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.