilajnac. As a typical buildings of the Moravian type like the ones that were built in the late 18th and early 19th century, its existence is linked to the name of Stevan Sindjelić (1770-1809), Duke of Rasina and Serbian warlord from the First Serbian Uprising. In addition to the historical significance and as a rare surviving example of popular architecture, the house, as immovable cultural property is a cultural monument of great importance.

Stevan Sindjelić was born in the village Vojska, and he moved in Grabovac after the early death of his father Radovan Rakic, with a mother who remarried. After his mother's name Sindjelija he was called Sindjelić. Grabovac was a place in which he lived, and had a family and went to the battles. The house was transferred from the original place to the present location in the center of the village near the school.

Stevan Sindjelić (1770 – 1809) was a Serbian revolutionary commander in Resava, who fought during the First Serbian Uprising (1804-1813) against Ottoman rule. As the commander of the Resava Brigade, he fought in many battles and skirmishes against Ottoman soldiers, including the Battle of Ivankovac in 1805 and the Battle of Deligrad in 1806. He is remembered for his actions during the Battle of Čegar Hill in 1809, in which he and the Resava Brigade found themselves surrounded by the Ottomans. Encircled and without much chance of survival, Sindjelić ignited the gunpowder kegs in the powder cave, creating an enormous explosion that killed him, all of the Serb rebels and Ottoman soldiers.

The house is located in a spacious yard with a chapel and a wooden bell tower. It was built as a three-piece "čatmara" with a porch and veranda under which the entrance to the basement is covered with tiles. The interior consists of three rooms, two bedrooms and the "house" - the biggest room where a brick fireplace is and where some of the biggest part of everyday life was spent. There lived members of Sindjelić family.

Works on resettlement of the house were conducted in 1974 and the presentation of the building, yard and ethnological museum exhibition was in 1975.

Srpska Crnja - birthplace of Djura Jakšić

Birthplace of Djura Jakšić is in Srpska Crnja in Vojvodina. His house was built in the beginning of the 19th century and it is significant because there was born the famous poet, writer and painter. The house represents a cultural monument of great importance and it has been transformed into a Memorial Museum in his honor.

Djura Jakšić (1832-1878) started his education in Temisoara (today in Romania) and Szeged (today in Hungary). He lived for some time in Veliki Bečkerek, now Zrenjanin, where he began studying painting under Konstantin Danil. Jakšić, a son of Serbian Orthodox priest, then went to study fine arts in Vienna and Munich, but the revolution of 1848 interrupted his education, which he was never able to finish. 

Djura Jakšić

Jakšić is one of the most expressive representatives of Serbian Romanticism and one of the leaders of Serbian Romanticism but also one of Serbia's greatest painters. Although he wrote a number of loosely organized romantic plays, his reputation rests largely on his paintings and poetry, which ranges from sonnets, lyrics and patriotic songs to full scale epics or, as they are sometimes called, novels in verse. He wrote about forty short stories, three full-length dramas in verse on historical themes: Stanoje Glavaš, The Migration of the Serbs (Seoba Srbalja) and Elizabeth the Montenegrin Queen (Jelisaveta kneginja crnogorska). Among his few poems are several that belong to the best in the Serbian poetry of the nineteenth century: Na Liparu (On the Lipar Hill), Put u Gornjak (The Road to Gornjak), Mila (this song is dedicated to his first great love, Mila, who he intended to marry, but never actually found courage to tell her a single word). He drew sketches of Mila, one of them later became his famous painting "Devojka u plavom" (The Girl in Blue). The following paintings by Djura Jakšić are on display in the National Museum in Belgrade: Autoportrait, Battle of Montenegris, Kosovo, Night Watch (Na straži), The Assassination of Karadjordje (Ubistvo Karadjordja), Strahinja Banović,  Knez Lazar Hrebeljanović, The girl in Blue (Devojka u plavom), Portrait of Director Ćirić, Car Dušan, Knez Milan Obrenović etc.

One of Jakšić's most famous paintings - The Girl in Blue

The house is Pannonian type, built with two street windows, the entrance to the porch and open porch with brick columns, which tracks the courtyard facade. In the house there is a memorial collection - Museum Djura Jakšić which hosts Djura's days within the manifestation "Liparske večeri".

There have been reconstructions on the house on two occasions: in 1961 and 1981, whose protective works carried out Regional Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments in Novi Sad. Despite attempts to present the birthplace of Djura Jakšić in an attractive way, cultural community and the local community did not recognize the real needs of visitors. The house looks anachronistic today, with inadequate setting, and contributes to a poor impression and devastated courtyard.

In accordance with what the professional services of the Provincial Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments proposed in recent years, the Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments of Zrenjanin began drafting the project, which will realize a completely different, more modern presentation, as birthplace of this great Serbian artist.

In 2011, the conservation works were done on the rehabilitation of the house: replaced the rotting roof material, set the new tiles, broken the dilapidated plaster with wet internal and external walls, and applied a new plaster. Setting of the museum was changed and the prints of Djura's most famous paintings are made.

Negotin - birthplace of famous Serbian composer Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac

Negotin is one of those beautiful cities on the Danube, in eastern Serbia, which has many attractions. Manifestation Mokranjac's days is a good opportunity to visit the house where the founder of the Serbian music spent his childhood. Mokranjac is the composer of the national style, because he combined traditional folk music with European musical experience. He was born in 1856, he was a composer, conductor and teacher credited with laying the foundations of modern music pedagogy. He wrote 15 handfuls. He lived until 1914, mainly in Belgrade. In 1964 authorities in Negotin  bought and restored the house into the Museum Mokranjac, as was the nickname of the family, who received it because of the village Mokranje, near Negotin, where the composer's father was born.

The birth house of Stevan Mokranjac includes postulate which is performed in ambient style town house of the late 19th century. On the ground floor there is a permanent exhibition of Stana Djuric Klein on the Mokranjac spiritual and sacred creation, and analysis of the compositions. This is the area in which the chamber concerts are held, and other cultural activities. On the first floor there is the ethnological postulate with significant objects from the time of the famous Serbian composer.

In the first room are, mostly, the photographs, letters, diplomas, the most faithful testimony of the life of this family, about four children who, because of the untimely death of her husband, a mother herself raised. Stevan was a very musical child, and he received the first violin as a gift from his uncle, when he was only ten years old. When he was 15 years old, his mother sold the house and the children moved to Belgrade. In the Serbian capital, he finished high school and entered the Faculty of Sciences, because then in Serbia there was no school for music education. However, talent and love of music led him to the First Belgrade Singing Society. He became the youngest member, and very quickly, thanks to a scholarship from the Government, he went to study in Leipzig and Rome. But there was not enough money to gain a diploma of the Academy, so he had to study with private proffesors, and that helped him a lot in his further work.

Mokranjac was still a student when he began to compose. Very interesting is his work on the handfuls. Traveling through Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, throughout our environment, he listened to folk songs and recorded them, and of those that were characteristic for a place he created handfuls. Hence the name. Similarly was with spiritual music and formation of the liturgy. Mokranjac did not deal just with composing. After his return to Belgrade, he was conductor of the Jewish Choral Society, founder and member of the string quartet.

Among the photographs, to the Negotin people is especially dear the one from 1892, which was immortalized Mokranjac's only official arrival in his native city. On that occasion the Belgrade Singing Society premiered sang sixth handful dedicated to this part of Serbia.

In the memorial house of Mokranjac, on a large number of boards are records and photographs that testify about a quarter of his conductor's work in Belgrade Singing Society, concerts and competitions. In the Singing Society he meets his future wife, Marija, the niece of Uros Predic,  famous Serbian painter. Visitors can see their love correspondence, photographs with their son Momcilo. It is interesting that the son lived to see  the first festival days of Mokranjac in Negotin in 1966.

Son of the famous composer donated to the museum all exhibits of the house in Belgrade. First of all, his working desk, chair, portraits from 1913, painted by Uros Predic. Here is his personal piano, and the piano on which he played as a teacher in the first music school founded in the Serbian capital. Also, there is Lira and lighthouse, awards the Mokranjac got from the Belgrade Choral Society for 25 years of his work. Lighthouse, on which they carved the names of his works, symbolize that Mokranjac was light in  music culture of Serbia, because many believe that Mokranjac, for our musical literacy, was the same as Vuk Stefanović Karadžić for the Serbian alphabet.

Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac, died in Skopje in 1914, as a refugee, during World War I, and nine years later, thanks to the Belgrade Singing Society, the mortal remains were transferred to Belgrade.

Memorial house of Mokranjac is visited by a large number of guests, and each year at St. Stephen, the second day of Christmas, the day he was born, the house is opened all day, held a commemorative small concerts, scientific round tables, presentations of books, magazines...

Struganik - birthpace of Field Marshal Živojin Mišić

Village Struganik is located about hundred kilometers away from Belgrade, in the municipality of Mionica in Kolubara district. There is a house where Živojin Mišić was born and where he spent his childhood. After reconstruction in 1987, the house was turned into museum and is protected by Republic of Serbia. It is on a narrow unpaved road, which passes through magnificent nature.

House of Živojin Mišić in Struganik

Živojin Mišić (born 1855 in Struganik, died 1921 in Belgrade) was a Serbian Field Marshal and the most successful Serbian commander who participated in all Serbian wars from 1876 to 1918. He directly commanded the First Serbian army in the Battle of Kolubara and in breach of the Thessaloníki Front he was the Chief of the Supreme Command. At the very beginning of his forty years of service, he was a participant in the Serbian-Turkish wars (1876-1878), as a cadet sergeant, and later as a lieutenant. In those wars, he gained the first experience of war. After the May Coup he was forced to retire with the rank of Colonel General Staff, as he was considered too close to the deposed dynasty Obrenović, but he was reactivated in 1909, during the annexation crisis. Mišić helped General Radomir Putnik to make Serbian war plan in a possible war with Austria-Hungary. During the Battle of Kolubara, Mišić was handed over command of the First army, which was in a very difficult situation. Thanks to his personal efforts and knowledge, the First army became formation capable to fight. For merits and victory in the battle, Mišić was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal on 4th December 1914. Shortly before the end of the war, in June 1918, he replaced the formation place with General Bojović and was appointed chief of the Supreme Command Staff. He commanded the Serbian army in the breach of the Thessaloníki Front in September of the same year. He was awarded the title of an English knight baccalaureate from the English King George V. He is a honorable military commander of the First World War.

Živojin Mišić

In the restored croft of Mišić family, where the famous military leader was born and spent his childhood, dominates large cooperative residential building that belongs to the classical Dinara log cabin, surrounded by all the necessary economic buildings. House of Živojin Mišić is the memorial complex, whose setting is comprised or two parts, historical and ethnological. Within the museum is a thematic exhibition that shows Živojin Mišić in the context of historical events in the late 19th and early 20th century, with a focus on those events where he played an important role and showing why his work is studied in military academies in the world. In the house of the Marshal Mišić are chronologically presented his origin, childhood and schooling, family history of Mišić, his military career in the Balkan wars for independence, the First World War - with special reference to the Battle of Kolubara - then his illness, the last days and finally the recognition and contribution to military Science.

Tršić - birthplace of Vuk Karadžić, the father of modern Serbian

The village Tršić is about 9 km southeast from Loznica and it is the birthplace of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, major reformer of the Serbian language and the author of contemporary Serbian Cyrillic.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (born 1787 in Tršić, died 1864 in Vienna) was the most significant reformer of the Serbian language and alphabet. In his work he consistently emulated the folk vernacular, continuing the work of his predecessors Dositej Obradović, Sava Mrkalj and Luka Milovanov. Vuk's work on language reform is inseparable from his work on the collecting and systematisation of oral folk literature, and his writing of historiographical and ethnographical works; which offer clear evidence of his talent as an author. Vuk's linguistic, lexicographical, historiographical and ethnographical works were written at the same time as his language reforms, demonstrating both the need for them and their importance. During his long and successful life, he worked with the most renowned intellectuals of Europe at that time - the Brothers Grimm, Leopold von Ranke, Johann Goethe, Therese Albertine Luise von Jakob Robinson, Jernej Kopitar and many others. With his persistent work on popularising Serbian national culture, he succeeded in interesting the European public in the history, tradition and culture of the Serbian people. In 1984 UNESCO declared Vuk Karadžić a Honourable Citizen of the World in recognition of the huge impact of his work and the contribution which he made to the spiritual unity of mankind.

"I was born and raised in Serbia, and so it seems to me that there is no more beautiful country in the world than Serbia, nor a more beautiful place than Tršić." V.S.Karadžić

In the village there is an ethnographic park with a memorial house, different representations of national architecture and places for visitors. In 1933, at the place where once was the Karadžić family home, a memorial house was built - two-piece log cabin, partly above the basement with a steep, shake roof. One part is the house, and the other is a warehouse, a log cabin for making rakia (kačara) and a corn-store.

The house has an open fireplace, furniture and dishes, everything characteristic for the 19th century household. In the room there is a bed, a table, a bench, icons, gusle and Pavel Djurković's portrait of Vuk Karadžić, dating from 1816. When making ethno-park, special attention was paid to the desire to permanently mark and preserve the memories of Vuk and his work, and to preserve the natural environment.

Vuk's birth house was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia.

The Museum of Language and Letters opened on 21 April 2011 in Tršić. The museum aims to build an interactive relationship with visitors, to preserve the contemporary usage of the oral Serbian language in all registers and to show the changes, and causes of change in the Serbian language through its long history. One of the most important aims of the museum is to investigate transformations in the Serbian language and to contextualize them in relation to cultural developments, historic events and other languages. The uniqueness of this museum is in displaying the language, which is itself a living organism, yet which, in comparison with other museum displays, is in a constant state of renewal as it comes into contact with visitors. In this interaction with visitors, the temporary materialisation of language is dispersed in the most varied ways. In the cultural and ethnological museum complex of the Tršić Heritage Site, this museum continues all that on which Vuk Karadžić worked - it examines the connections between the vernacular and literary language, reveals the context of their usage, and it leaves behind linguistic variations in a record of trends from everyday life and the possibility of linking them to the past. The museum is adapted for interaction with visitors.

There is a pedestrian zone connecting Tršić and Tronoša monastery, once the road Vuk was passing every day on his way to school (monastery itself). Recently in Tršić is present rural tourism converting family houses in buildings designed to accommodate guests, so it is now possible to visit this picturesque place and stay there a few days and enjoy the charms of the local cuisine and the natural rural environment.